Wk10 Bk6 Ch3: Sauron's Last Moments

[Stormrider]

From: Stormridr (Original Message) Sent: 5/27/2003 9:47 PM

Sauron's Destruction
Copyright Ted Nasmith and Harper Collins
All Rights Reserved

From the moment Frodo claims The Ring for himself, many things start to happen. What does Frodo's claim of the Ring cause Sauron to do?

What do you think is racing through Sauron's mind at the realization that His Ring is on the precipice of doom and that the Halfling has claimed it?
What punishments do you think he plans for Frodo, Sam, and even Gollum?

As Gollum falls into the Cracks of Doom with The Ring, I noticed that there is absolutely no mention as to what happens to The Dark Lord himself! What do you think was his fate?

[Stormrider]

From: Colleen Sent: 5/28/2003 4:28 PM
When Frodo claims the ring, Sauron realizes he's been paying attention to the wrong assailants. He obviously knows his captive escaped and Gollum's on the loose, but his eye has been focused on Aragorn and Co.

I think the first thing that went through Sauron's mind was "Oh s**t!" Then, I'm guessing he hoped to get to Frodo in time to reclaim the ring himself -- or get the Nazgul there in time to capture Frodo. Frodo had no idea how to wield the ring, so I don't think it would have been difficult for Sauron to take it from him. I wonder, even at this point, if Sauron had any notion that they would destroy the ring.

To answer the last question, I think you have to skip forward to the next chapter. I belive the shadow mentioned is what is left of Sauron.

(SPOILER)
'The realm of Sauron is ended!' said Gandalf. 'The Ring-bearer has fulfilled his Quest.' And as the captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightening-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent; for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.

-Colleen

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From: Ruscosenda Sent: 5/29/2003 9:03 AM
I agree with Colleen. It wasn't until Frodo put the ring on that Sauron realized that he had been a fool. I'm guessing that it was kind of like watching the end of a movie like Sixth Sense or The Others. All the clues were there, but they didn't come together until the end. I think the toughest thing for him to acknowledge must have been that he had been outwitted by Gandalf and Aragorn.

I also agree with Colleen's supposition that the hand of dark cloud that reached out towards Gandalf and Aragorn was Sauron. When you read this, it seems like Sauron is once and for all destroyed. However, I'm not sure this was true in Tolkien's mind since he contemplated writing "The Return of the Shadow".

-- Rusco

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From: Desi-Baggins Sent: 5/29/2003 9:23 AM
I think the fact that Sauron was outwitted shows how little power he actually had without the Ring even though he thought he was something special! I wonder why Tolkien held off till the next chapter to mention what happens to Sauron. I just assumed because Frodo and Sam felt peace Sauron was destroyed sort of like how the WitchKing just disolved.

Desi

[Stormrider]

From: Annie2 Sent: 5/30/2003 6:30 PM
Wk10, Bk6, Ch4, Continuous DISCUSSION: The Fall of Sauron

'The realm of Sauron is ended!' said Gandalf. 'The Ring-bearer has fulfilled his Quest.' And as the captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightening-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent; for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.

How does Gandalf know that the realm of Sauron is ended and that the ring-bearer has fulfilled his quest? Is the huge shape of shadows that fills the sky the spirit of Sauron? The image of a vast threatening hand that stretched out towards the men of the West is an awesome one. Is it the hand of Sauron? And what is that hand reaching out for? Is this one last desperate attempt to grasp the ring? And I wonder, is this truly Sauron’s final sigh? He was defeated before and his spirit escaped. Is it possible for his spirit to escape again?

At the same time Sammath Naur erupts sending waves of lava down Mount Doom threatening to engulf the hobbits. The encyclopedia of Arda has this to say about that volcano:

Orodruin was far more than a natural volcano - Sauron seems to have extended his own power into it, and was able to control its fires. It seems to have lain dormant when Sauron was away from Mordor, and sprung into life when his power grew. After the Downfall of Númenor, for example, the Exiles in Middle-earth first knew that Sauron had also escaped the Downfall when they saw smoke rising from Orodruin, and an Age later at the Council of Elrond (The Lord of the Rings II 2), Boromir says 'Smoke rises once more from Orodruin that we call Mount Doom'.

If Orodruin was dormant and only became active after Sauron extended his own power into it, why would it suddenly erupt when the ring was cast back? Was this an act of the ring or a wild desperate act of Sauron who must have felt his power dimisnishing?

Since Sauron forged the ring of power he must have known that the only way it could be destroyed was to cast it back into the fires from whence it came. Obviously he never considered this until it was too late. I wonder why? And how could Elrond know this? Would this knowledge have come from wearing his own ring, Vilya? It isn’t clear to me how the elves came by this knowledge but they offered it as the only solution at Elrond’s council.

[Stormrider]

From: Kendal Sent: 6/2/2003 5:43 AM
Wow! A lot of very good points being made here. I'll wade in here on several.

1. The Dark Lord's Fate

I just found out from the Letters and The Silmarillion that Tolkien sort of believed in keeping his characters around forever. It looks like in Middle-earth that nobody ever really dies, and the word "destroy" has little final value. There are probably spoilers in the stuff below, and sometimes it is hard to stick with just the chapter of ROTK being discussed when so many questions come up that the text does not answer, so my apologies for sliding in some information from outside the ROTK.

