at the moment of truth ....

[Chris Hoelscher]

another ponderable (i am probably missing something obvious)

Why did Sauron send the (8) ringwraiths to Mount Doom as opposed to he going
himself? in the past - his "spirit" fled - after losing his finger (and the
ring) - form what i remember - his spirit fled to the east - even after the
sinking of the HMS Numenor, he managed to flee back to MIddle Earth (yes -
he did have the ring)

was it that without the ring he was unable to muster up the necessary ummh
to pass to Mt Doom ? would he have to forsaken his body to do so? or ...
could he hav done so but chose to send the 8 because they were closer (or
were at least flight-ready) ??


thanks
Chris

[Stan Brown]

It's a fair question, Chris. I don't have a definitive answer, but
maybe he had to stay at Barad-dūr to direct the war? His hosts were
fighting the Captains of the West just outside of Mordor, and we do
know that as soon as he died the Orcs became confused and
directionless. So maybe if he had traveled to Mount Dom himself he
would have lost control f his troops during the journey? I believe
that he would not have been able to fly there as a spirit, because he
was bound to his body.

We do know for certain that Sauron was able to trust the Nazgūl to
obey him, and not Frodo, even if Frodo claimed the One. Letter 246,
quoted at

http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm#Q1-FrodoClaim

says that the Nazgūl would have pretended to obtain any of his
smaller commands while luring him away from the Cracks of Doom and
then blocking up the entrance. After that Frodo would be unable to
destroy the Ring even if he could have belatedly summoned the will,
and Sauron could come at leisure and overawe him into giving it up.


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm

[Chris Hoelscher]

not to pick a nit - but I always thought the text seemed to indicate that
Sauron's will was removed from the combatants when Frodo put on the ring,
not when Sauron was emasculared/destroyed

but the Nazgul turned and fled .....the Power that drove them .... its will
was removed from them

only then did Galdalf make his rallying call and simultaneously the ring was
destroyed

so i think he lost command as soon as he focused on Mt Doom (i could be
totally off base though)


so how long did Sauron have from the plot exposed to the ring's distruction?
45 seconds? 2 minutes? does it matter if he could pass at great speed? could
ANY capable speed gotten him there soon enough?

chris





"Stan Brown" <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:MPG.29eff31e4...@news.individual.net...

[Geza Giedke]

wasn't it that Sauron had lost most of his innate power to walk/act
unclad? IIRC, originally, Maia would wear (and dispoose of) their body
as humans do of clothes, but as Sauron (as before him Morgoth) invested
power to dominate others, they lost this freedom and became bound to
theor bodies, which they could no longer alter at will and which it took
long time to rebuild.
Given that Sauron hid for centuries in order "to take shape again" I
assumed that he was be rather ineffective as a Dark Lord without a body.
Therefore, my explanation for the Hour of Doom is
(i) S was bound to his body, which was humanoid, i.e. he could not fly
to Mt Doom as he was.
(ii) maybe he would be able to discard his body and move quickly to Mt
Doom in "spirit form", but then he would not be able to interact with
Frodo ad save the Ring
(iii) one may wonder why S was so inconsiderate not to include wings [1]
when he chose to take shape again after the War of the Last Alliance. It
would have helped him in the Fall of Numenor and it might have been life
saving in teh War of the Ring...


regards
Geza


[1] even lowly Balrogs were better equipped in this respect ;-)

--
Now come ye all,
who have courage and hope! My call harken
to flight, to freedom in far places!
Lays of Beleriand

[Steuard Jensen]

In message <7dadnXglmpE-pxvS...@insightbb.com>, Chris

Hoelscher <chrisho...@insightbb.com> wrote:
> not to pick a nit - but I always thought the text seemed to indicate that
> Sauron's will was removed from the combatants when Frodo put on the ring,
> not when Sauron was emasculared/destroyed

That has been my reading as well: when Sauron recognized what was
happening at Mt. Doom, it immediately captured his full attention.
(And apparently his attention was a bigger deal to his armies than I
at least had realized before reading that scene.)

> but the Nazgul turned and fled .....the Power that drove them .... its will
> was removed from them

[Just in case we're not on the same page with this, though, I *don't*
think that he withdrew his attention from the Nazgul at that time:
indeed, I suspect that he gave them even more focus than usual as they
were his greatest hope of forestalling the destruction of the Ring.]

