How Did Sauron's Plans Change Over the Ages? Middle-earth Explained

[Music] then sauron was ashamed and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the valar a sentence it might be of long servitude in proof of his good faith for under morgoth his power had been great therefore when ayan way departed he hid himself in middle earth and he fell back into evil for the bonds that morgoth had laid upon him were very strong by seeing the failures of his master morgoth sauron the greatest evil left in middle-earth after the end of the elder days needed to adjust his strategies multiple times in order to achieve a possible victory hey everyone joistin here and i hope you all are doing well wherever you are in middle earth today we are going to explore what the plans of sauron were over the ages and how they changed from war to war and stratagem to stratagem for more information please check out the related articles and videos in the description and cards especially the sauron epic character history as it will further outline his life and his plans my friends thank you all so much for joining me today let us journey back into middle earth together back during the elder days and morgoth's tyranny in this middle-earth sauron served as the chief lieutenant of his master after he shifted allegiances from aolei to melkor he was fundamentally different than melkor in some ways however which would impact his later plans after the demise of the first dark lord foremost he was a craftsman and was more subtle than melkor and for the most part sauron wished to order things to his will rather than completely crushing and ruining all things melkor however as he proved with the marring of arda among many other instances wished to corrupt and pervert the earth into his own vision and destroy the rest both however wanted to rule middle-earth in their own vision but melkor would have seen more total annihilation than sauron would have in my opinion with these differences in mind however sauron still served morgoth willingly during his reign of terror in middle-earth sauron would hold angband during the battle of the powers or war for sake of the elves during the years of the trees even when atumna was destroyed by the valar thus sauron made ready for morgoth's return at the end of the years of the trees in 1495. after this sauron would be one of morgoth's forward agents during the first stage after morgoth broke the siege of angband asaran took finrod feligoon's fortress of menace tirith on the island of tulsirion in 457 of the first age sauron would hold this fortress thereafter called tol and gaurhoth the isle of werewolves and he would terrorize the nearby elves as well as the men of dorthonion until 465 in the coming of huan and luthien who sent him into the forest of dorthonion afterwards named tower new fuming the forest under knight once he came it seems that since sauron had mostly been seeing to the demise of the elven house of fienarfin and the manish house of baior that had been his objective but he failed in the end so his plans perhaps became more about self-preservation both from his enemies and the wrath of morgoth in the north for his failure at toll in gauerhath while sauron would surely have some part in the war of wrath morgoth still came to ruin in the end and was exiled from this world however sauron was offered justice by the maya ayanway if he came west and faced judgment for his evils at the feet of the valar but he fled this justice for though he was created good in the beginning he was still evil indeed as the will of morgoth over the ages had taken hold thus he fled into middle-earth and for the next two ages he would use his realm of mordor to calculate his war on the west but sauron's plans would be different from those of his master for he saw what worked and what did not in the first age first in the second age sauron knew he was not as powerful and just blunt strength as was his master nor did he have the power to create the devastating and evil creatures morgoth had made sauron's thralls would be weaker than morgoth's were at large though he would have the nazgul he would mostly have orcs urokai trolls and fell beasts to serve him rather than balrogs and dragons also either way the power that dwelt in elves men and dwarves would still be too great in the early second age if he took them on directly so he would try subterfuge and deception he would gain the trust of the elves as he could shapeshift into a fair form so in the guise of the elf anatar he would teach them ring crafting in his mind sauron would use the elf kelebrimbor to make the 16 lesser rings nine for men and seven for dwarves and he would give these to the great leaders and kings of these factions and then he would craft his own one ring and dominate the minds of these men and dwarves overtaking them to break the elves and take middle earth for his own although he had wanted to destroy the elves he did not need to destroy all of louvitar's children like melkor wanted to as an insult to the valar and eru when he had no more need for the ones who served him but sauron seemed okay with letting men and dwarves stay in middle-earth so long as they served him but three major things went wrong that sauron had not accounted for in this plan of trickery though the rings he gave to men worked and the nazgul fell under his sway becoming powerful servants the dwarven rings made the dwarves more greedy rather than putting them under his power furthermore sauron did not know about the creation of the three elven rings until after putting on his own one ring and then the elves knew of his treachery and they removed their rings before they too could be corrupted and finally the last thing that destroyed his plan occurred during the war of the elves and sauron when he tried to use this moment of wrath and fury and confusion to destroy the west and it almost worked but the numenoreans came to the aid of the elves and utterly defeated him so sauron's plans had to change to address the numenoreans