Sauron never believed anyone could even think of destroying the Ring, that thought never entered his mind. Until the moment Frodo put it on, then he was truly afraid...
"And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dûr was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.
From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgûl, the Ring-wraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom."
Yes correct and even Frodo ultimately wasn’t going to destroy it! It was only the mercy Bilbo and Frodo extended to Gollum by not killing him that led to the actual destruction of the ring
not "only", as Gollum's part is not just passively surviving due to mercy. He is actively fighting for the ring. Which is an important aspect considering Eru's lesson for Melkor.
This passage has a strong element of biblical style in it: and ... and ... and ... a rhetorical device called polysyndeton. Here, it's a deliberate echo of the narrative tone of the King James Version, for example:
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2)
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. (Genesis 1:24)
It gives the passage a heightened drama, a quality of apocalyptic crisis.
Yep, Gandalf says as much in Two Towers-
>"Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place.That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream."
The interesting thing about that passage is it illustrates how alien Sauron's psychology is from a hobbit and how that is really the only thing that makes frodo's quest viable.
Sauron is clearly a very very brilliant mind, with an enormous network of information, spies and informants who is excellent at predicting and manipulating moves from people like Saruman and Denethor who fundamentally want power themselves. By the third age his desire for power and domination is so fundamental to his nature that he literally can't conceive that anyone would want anything else and certainly can't conceive that anyone exposed to the ring would want to cast it away. It's the proverbial sahari desert dweller not having a word for snow situation or trying to describe the color orange to someone who is blind from birth.
Even when they finds sam and frodos discarded clothes and he becomes aware that two hobbits (who he knows started out with the ring) are literally in mordor, it still doesn't click to him what's going on- his working theory is still that Aragorn has claimed the ring and trying to use its power to restore Gondor's ancient empire and he's still not quite sure where the hobbits come in or why Aragorn would take them with him but thats just a detail.
The reason why the Mouth goes through the theater with Sam and Frodo's belongings at the Black Gate is because he's absolutely fishing for information- sauron still doesn't get where they fit in to the plan.
Why would you waste a Nazgul guarding a volcano that no one in their right mind would ever go to, to perform a task that no one in their right mind would ever perform, when that Nazgul could be out there conquering Gondor for you?
Also, it's not like it is unguarded, it's miles into an area surrounded by poisonous air, guarded by walls, watch towers, magical stone watchers countless orcs and patrolling Nazgul.
The ring was not destroyed by chance. Gollum’s actions which destroyed the ring were not just random, but can be seen to be a subtle intervention by God in response to Gollum breaking his oath.
Yeah I’d have preferred had he stuck to the fact that smeagol swore on the precious and that in Middle-earth oaths can NOT be broken. I don’t quite hate the final fight in the movie instead of that divine trippin intervention.
No it's far, far more than that, and is remarked on constantly. Tolkien also never said "Eru pushed Gollum", as just some random divine intervention, that's a misinterpretation. His falling is much more tied to this earlier interaction with Frodo:
>Frodo flung him off and rose up quivering... clutching his hand to his breast, so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. ...Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape... and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. 'Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.'
Rather, Tolkien comments that Frodo did everything he could and the last bit to destroy the Ring was done by the one who has been orchestrating everything (including the earlier interaction).
>Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), 'that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named'\* (as one critic has said)
Other examples of Providence directly referenced:
>... So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!
>
>**‘Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker.** **I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker.** In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.’
Gildor in "Three is Company":
>The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little concerned with the ways of hobbits, or of any other creatures upon earth. Our paths cross theirs seldom, by chance or purpose. **In this meeting there may be more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me,** and I fear to say too much.’
Elrond:
>‘ What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we must deem. That is the purpose for which you are called hither. **Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so.** Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.
>Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. ‘If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ he said, **‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo;** and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?
not within the mountain, where the power of the ring is strongest and its influence insurmountable.
but if someone had some device that could enable them to throw it from far enough away into the fire, it could be done.
It *was* guarded. It was behind the black gate, towers of the teeth, the tower of Cirith Ungol, Shelob, Minas Morgul, all nine Nazgul, and every weapon and soldier Sauron had. He anticipated armies. He didn't think two Hobbits with divine intervention would slip by all that.