> so how long did Sauron have from the plot exposed to the ring's distruction?
> 45 seconds? 2 minutes? does it matter if he could pass at great speed? could
> ANY capable speed gotten him there soon enough?

As others have said, Sauron was (to the best of our knowledge)
permanently bound to his physical form at the time of LotR: he did not
have the freedom to drop that form at will (or at least, not without
great cost to himself). Given that Barad-dur was something like 30-50
miles from Orodruin, it would have taken him half an hour to get there
in a *car*! So I think the Nazgul really were his best hope for having
someone there to intervene in time. (I've usually taken the
confrontation at the brink to have lasted no more than five minutes or
so, though I suppose I can't swear to that.)

Steuard Jensen

[Troels Forchhammer]

In message <news:sImdnRO4H5FLlBvS...@insightbb.com>
"Chris Hoelscher" <chrisho...@insightbb.com> spoke these staves:

>
> another ponderable (i am probably missing something obvious)
>
> Why did Sauron send the (8) ringwraiths to Mount Doom as opposed
> to he going himself?

He was bound to his body (i.e. he was not able to discard the body on
his own), and he had no means of transport that would have allowed
him to reach the mountain as quickly as the Ringwraiths (even though
the distance from the Black Gate to the mountain was considerably
longer than the distance from the Black Tower).

I believe that Tolkien wrote somewhere (I can't remember just where)
that the Ainur, when not clad in a body, could move instantaneously
(or just about instantaneously) between any two points in Arda, but
when they wore a body, they were subjected to the same limiations and
the Incarnates. At the same time, he writes, in Ņsanwe-kenta, about
the effect on the Ainur of becoming bound to their body, and clearly
states that Sauron did become bound to his body, so that he was
unable to discard, or leave, the body without the body being actually
physically killed by some external force.

Thus Sauron would have had to walk or run the whole way from Barad-
dūr to Orodruin at a pace not much greater than a man's (there is
very little difference in pace between a person who's 4'6" and one
who is 7', and Sauron would have been not much greater than this
('The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature,
but not gigantic.' /Letters/ no. 246). And of course there was also
the matter of getting down the stairs -- Sauron was sitting somewhere
near the top of Barad-dūr, which was 'ginormous'.

Therefore, when Frodo claimed the Master Ring for his own, Sauron
commanded the Nazgūl to fly there while he concentrated his full
attention on the Sammath Naur. Sauron appears to have had a greater
control of the Ringwraiths, and they didn't need his constant
attention to perform (as evidently did some of his other slaves), and
so they could be trusted to carry out his intention (and to stay
loyal) as detailed in letter no. 246 (see
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/6jfhgba>).

If not for Gollum's intervention, I believe that Sauron would have
stayed in Barad-dūr until the situation in the Sammath Naur was
stable -- i.e. until there was no longer any threat to the Ring
itself and the Nazgūl had the situation under control. Then he would
have gone there, and arriving he would have destroyed Frodo,
retrieving the Master Ring.

> in the past - his "spirit" fled - after losing his finger (and the
> ring) - form what i remember - his spirit fled to the east -

The exact circumstances of this events are not known, but it would
seem -- to me, at least -- that the cutting of the Ring (& finger)
from Sauron's hand was the 'final straw' that killed the body:
Elendil and Gil-galad had already, as we learn, 'cast down' Sauron
before Isildur cut the Ring from his hand, and I think it is likely
that the Ring was, at that point, the only thing keeping his spirit
in the body, so that removing the Ring effectively killed the body,
ousting the spirit.

> even after the sinking of the HMS Numenor, he managed to flee back
> to MIddle Earth (yes - he did have the ring)

And again the body was killed due to external force: he did not
voluntarily discard the body.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

Scientific reasoning works only with measurements: only
when we have a number and a unit. Thus, topics for which
we have no measurements, scientific investigation is not
useful. No math, no science. When we do have
measurements, scientific reasoning cannot be ignored.
- Dr Nancy's Sweetie on usenet
Message-ID: <ds159c$p45$1...@pcls4.std.com>

[Troels Forchhammer]

In message <news:slrnjodgl4....@steuard.local>
Steuard Jensen <ste...@slimy.com> spoke these staves:

>
> In message <7dadnXglmpE-pxvS...@insightbb.com>, Chris
> Hoelscher <chrisho...@insightbb.com> wrote:
>>
>> not to pick a nit - but

Have you noticed how some sentences invariably must end in a 'but',
or 'however' or some similar contradiction ;-) Just as the 'I am not
one to complain' -- there is no way to go on from there, except by
'but . . . <now I'm going to do just that>' :-)

Sorry -- this was meant humorously and /not/ as a personal comment:
it's just that it triggered me :)

>> I always thought the text seemed to indicate that Sauron's will
>> was removed from the combatants when Frodo put on the ring, not
>> when Sauron was emasculared/destroyed
>
> That has been my reading as well: when Sauron recognized what was
> happening at Mt. Doom, it immediately captured his full attention.