for the combination of numenoreans and elves was far too strong for him he had to enthrall the numenoreans to serve him against the valar or he had to destroy numenor altogether from within and so he did things to aggravate the numenoreans naming himself lord of the earth and sure enough the arrogant king arfarizon came to middle-earth and sauron knew he could not beat them in open combat and thus he surrendered to them being taken as their prisoner back to numenor i should add that numenor was already weaker than it once had been and was close to its downfall already from there his plan was all but assured as he rose from prisoner to adviser and made the religion of morgoth great in numenor just to add insult to injury to the west thus numenor sank in 3319 and sauron had his victory over men though it cost him his ability to shift into a fair form but the endurance of the one ring kept him alive and he returned to baradur a worthy sacrifice he would not need that shape-shifting ability again but unfortunately for him not all of the numenoreans were slain and the faithful survived however since sauron had almost won in the previous war and now numenor was destroyed he must have thought that they were not strong enough and he could still have victory over the west this time as that was a fatal flaw both he and morgoth shared arrogance thus he started the war of the last alliance and although the war would cost the west many heroes sauron was still not strong enough and he would lose in the end but this would be the last time the people of the west would be strong enough in open war to defeat him as the numenoreans faded from the world and without the high king of the noldor and many of the elves of the elder days left in the world even if the elves could use their three rings now they could not defeat him sauron if he regathered his strength one more time could defeat elves men and dwarves in open war he thought he had an infallible plan as the one ring made its bearer greedy for it he could not conceive that one would ever destroy it if ever it was even found after the death of a seal door thus sauron waited for a majority of the age in dolgodor and the east while the numenorean kings faded from the world while the elves left these shores and the dwarves delved greedily all while his servants searched for the one rank though he had had great victories from the shadows waiting on the weakening of the west while the ring remained hidden such as the fall of the north kingdom and the end of the kings of gondor two more things surprised sauron that would weaken his advances among other things the coming of the wizards and the appearance of beings called hobbits in the greater events of the world he did not know just how detrimental these things would be to his victory gandalf would be a hindrance forcing him into the east and later from dolgodor back to mordor but sauron mitigated this somewhat by turning sauron to his side making him a useful servant but by the end of the age and sauron's return to mordor with the gathering of his forces among men and orcs he thought that regardless of where the one ring was and who found it he could crush the free peoples in open war and even if they had found the one ring likely aragorn would attempt to use it against him as that is what sauron himself would have elected to do had he been in aragorn's position and even then if sauron was defeated by aragorn he would still win in the end as his one ring would endure and again the notion of hobbits had never really entered the mind of sauron before as he could never have conceived of beings of such simplicity humility and resilience who would come along and attempt to destroy his ring in the end thus he believed in his arrogance that he could crush the west with his massive armies since there were no great elves or numenoreans like there had been in the second age he thought none would have the capability to destroy the one ring but as we know the willpower and fate of the west overcame every strategy he had no matter how brilliant they had been just as the greater powers of arda had defeated morgoth i believe some subtle interventions of the valar and louvitar as well as just the fate of arda aided in the fall of sauron as well and so it was that though sauron had many plans throughout the ages and adjusted his strategies it was the will of many more beings of good that heroes would rise and defeat the mighty sauron sauron faced the same fate as his old master melkor despite their similarities and differences thus we come to the end of our tale on how the plans of sauron changed throughout the ages from this tale we see that despite how tactful and strategic ideas can be morality and virtue factor into such things and determine their outcomes thank you all so much for watching i hope you all enjoyed this middle earth explained video if you did please be sure to hit that like button and share this with a friend what are your thoughts questions additions and corrections on all of this let me know in the comments below i'm really fascinated by this topic and it was interesting to look at plots through the evil eyes of sauron thank you to our valor tier patrons adrian de la tour chris ortner kal wetzel peter shepard jonathan putnam mark kralick blair scouten merton john hume jennifer woods sam ecb matt sabatch quantum catalyst elizabeth calvert maz gibbs ben gardner kondar and rhys jenkins thank you all so much and thanks to all of our patrons please subscribe and hit that bell button to join the men of the west and all of the free peoples today and i'll see you all again next week with an epic character history on theodin king my friends thank you all so much for joining me on this adventure until the next one

Channel: Men of the West

Views: 69,448

Keywords: Annatar, LOTRonPrime, Lord of the Rings, Lore, Melkor, Men of the West, Middle-earth, Middle-earth Explained, Sauron, Silmarillion, Tolkien, Yoystan

Id: vGA4mnuqMtk

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 17 2021