The Lord of the Rings from Sauron's perspective

we read the Lord of the Rings mostly from the perspective of the members of the fellowship but what was sauron's perspective on what happened what did he know when did he know it and what did he do about it hi everyone this is Robert welcome to indeep geek on this channel we cover the Lord of the Rings in nerdy detail as well as A Song of Ice and Fire And The Witcher if you're new to the channel welcome reading the Lord of the Rings with an eye to sinon's perspective is a sobering business siron is not just a two-dimensional bad guy there's a lot going on there and you can't fully understand his actions in the story without understanding a bit about his background and what he'd been doing before the story started let's start with the buildup to the war of the ring for most of the third age Saron was lying low rebuilding his strength as the Necromancer in dulur in South markwood the problem was that he didn't have the one ring anymore he had poured so much of himself into that ring that without it he lost for a long time his ability to form a physical body gandal and the wise eventually worked out that he was there at do galur and finally chased him out in the year 2941 of the third age that's around 78 years or so before the main events of the Lord of the Rings he headed back to Mordor which had been prepared for him by the Nazgul and declared himself again 10 years later he hadn't been doing nothing during those long Millennia of the third age though his Focus had ever been on finding and reclaiming the rings of power particularly the one ring and destroying The Heirs of elendil his Nemesis he may not have been able to do all of this personally but he had plenty of minions to do it for him the witch King the leader of the Nazgul played a huge role during that time destroying the northern kingdom of aror and hugely weakening the southern Kingdom of Gondor sauron's presence alone seems to have slowly turned Greenwood the great into merkwood and and his growing strength the finding of the One Ring by golum and the ongoing effect of the Seven Dwarf Rings seems to have roused evil across the land the bog in Moria the dragons in the north particularly Smog and the Goblins in the Misty Mountains San was also slowly falling he was searching for the one ring for himself for many years and In The Year 3,000 of the third age he started using the orank stone the pener and Sauron used that as an opportunity to insnap him the leader of the white Council of the wise corrupted as a result of all this as the events of the Lord of the Ring started Saron will have thought that he was in quite a strong position the elves were much diminished their numbers had been falling steadily as they departed for the West humans were divided and the noble inheritance of numor had been watered down the air of isildur if there even was still an air of isur was long since vanished San was compromised the blue Wizards Fallen the dwarves were a shadow of their former strength after repeated Dragon Goblin and bog attacks and his own forces had been building up year after year in Mordor and to the east and south yes Sauron will have been feeling very confident granted the one ring was still out there somewhere and he still had enemies but his army was stronger than them and time was on his side and he gained a crucial lead to where the ring might be when golum instinctively drawn by sauron's presence saon was of course of the same Essence as the one ring remember snuck into Mordor and was captured under torture Gollum screamed out the words Baggins and Shire these words meant nothing to saon but he had a cunning plan he released Gollum we find out why in The Book of Unfinished Tales Sauron perceived the depth of gollum's malice towards those that had robbed him and and guessing that he would go in search of them to avenge himself saon hoped that his spies would thus be led to the ring I do wonder whether there's also an element here of Sauron as a Maya sensing that Gollum had a role to play in the future of the Ring Gandalf had that same sense after all siron may not have known that Gollum would accidentally fall into the cracks of Doom while holding the ring but he did know that Gollum would never give up trying to get the ring and would never intent Ally destroy it anyway it's clear that sauron's priority now was to get the ring he knew it was out there somewhere in the world and events were starting to move quickly perhaps counterintuitively his first move was to attack osgiliath the ancient capital of Gondor he wasn't intending to provoke a full War at this point but it served his purposes to test gondor's defenses and secure a route across the anduin river Sauron was surprised by the strength of G door's defenses which probably delayed the start of the war proper by a few months while he built up his forces even further but the other reason for this sorty was to keep everyone thinking that his Focus was on the environs of Mordor disguising the fact that he then sent out the nine nasgul to search for the One Ring the nasgul were his most trusted and most dangerous agents which shows how important he thought that mission was but it's worth noting that although some of the wise noted what was going on to the general population they were just Black Riders undercover this was a secret mission to be fair to the nazal they were pretty effective in this Mission there's an argument that if they had been sent just a day earlier they would have succeeded that's how close they got on the route to the Shire they also managed to discover that saran was not as loyal to Saron as he pretended and on the 23rd of September 318 they discovered and entered the Shire itself the next few days are a matter of being always