Indeed.

> (And apparently his attention was a bigger deal to his armies than
> I at least had realized before reading that scene.)

I think something special must have been going on at the battle
before the Black Gate -- the description of the reactions of Sauron's
armies is not at all consistent with other descriptions of e.g.
Mordor Orcs killing Isildur, Uruk-hai from Mordor in Moria, the
Mordor Orcs (presumably also Uruks) that accompanied the Isengarders
after the capture of Pippin and Merry, and the armies on the Pelennor
Fields.

/My/ personal reading (very much a 'this works for me' speculative
explanation) is that we are dealing with something akin to Sauron's
enhancement of the Witch-king in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields
(where 'he is given an added demonic force' -- /Letters/ no. 210).
This would mean that Sauron's attention somehow gave his armies an
/additional/ force -- some added demonic motivation, if you will (not
a personal power as such) -- a force that might be likened to that of
the Norse berserkers (who reputedly were high on some kind of
amanita). The armies could function very well without this additional
berserker force, but when it was suddenly removed from them, they
were confused and those who had revelled the most in this berserker
intoxication despaired at finding themselves suddenly deprived of it.

I am /not/ claiming that this is what Tolkien intended, but it is a
way for me to get this scene to make sense ;-)


As for the rest, I have nothing to add except at most 'I agree' . . .

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no
basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some
farcical aquatic ceremony.
- /Monty Python and the Holy Grail/

[O. Sharp]

I think the original question has been well and thoroughly answered,
but I'll still come in to offer an asinine comment. :) Troels
Forchhammer <Tro...@thisisfake.invalid> wrote, in part:

> I believe that Tolkien wrote somewhere (I can't remember just where)
> that the Ainur, when not clad in a body, could move instantaneously
> (or just about instantaneously) between any two points in Arda, but
> when they wore a body, they were subjected to the same limiations and
> the Incarnates.

[...]
> [At the time of the Ring's destruction, Sauron] was

> unable to discard, or leave, the body without the body being actually
> physically killed by some external force.

[...]

> And of course there was also
> the matter of getting down the stairs -- Sauron was sitting somewhere

> near the top of Barad-d?r, which was 'ginormous'.

Which suggests the obvious solution:

Sauron senses the Ring is in jeopardy. He knows he can't get his incarnate
form to the Cracks of Doom anywhere near fast enough to change the
situation. So quick as a wink Sauron dashes to the window, _throws himself
Earthward_ and, after thus shattering and breaking his body, blinks his
spirit form almost instantaneously to Mount Doom to grapple with Frodo.

...O'course, once he almost instantaneously blinks himself there he might
have to ask Frodo to wait for 1,500 years or so while he tries to form
himself a new body. :)

No, no, the Nazgul still look like his most effective bet. O'course if
Sauron had installed that high-speed monorail system around Mordor, the
outcome of the Quest might have been entirely different. :) :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
o...@panix.com O'course, Sauron's planning must have looked pretty
bad when he looked (and still looks) back at it in
retrospect. Consider:
"[Sam] saw plainly a path or road. [...] A gleam of hope
returned to him. They might conquer the Mountain yet. 'Why,
it might have been put there a-purpose!' he said to
himself. 'If it wasn't there, I'd have to say I was
beaten in the end.'
"The path was not put there for the purposes of Sam.
He did not know it, but he was looking at Sauron's Road
from Barad-dur to the Sammath Naur, the Chambers of Fire.
[...] Often blocked or destroyed by the tumults of the
Mountain's furnaces, always that road was repaired and
cleared again by the labours of countless orcs."
-_RotK_, p. 219 hardback.
Sooo Sauron, in essence, had a huge road-gang laboring
day and night to maintain a road which - unless he had
some _other_ reason to be walking over to the volcano all
the time - could _only_ be useful for someone who wanted
to unmake the Ring. What was he _thinking_?! Why didn't he
go ahead and put up signs saying, "THIS WAY to the only
place you can destroy the foundations of Lord Sauron's
might"? I bet he must sit up and brood about this a lot at
night.

