In the Arwen? pit thread (questioning the movie’s portrayal of Arwen) the question of Tolkein’s genius comes up. Within this hijack, DDG makes the following comment:
Huh? Rather than continue the hijack (or post somewhere else in the Pit) I thought I’d ask for a bit of clarification in the Café. I’ve read the books a few times over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this impression about Sauron. In fact, I think one of the things I liked about the book was how hard it was to get rid of the damned thing. (Of course, I could be confusing characters, was it Sauron who told Gandalf to go stand, unattended, on the roof on his tower? That was a dumb move.)
Anyway, I’d like to hear more from DDG (not as a challenge per se, but because alternate theories/ interpretations are part of thinking about literature) or other’s who share her view. Of course, Tolkein-obsessed fans are more than welcome to reply. (But please let’s avoid the genius/ not genius debate- that’s a separate thread.) Thanks!
Rhythmdvl
No, it was Saruman who foolishly imprisoned Gandalf on his roof. And Saruman had no idea that Gandalf had made friends with the big eagles, so that wasn’t a truly dumb idea. Saruman is an interesting study in evil too as he leads himself down the primrose path.
Now Sauron seems to me to be not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I haven’t read the non Lord of the Rings backstory other than the Silmarillion, so we don’t know much about Sauron except that he puts much of his personal magical power into a ring which he then loses. Duh.
Tolkien specifically said that LOTR was not a metaphor for WWII, but I’ve always equated Sauron with Hitler anyway. Very powerful and cunning, but strong willed to the point of shooting oneself in the foot constantly.
Can someone enlighten us as to whether the dozen volumes of back story explain what all these foolish ring makers were thinking?
“You go stand up there and behave yourself! I’m going downstairs to practice my maniacal laughter. It’s a really good laugh. I wish you could hear it, but I’m going to close the door behind me. You just sit there in privacy and dwell on how bad you’ve been, and reconsider whether or not you want to play nice. I’ll come and check on you once in a while to see if you’ve changed your mind. [muttering to self] I don’t know when I’ll get the time, though, I have so much reading that I’ve been meaning to get to.[/mts] Come now, everyone else off the roof! Gandalf is needs a time-out and I don’t want anyone staring at him or making him nervous.”
My (limited) understanding is that Sauron, in disguise, showed up and offered to teach each race how to make rings of power that would do different things but the “recipe” that Sauron offered was boobytrapped: The humans were supposed to get “power amplifier” rings, but instead got rings that turned ‘em into Ringwraiths. Dunno what the Dwarf-rings were supposed to do, but it had the drawback of amplifying all the negative traits of the dwarfs (greed, secretiveness, etc)…the Elves’ rings would slow down the…unmagicing of the world (and it worked…the Elves were smart enough to figure out Sauron’s booby traps and avoid them. The only thing that they couldn’t avoid was that their rings were “powered” by the One Ring. One of the tragedies of the series is that, once the One Ring was destroyed, the Elves all had to leave, since the magic would fade without the Elven Rings.)
What always bothered me was the Eagle Loophole. The Eagles Ex Machina show up whenever it’s convienient to the plot (when the dwarfs and Bilbo are in the treetops, at the Battle of the 5 Armies, when Galdalf is trapped by Saruman, when Frodo and Sam need a lift back from Mt. Doom, etc,) but they don’t do the one obvious thing: Take Frodo and Sam TO Mt Doom in the first place, thus shortcutting 2.5 books worth of story.
I understand how that woulda screwed up the story, but it should have been addressed (“You see, Frodo” said Gandalf kindly “Sauron has a type of magic called “Stinger Missles” that allow him to shoot the Eagles down, no matter how fast they fly.”)
I don’t think the question of exactly WHY Sauron would remove his own power and put it in a ring is addressed, except very broadly.
Somehow, the idea of making rings of power appealed to everyone, and Sauron was able to use the seven rings for the dwarven kings and the nine rings for mortal men to corrupt their wearers. With the dwarves, this was presumably through greed for gold; with the men, greed for immortality, and the ring-wearers became the Nazgul.
The Master Ring was needed to control the others. It was a focus, if you will, for Sauron’s powers.
And it’s not that Sauron was dumb, simply arrogant. He knew that the ring would corrupt the wearer, and he therefore assumed that anyone who found the ring would wear it, become corrupted, and mass power for a frontal attack. The strategy of Gandalf and Aragon was to create a red herring, implying that was exactly what was going on, so that Sauron never stopped to question his assumption. That’s why it’s so important that Sauron (and Saruman) really don’t know about hobbits, don’t know that hobbits could resist the lure of the ring.
I can’t believe I’m still this geek-ish. I read those books back in 1964.
As to how the Ring got away from Isildur to be found by Smeagol, Isildur was killed at the shores of a stream on the east side of the Misty Mountains on the way back home and the Ring fell from his finger into the water. It lay there for an indeterminate amount of time (mostly because I don’t remember how long) and was found by two Stoor hobbits from a village near the Mirkwood who were fishing on the stream. Deagol originally found the Ring, but it called to Smeagol and he was enthralled by it. Smeagol killed Deagol, took the Ring, and escaped into the roots of the Misty Mountains where he was discovered by Bilbo during the events of the Hobbit. Living under the mountains for hundreds of years had changed Smeagol the hobbit into the amphibian Gollum.
Truthfully, I have to admit that my visualization of Gollum is heavily, heavily influenced by the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit. I can’t really even remember Tolkein’s description of him.
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that it is a metaphor for the creative act. That is, in creating a work of art, say a three volume fantasy trilogy, you must release it to the general public so that people can read it, or your work will have been meaningless. The artist has put a great deal of his “power” ie his creativity into this work, but in releasing it, he loses some measure of control over it, such that, say, people can write pornographic Bilbo/Frodo slash stories and post them on the 'net. Or something like that.
I seem to recall that the why sauron made his ring was to be able to control the other races rings (specially the elven rings). That is why he needed to “transfer” most of his power to the ring, I remember reading that when he finally put on his ring the elves realized they had been tricked and they removed theirs. Sauron then attacked, humans and elves formed the last aliance and… the rest you already know
Wow – that’s an intriguing idea. I hadn’t heard that before, but it makes some sense. Although in Sauron’s case it’s an evil creative act…and I’ll have to ponder how this works with, say, the Elven-rings (which were only effective while the One existed, a vaguely Faustian concept)…
Well, the eagle was Gwaihir, but the concept that Radagast the Brown might have been behind the Eagles ex machina (love that phrase, by the way) is an interesting one. It is known that Radagast uses birds as messengers. Does that help close the loophole for you, Fenris? After all, Radagast doesn’t seem to be pulling his own weight as an Istari, but maybe he was more helpful than we know.
I’m assuming you’re talking about the Blue wizards.
Considering the fact that they weren’t anywhere near the geographical area covered in the trilogy, that’s hardly surprising. Actually, I’m not even sure if they are mentioned in the appendices.
Yes, but if I remember correctly, Radagast wasn’t operating heavily in the area in which the LotR took place either, tending to wander from Mirkwood (which was never entered by the Fellowship) and eastward.
Joking aside, the impression one gets from the books is that the entire area west of the Misty Mountains was Gandalf’s responsibility. The area east of the MM was Radagast’s. And points eastward were the Blue Wizards’ (Dorthonion and on). Saruman was supposed to be the central clearinghouse/supervisor of the group. I don’t think anyone was “in charge” of the Southrons. The fact that we hear little of Radagast and next to nothing of the Blue Wizards is the geography, as you said.
