In the movie
:: ritually spits ::
the Nazgul seem to know immediately. I seem to recall the surviving eight of them dropping what they were doing and whirling around toward Orodruin when Frodo puts the ring on.
The last time the Valar interfered in the doings of Middle Earth, they pretty much broke it. Even just sending a handful of Maiar was risky enough.
You shall not SNAAARRRRKKK
Of course. Sauron knew immediately too. Because Frodo CLAIMED it. Not because it was about to get melted.
In the released movie, they draw Saurons forces to the gate so Sam and Frodo can get through to the cave. In the extended version (I think) Sam and Frodo infiltrate the forces and then when they get their marching orders, Sam and Frodo bugger off (again, I think).
Not sure how the book handles it. I think the same as the released movie.
All the smoke and ash would have to come out the door, if it were the main volcanic pipe. I’m pretty sure the cave and forge area were just a side door, and the main pipe goes on upward.
It might be constricted or twisty, so that you couldn’t drop the ring from above with any hope of it falling all the way down. Sauron would just detail a suicide squad of goblins to crawl down and fetch it back from whatever ledge or shelf it lodges on.
Real volcanoes have cindercones and other side-outlets. One of those might have occurred naturally, then gone cold, and Sauron could have had miners re-open it – carefully.
(Or is that a bad idea, like cutting through the hull of the Poseidon?)
I don’t remember the movie, but in the book, Sam and Frodo put on orc armour to be less conspicuous while travelling through Mordor. At one point they get spotted by a passing army, and ordered to join ranks. They march with them for a bit, then sneak off.
Aside from anything else, there is not much to say that Gwaihir wouldn’t have decided to take the Ring for himself. He wouldn’t have been the first noble creature to be corrupted. Gandalf is constantly trying to limit the number of people who come in contact with the Ring. Gwaihir is a good pal but he is also arrogant, impatient and aloof. He might not be the best one to entrust with this absolutely vital, emotionally crushing and suicidally dangerous task.
True, but it also drew Sauron’s attention (remember the scene in the movie where the Eye is scanning the landscape of Mordor and Frodo swoons under the pressure, then the good guys army arrives at the Black Gate, the Eye moves north and Frodo is free of the negative energy, so to speak.
My sense is that Sauron and maybe the Nazgul have this feeling they can’t quite pinpoint, like an itch somewhere, that makes them scour the Mordor countryside whenever they aren’t otherwise engaged. This itch is the presence of the ring, as long as it isn’t being used. Once Frodo claims it, as Dale Sams noted above, then both Sauron and Nazgul know immediately and move (too late) to intercept. But until then, it’s a good idea to keep the evil ones occupied so they don’t think about the itch and try to scratch it.
As for the eagles accomplishing the same thing, they might have managed it (although I don’t think Sauron would have regarded them in the same light as he did the challenging army) if they had wanted to, but why would they risk a large number of their lives to save humanity’s bacon? They don’t seem to care that much.
Except the Free Peoples were making it up as they went along. If the Eagles had taken the Ring from Rivendell, there would have been no army to march on the Gates of Mordor. Denethor would never have agreed to it and his forces were too small anyway.
It is not your role to instruct other posters on what they may or may not post – the OP doesn’t have a privileged position with regard to the content or direction of a thread. If you think someone is getting off-topic, report the post and let the mods deal with it. OTOH, making jokes, esp. in a Cafe Society thread, isn’t usually a problem.
Yeah, kinda like you’re being told how to deal with GQ threads. Oddly consistent instructions from the moderators, eh?
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
How about forging a block of the hardest Dwarven steel around the ring, riding a boat out to the middle of the ocean, and giving it a heave-ho?
Or if you can summon enough magical energy, catapulting the thing into the sky so it leaves Middle Earth’s gravitational pull?
I think at the council in Rivendell there was a lot of discussion on how they could bury it , hide it etc, but I think they came down to the conclusion that no matter what they did, shit would happen that nobody thought about. The ring was lost in a river bed for about 2,400 years before Gollum found it, so loosing it somewhere hoping it would not be found was a guaranteed way to get to a “who would have though that would have happened” moment.
Getting thrown into the sea worked for the Silmaril, although I suppose the jewel wasn’t drawn to someone like the Ring was drawn to Sauron.
You’re talking about a demigod, the personification of all that is evil in the world, harnessing the heat & power of a semi-active volcano to heat the forge he’s going to use to craft a ring which will allow him to enslave all the rulers of the world and a fair number of the people, too. “Bad Idea” is not on the menu.
The other reason was that they were going to lose. Sauron simply had too many forces available for the West to put up more than a valiant resistance before being utterly overwhelmed.
The only way to defeat Sauron was the destruction of his ring or for someone of great strength to claim it, cast Sauron aside and take his place.
You and your mucus ceremonies!
Whale eats block, stomach acid destroys the steel, whale gets hunted by whalers, ring ends up with some sea-faring types.
And meanwhile, Sauron’s conventional armies crush the Men, Elves, and Dwarves, none of whom are as strong as they were at the Last Alliance.
I vote for Galadriel. Amirite? Who’s with me? Beautiful and terrible.
Assuming Rosie Cotton isn’t a choice.
Nope. Don’t even try it. Sam would kill you.