[Geza Giedke]

no doubt he must, but I'm not sure that having the road from barad-Dur
to Sammath Naur kept in shape was his biggest blunder; I always figured
that he was still using his forges in Orodruin for other things than
ringmaking and that keeping that road intact was not more outrageous
than keeping the one that Sama and Frodo walked along from Durthang.

But why not spare half a dozen orcs - or maybe even Men (who are
slightly less likely to kill each other while nobody is looking) - to
guard the entrance to the core of his realm and his most vulnerable spot?

Of course, that this was his most vulnerable spot was so alien to his
thought that it did not even enter his darkest dreams, according to
Gandalf. Maybe Sauron should have looked for a better therapist to make
sure he had some real nightmares occasionally.

regards
Geza

[JG Miller]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:53:04 +0200, Geza Giedke <joe...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>But why not spare half a dozen orcs - or maybe even Men (who are
>slightly less likely to kill each other while nobody is looking) - to
>guard the entrance to the core of his realm and his most vulnerable spot?
>
>Of course, that this was his most vulnerable spot was so alien to his
>thought that it did not even enter his darkest dreams, according to
>Gandalf. Maybe Sauron should have looked for a better therapist to make
>sure he had some real nightmares occasionally.

Or park a Nazgul 24/7 in front of the Cracks. He had eight to spare
for most of the War.

The explanation by Gandalf really reeks of plot hole-filling. We have
to believe that Sauron was super-intelligent and a rational
strategist, having orchestrated a massive compaign to reclaim the Ring
across a couple millennia. Such a being uses readily available
resources to cover even unlikely contingencies, if their fruition
means utter failure and destruction.

JG Miller

[Stan Brown]

And yet great evil geniuses in the real world had surprising blind
spots. Napoleon was master of Europe and much of the non-European
world, and was generally popular at home. Yet for some reason he
took on the impossible task of conquering Russia, and destroyed his
empire in the process.

Hitler may not have been popular in the early 1940s, but he was not
universally hated, and he had Germany well in hand, and he was the
master of all of Europe. If he had invaded the UK instead of Russia,
his reich would have been secure. But somehow he had a blind spot on
that point, invaded an empire that was his natural ally, and in the
process destroyed his own empire.

So I don't have any trouble believing Sauron was incapable of
imagining that anyone would seek to destroy the Ring. Outside of the
real-world analogies, in Tolkien's world one of the themes is that
evil sets itself up for destruction: "oft evil will shall evil mar."

[Morgoth's Curse]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:10:04 -0400, Stan Brown
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>And yet great evil geniuses in the real world had surprising blind
>spots. Napoleon was master of Europe and much of the non-European
>world, and was generally popular at home. Yet for some reason he
>took on the impossible task of conquering Russia, and destroyed his
>empire in the process.
>
>Hitler may not have been popular in the early 1940s, but he was not
>universally hated, and he had Germany well in hand, and he was the
>master of all of Europe. If he had invaded the UK instead of Russia,
>his reich would have been secure. But somehow he had a blind spot on
>that point, invaded an empire that was his natural ally, and in the
>process destroyed his own empire.
>
>So I don't have any trouble believing Sauron was incapable of
>imagining that anyone would seek to destroy the Ring. Outside of the
>real-world analogies, in Tolkien's world one of the themes is that
>evil sets itself up for destruction: "oft evil will shall evil mar."

I concur and I would add that, in addition to the other sources
that he could draw upon, Tolkien had personal experience with the
perils of pride. Tolkien's generation was ravaged by the pride of
John French, Douglas Haig, Joseph Joffre and other generals who
refused to learn from the early lessons of the Great War and continued
to condemn their soldiers to death in suicidal offensives years after
it was obvious that such tactics could not succeed. Tolkien would
have been equally familiar with the failures of Britain's political
leadership beginning with the Great Boer War and culminating in the
events that resulted in World War Two. Sauron may have had more
knowledge than most mortals, but he was not omniscient and his pride
prevented him from learning critical lessons from his own experience.

Morgoth's Curse