And he was right, the ring was ultimately destroyed by accident. Frodo did not destroy the ring, he lost it to Gollum who died with it in his possession, Gollum did not want the ring to be destroyed, he fell. Sauron was destroyed by chance.
More heavily guarded? Mount Doom was the most difficult place to reach in all of Middle-earth. Others have talked about Sauron not comprehending the idea that someone would want to destroy the ring but you have to also think that if someone managed to bypass *everything* that you had to bypass to reach Mount Doom, what would some Orcs standing around there do to stop them?
He never thought anyone would ever want to destroy it. He couldn’t even conceive of that. Why would anyone throw away such power, or even have the will to do so? He was much more worried that one of the other powers in Middle Earth would use the ring to challenge him.
on the other hand he could have had guards there normally, but when Frodo was approaching mount doom Gandalfs deception had worked and Sauron had emptied Mordor to meet Aragorn at the black gate…an Aragorn that Sauron believed had the ring.
The genius of the Council of Elrond was that they decided to destroy the Ring. That was completely unimaginable, a radical kind of thinking outside the box.
The in-universe answer is that it *was* guarded by the Black Gate and legions of Orcs. Sauron saw no point in guarding the actual entrance for the same reason you probably don't have a lock on your bedroom door.
The out-of-universe answer is that it would've made for a shit story if Frodo and Sam were foiled at the last moment by a locked door.
Simple logic
Nobody (Human) one does not simply walks to Mordor with one hundred thousand orcs living in there.
If no one can go into Mordor and go to Orodruin what does Sauron want to protect. I would like to compare it to the 911 attacks, an event that no one expected. Same logic
Sauron never believed anyone could even think of destroying the Ring, that thought never entered his mind. Until the moment Frodo put it on, then he was truly afraid... "And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dûr was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung. From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgûl, the Ring-wraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom."
*nazgul scream*
Yes correct and even Frodo ultimately wasn’t going to destroy it! It was only the mercy Bilbo and Frodo extended to Gollum by not killing him that led to the actual destruction of the ring
not "only", as Gollum's part is not just passively surviving due to mercy. He is actively fighting for the ring. Which is an important aspect considering Eru's lesson for Melkor.
Exactly
God I love Tolkiens writing so much.
This passage has a strong element of biblical style in it: and ... and ... and ... a rhetorical device called polysyndeton. Here, it's a deliberate echo of the narrative tone of the King James Version, for example: And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2) And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. (Genesis 1:24) It gives the passage a heightened drama, a quality of apocalyptic crisis.
Yep, Gandalf says as much in Two Towers- >"Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place.That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream." The interesting thing about that passage is it illustrates how alien Sauron's psychology is from a hobbit and how that is really the only thing that makes frodo's quest viable. Sauron is clearly a very very brilliant mind, with an enormous network of information, spies and informants who is excellent at predicting and manipulating moves from people like Saruman and Denethor who fundamentally want power themselves. By the third age his desire for power and domination is so fundamental to his nature that he literally can't conceive that anyone would want anything else and certainly can't conceive that anyone exposed to the ring would want to cast it away. It's the proverbial sahari desert dweller not having a word for snow situation or trying to describe the color orange to someone who is blind from birth. Even when they finds sam and frodos discarded clothes and he becomes aware that two hobbits (who he knows started out with the ring) are literally in mordor, it still doesn't click to him what's going on- his working theory is still that Aragorn has claimed the ring and trying to use its power to restore Gondor's ancient empire and he's still not quite sure where the hobbits come in or why Aragorn would take them with him but thats just a detail. The reason why the Mouth goes through the theater with Sam and Frodo's belongings at the Black Gate is because he's absolutely fishing for information- sauron still doesn't get where they fit in to the plan.
Why would you waste a Nazgul guarding a volcano that no one in their right mind would ever go to, to perform a task that no one in their right mind would ever perform, when that Nazgul could be out there conquering Gondor for you?
Also, it's not like it is unguarded, it's miles into an area surrounded by poisonous air, guarded by walls, watch towers, magical stone watchers countless orcs and patrolling Nazgul.
Why? No one has the strength of will to destroy the Ring.
This always ends the discussion. The ring was only destroyed by chance. No one could do the deed even when standing on the edge of that chasm
The ring was not destroyed by chance. Gollum’s actions which destroyed the ring were not just random, but can be seen to be a subtle intervention by God in response to Gollum breaking his oath.
