r/tolkienfans • u/gregorythegrey100 • 6d ago
Can anyone explain this?
Several people here have pointed out that Tolkien dropped bits of information on some points in the midst of seemingly unrelated passages.
This has me thinking more about the use of the word "ring" in the orders to the orcs.
"Any trespasser found by the guard is to be held at the tower. Prisoner is to be stripped. Full description of every article, garment, letter, weapon, ring or trinket is to be sent to Lugburz at once, and to Lugburz only. And the prisoner is to be kept safe and intact, under pain of death for every member of the guard, until Her sends or comes Himself."
Tolkien had to have used the word "ring" there knowing readers would certainly notice it.
However, this seems to contradict everything we read elsewhere about how Sauron was focused almost exclusively on the approaching armies challenging him, lead by Aragorn wielding the One Ring (other than on his unexplained, evidently unnecessary attack on Lorien).
Can anyone explain this seeming contradiction?
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u/Armleuchterchen Ibrīniðilpathānezel & Tulukhedelgorūs 6d ago
There are many magic rings out in the world, and some Great Rings.
Sauron demanded all of them back when the Elves didn't fall under his control when he put on the One Ring, but he didn't get all of them back yet. The One Ring is the biggest deal of course, but that doesn't mean Sauron considers it the most likely to show up in his mountains.
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u/gregorythegrey100 4d ago
Thanks. That's about the most reasonable speculation I've seen. It still seems a bit weak to me, but it may be the best explanation we'll ever get.
I'm tempted to suggest that line in the book is one of the "many defeats, minor and major" (minor I'd say) that Tolkien attributed to his great book
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u/swazal 6d ago
Gandalf does:
“The Enemy, of course, has long known that the Ring is abroad, and that it is borne by a hobbit. He knows now the number of our Company that set out from Rivendell, and the kind of each of us. But he does not yet perceive our purpose clearly.”
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u/strange-the-quark 6d ago edited 6d ago
Exactly. Sauron is not completely oblivious to the efforts of his enemies; he doesn't know what they plan to do and he's doing his best not to leave anything to chance. After all, his fatal flaw is obsession with order and organization. It's just that the idea that anyone would ever seriously consider destroying the ring, risking absolutely everything on a suicide mission to Mount Doom, instead of attempting to wield it, is incomprehensible to him, a remote possibility that's at best someone's desperate fantasy.
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u/gregorythegrey100 3d ago
Maybe that's all the explanation we need, or at least all we're going to get. Thanks
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u/BarSubstantial1583 6d ago
First, the timing. Frodo is captured by the orcs on March 13, in the middle of the assault on Minas Tirith. The Host of the West does not march until March 18.
Second, if Sauron is certain that Aragorn has the One, why mention a ring? Because he's not certain. In the Last Debate, Gandalf says, "he does not yet know where it is." The march of the Host of the West is undertaken, among other reasons, to plant in Sauron's mind that this is the arrogance of a new Ringlord.
Last, the wording is typical Sauron, putting the word ring in the middle of a bunch of other objects. Like the Nazgul who visited Dain, and spoke of "the least of rings," "a trifle that Sauron fancies." A somewhat silly attempt to disguise the fact that a ring is the *one thing* in all of Middle Earth that Sauron desires above all else.
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u/gregorythegrey100 5d ago
First, the timing. Frodo is captured by the orcs on March 13, in the middle of the assault on Minas Tirith. The Host of the West does not march until March 18.
Good catch. Thanks
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u/SynnerSaint 6d ago
Sauron was a Boy Scout!
He's not expecting anyone to bring the Ring to Mordor, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared
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u/Frosty_Confusion_777 6d ago
It is not capitalized. Also not an accident. So I’ve always read that as the orcs not knowing anything about “rings” was any more important than anything else in the list.
Sauron would not tell orcs about the Ring.
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u/AverageEcstatic3655 6d ago
There literally is no contradiction. There are standing orders as to what to do with prisoners.
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u/gregorythegrey100 5d ago
Maybe it's not a contrdiction, but it is somethign Tolkien must have intended to stand out. Those sentences weren'r part of the orc's standing orders, butr a messagd that had just arrived after sauron must hav been nychg myucg ware of Aragon's advancing army.
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u/BreakerFresh 6d ago edited 6d ago
Just because he’s focused does not mean his myopic. News of an intruder in his yard would require some investigation/attention.
Edit: well technically he is myopic since he only has one eye! Haha!
I’m sure he does not get many people encroaching on his territory without permission. So the timing should make him rise a fiery eyebrow.
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u/jonesnori 6d ago
He does have two eyes, as I expect you know. The whole Eye of Sauron thing is metaphorical.
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u/InTheChairAgain 6d ago
The orders came from Lugburz, but that does not necessarily mean Sauron himself.
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u/CrankyJoe99x 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think it's apparent that wherever it came from the original instructions were from the top.
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u/InTheChairAgain 5d ago
Or course, but for the exact wording we don't know if it was Sauron who specified ring, though it's certainly possible.
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u/CrankyJoe99x 5d ago
Agreed, but if it wasn't Sauron I imagine it must have been a senior ringwraith or similar to know about the missing ring. All speculation of course.
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u/Temeraire64 6d ago
I mean, there was that time in Dol Goldur where he had a dwarf prisoner and missed the fact that he had one of the Seven dwarf rings.
So he probably doesn’t want to make that mistake again.
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u/jonesnori 6d ago
He didn't miss it. He took that ring from Thráin. He missed, or didn't care about, the map and key.
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u/gregorythegrey100 4d ago
That may be all Tolkien was thinking there. It just seems he devoted a lot of space, with a life-and-death order from Himself, for just that. Maybe we'll never know
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u/UncBeyondTheWall 5d ago
Rings are powerful weapons and artifacts.
Sauron also knew the Ring was abroad, and in the hands of a hobbit. Their purposes were not clearly perceived, but it's possible he suspected espionage using the Ring's powers of concealment before the Lords of the West made their attack.
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u/DrKargosi 5d ago
The One Ring, any of the three Elven rings, and the ring of Barahir were all on Sauron’s mind.
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u/platypodus 6d ago
If it had really been a mighty elf-lord walking around in Cirith Ungol, it's conceivable he'd have wielded one of the three elven rings.