I used to think that Sauron was dead and gone after the Ring was "destroyed," with maybe a glimmer of survival for him on account of his being a minor kind of god as a Maiar. But I would have bet you dollars to donuts that the High Nazgul was dead and gone forever until I read a footnote in Tolkien's Letters, # 246, p. 331. Apparently you cannot kill a Nazgul either as Tolkien states only that "The Witch-king had been reduced to impotence" and not destroyed forever by Merry and Eowyn.

By reading LOTR closely, Gandalf has already sort of prepared us for Sauron being able to survive even the full destruction of his Ring, and I guess that the Nazgul, after thousands of years as wraiths are tied to Sauron's will, and rise and fall with their master, so they cannot really be destroyed or "killed" either.

"Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again." FOTR, p. 81-82

When Merry asks whether the Nazgul were destroyed in the flood of the Bruninen at Rivendell and Gandalf replies: "You cannot destroy Ringwraiths like that,' said Gandalf. 'The power of their master is in them, and they stand or fall by him.'" chpt 3 The Ring Goes South, p 357. Ominous also for its hint that the Nazgul Lord survived the attack by Merry and Eowyn is this passage from The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, p. 143: "The crown rolled away with a clang. Eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe. But, lo! the mantle and hauberk were empty. Shapeless they lay now on the ground, torn and tumbled; and a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of the this world." The last phrase here may be taken to mean several different things, one of which is that this voice WOULD be heard in some future age of the world...

For Sauron himself, it seems pretty certain that he will not "die" when the Ring is destroyed, but there is some confusion in my mind as to wether or not Tolkien meant for Sauron to be able to rise again after the Ring is carried into the fires. My reading of Glorfindel's statement at the Council of Elrond: "Yet all the Elves are willing to endure this chance,... if by it the power of Sauron may be broken, and the fear of his dominion be taken away for ever." p. 286 is that this Elf Lord at least thinks the Ring's destruction will end the fear of Sauron FOR EVER. Here I get the feeling that there can be no new ressurection in the flesh for Sauron despite the survival of his spirit. In The Last Debate, pages 189 - 190, Gandalf seems to underscore this when he talks about the power of the Ring and the effect its destruction will have on Sauron. Here he leaves the door open for Sauron's survival, but NOT his return: "If it is destroyed, then he will fall; and his fall will be so low that none can forsee his arising ever again. ... he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so a great evil of this world will be removed."

In Letter # 202, p. 260, Tolkien clearly states that Sauron "survives" the Ring's destruction, but is permanently removed as a potential returning evil in Middle-earth. It seems pretty certain then, that Sauron's power was so greatly diminished after the destruction of the Ring that he could never re-clothe himself in flesh again. "The impossibility of re-building after the destruction of the Ring, is sufficiently clear 'mythologically' in the present book." This finality seems to back up with some authority the statements made by both Glorfindel and Gandalf. So I guess, once the Ring is gone, nobody needs to worry about Sauron coming back, even though he does still "live".

Ruscosenda, do you have any more data on the possible ressurection of Sauron in "The Return of the Shadow?" I thought that this book was just an earlier version of LOTR where a Hobbit plays the Strider role as Trotter, and Frodo is called Bingo. But with all the re-writings Tolkien did just to get the Hobbit out and the Silmarillion, I bet he could have been planning a sequel to LOTR as well, where a re-fleshed Sauron would make sense, even if that would seem to contradict his pretty clear statements that once the Ring was gone, bye bye Sauron for good!

2. Annie2:

A great question! Yeah, just how do they know that the Ring can be destroyed in the Fires of the volcano? The first statement about this that I can find comes from Gandalf on page 94 in The Shadow of the Past: "There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the enemy forever." As you mention, Annie2, Elrond seems to know this as well when he says that the Ring should have been cast into the Fires when Isildur took it from Sauron at the close of the battle in Mordor. To me this means that the Wise knew the Ring could be destroyed in the Cracks of Doom at that early time, 3441 Second Age. The appendix B states that the Istari do not show up in Middle-earth until around the year 1000 Third Age, a full thousand years after Elrond already knew that the Ring could only be destroyed at Orodruin. So, unless the Valar gave Gandalf the information that the Elves already had, it seems most likely that he learned the secret of the Ring's destruction from them, most probably Cirdan or Elrond who were both at Orodruin in 3441 when the Ring should have been destroyed. But how did ANY of the Elves ever find out that this was definitely the way to destroy the Ring? I see the scene where Frodo, after all his troubles, tosses the Ring into the flames and nothing happens to it all!

Sauron forged this one all by himself, not with help from the Elven Ringsmiths, so how could they know for sure that it could be destroyed there? I imagine only Sauron would really know how his Ring could be unmade, and why would he share this important knowledge with his enemies?

Maybe Celebrimbor and the Elves would have known enough about rings in general that it would be apparent to them that Sauron's Ring could be unmade only in the fires that created it? They could then pass this knowledge on to the other great Elves, Gilgalad, Galadriel, and Cirdan. Otherwise, maybe, just maybe Galadriel was able to read this in Sauron's mind with her own ring as she tells Frodo that through her ring she can see all Sauron's thoughts concerning the Elves? But this won't work because Gilgalad, Elrond, and Cirdan knew before Sauron lost the Ring to Isildur that it could be destroyed at Orodruin, and while Sauron had his Ring the Elves could not use theirs... LOL, looks like another unanswerable question? Maybe the Letters say something about this?

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From: galenas Sent: 6/2/2003 8:11 PM
I can only imagine the moment of rage and frustration and disbelief that yet again in a chance moment, in an unlikely way the ring is taken from him.
How could this happen to him who is eons old and powerful? How could these mortals keep breaking his feet of clay?

Galenas