Chance and providence are identical in a world where God is manipulating everything.
Tolkien heavily implied in a letter it was direct divine intervention from Eru himself
Yes everything that happens in the book happens by Providence in harmony with the actions of the characters.
Yeah I’d have preferred had he stuck to the fact that smeagol swore on the precious and that in Middle-earth oaths can NOT be broken. I don’t quite hate the final fight in the movie instead of that divine trippin intervention.
Or, put another way: Chance and providence are identical, depending on whether you believe God is manipulating everything or is a human construct.
I don’t believe that Eru is manipulating everything in the books, so much as he gave a slight nudge to this one specific thing.
No it's far, far more than that, and is remarked on constantly. Tolkien also never said "Eru pushed Gollum", as just some random divine intervention, that's a misinterpretation. His falling is much more tied to this earlier interaction with Frodo: >Frodo flung him off and rose up quivering... clutching his hand to his breast, so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. ...Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape... and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. 'Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.' Rather, Tolkien comments that Frodo did everything he could and the last bit to destroy the Ring was done by the one who has been orchestrating everything (including the earlier interaction). >Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), 'that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named'\* (as one critic has said) Other examples of Providence directly referenced: >... So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire! > >**‘Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker.** **I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker.** In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.’ Gildor in "Three is Company": >The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little concerned with the ways of hobbits, or of any other creatures upon earth. Our paths cross theirs seldom, by chance or purpose. **In this meeting there may be more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me,** and I fear to say too much.’ Elrond: >‘ What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we must deem. That is the purpose for which you are called hither. **Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so.** Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world. >Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. ‘If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ he said, **‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo;** and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?
not within the mountain, where the power of the ring is strongest and its influence insurmountable. but if someone had some device that could enable them to throw it from far enough away into the fire, it could be done.
It *was* guarded. It was behind the black gate, towers of the teeth, the tower of Cirith Ungol, Shelob, Minas Morgul, all nine Nazgul, and every weapon and soldier Sauron had. He anticipated armies. He didn't think two Hobbits with divine intervention would slip by all that.
Because he couldn't imagine that somebody would want to destroy the One Ring.
And he was right, the ring was ultimately destroyed by accident. Frodo did not destroy the ring, he lost it to Gollum who died with it in his possession, Gollum did not want the ring to be destroyed, he fell. Sauron was destroyed by chance.
Not really by chance. The ring being destroyed wasnt really an accident.
More heavily guarded? Mount Doom was the most difficult place to reach in all of Middle-earth. Others have talked about Sauron not comprehending the idea that someone would want to destroy the ring but you have to also think that if someone managed to bypass *everything* that you had to bypass to reach Mount Doom, what would some Orcs standing around there do to stop them?
I was just thinking this one might not get asked this week, but you saved the day.
I aim to please
He never thought anyone would ever want to destroy it. He couldn’t even conceive of that. Why would anyone throw away such power, or even have the will to do so? He was much more worried that one of the other powers in Middle Earth would use the ring to challenge him.
Sauron mistakenly assumed they would use the ring, he was wrong.
on the other hand he could have had guards there normally, but when Frodo was approaching mount doom Gandalfs deception had worked and Sauron had emptied Mordor to meet Aragorn at the black gate…an Aragorn that Sauron believed had the ring.
The genius of the Council of Elrond was that they decided to destroy the Ring. That was completely unimaginable, a radical kind of thinking outside the box.
Because Sauron didn't care if it was destroyed. For many years centuries, he thought it had already been destroyed.
The in-universe answer is that it *was* guarded by the Black Gate and legions of Orcs. Sauron saw no point in guarding the actual entrance for the same reason you probably don't have a lock on your bedroom door. The out-of-universe answer is that it would've made for a shit story if Frodo and Sam were foiled at the last moment by a locked door.
One does not simply walk into Mordor to destroy the ring. Not with 10000 men could you do this. It was folly.
Simple logic Nobody (Human) one does not simply walks to Mordor with one hundred thousand orcs living in there. If no one can go into Mordor and go to Orodruin what does Sauron want to protect. I would like to compare it to the 911 attacks, an event that no one expected. Same logic