just a few hours or minutes behind Frodo and Co and it's worth giving a shout out here to my favorite triumvirate of underrated heroes in this story farmer maggot Fred gar buer and bman butterer who each in their own ways told the nasgul to be off to their face they each deserve a medal Saron it should be said didn't know anything about this at the time contrary to what you may think he seems not to have been in constant telepathic communication with them indeed he resorted to sending a messenger to them at one point but the Nazgul were doing a reasonable job they finally caught up with the ring bearer at weathertop must have thought that they had the victory when they stabbed Frodo with the morgal blade but glorfindel Aragon's bravery and elon's Magic won through the Black Riders were washed away and at an unknown date later they arrived back at Mordor and reported to saon this left saon with a big strategic decision to make he knew the One Ring had arrived in rivendel and that it had been in the possession of The Hobbit but now who knew where it was tolken is really perceptive in his character-driven narrative here Sauron was always convinced that our heroes would try to use his ring against him why wouldn't they it was so powerful the idea that they might want to destroy it never really crossed his mind Saron simply couldn't conceptualize someone not wanting to take power when it was within their grasp so sauron's Focus was on preventing them using it against him rather than preventing them from destroying It Anyway the fellowship set out from rivendel a couple of months later there's a hint that Saron may have been behind the snowstorm when the fellowship tried to cross the Misty Mountains I know the movies were clear it was sarahan but the book suggest it was either Saron or the anthropomorphized mountain kadras personally I do like the idea that it was Saron on Gandalf definitely thinks it is possible and it would make strategic sense for him to cut off the west of Middle Earth from the East buying himself some time although on a more practical level the fellowship trying to cross a high mountain range in mid January that's asking for trouble but during this time saon doesn't know where the ring is exactly it got to Rivendell that much he does know and then what he is convinced that anyone who got their hands on it would try to use it against him and he has learned that his Earth while Ally Saran is not quite as loyal as he had thought so what does he do he could send the nasgul back out again but any idea that they might be Incognito Black Riders has now gone so he instead gives them improved flying steeds and keeps them closer to home to command his army when it went into the field against Gondor and he sends out orc War bands to hunt for the ring the fight between the Orcs And The uro over Mar and Pippen was this sauron's own forces not trusting Sans there's a complex game of bluff and Double Bluff going on here Sauron knew that saran wasn't really on his side but Saran didn't know that Saron knew so both sides carried on for a while as if everything was okay Saron then seems to have been jogged into further action by a couple of Hobbits doing rather rash things first in escaping Boromir trying to take the ring Frodo put it on faen enough but he then sat down in an ancient stone chair at the top of Ammon hen it was an ancient seat of farseeing and he gazed right at Mordor the eye of saon searched for him but Frodo took off the ring before he could be spotted saon knew then that something was happening someone had put on the ring but not exactly who or where then less than 2 weeks later Pippin gazed into the orank stone the paler that sah man had had and S Sauron saw him Sauron knew that a hobbit had the one ring and knew that saran was searching for the one ring and now he saw a Hobbit at orank so The Logical conclusion was that Pippin was the ring bearer or was a prisoner of Saran who now had the one ring himself a day later Aragon used the same orank Stone and as before Sauron was on the other end of the line the two of them had a battle of wills and Aragon revealed his ident to Sauron showing him elendil sword that had cut the one ring from Sauron three Millennia earlier and was now reforged the meaning was clear in isildur's hands that sword had defeated him now Aragon had had it reforged so it could be used again to Sauron this was tantamount to a declaration of war Sauron now will have been desperately trying to put these pieces of the jigsaw together Hobbit had the ring he was at author thank and so was iso's Heir who was now out of the blue challenging him surely this meant that the one ring was now with Aragon iso's Heir and Aragon's show of bravado suggested that he was already falling into the Ring's power the logical place for Aragon to go if he did want to challenge saon was Min tith the capital and Main stronghold of Gondor and sure enough he did go there Sauron was not the kind of person to just sit around and wait for his enemies to get into position though he set to strike immediately the attack was no rush defensive though it had been years in the planning in particular saon had sought to undermine gondor's defenses by weakening denior resolve through the palent showing him quite how unoosa moral forces were that's why denior took his own life as The Siege was starting saon had made him think that victory was impossible but for the arrival of our hero Gondor would have been thrown into disarray and despair by the untimely death of its leader March the 10th was the dawnless day darkness had spread from Mordor the black gate opened and the witch king of angmar LED forth the morgal host elsewhere armies attacked lothlorian merkwood and Rohan to keep gondor's potential allies busy he sent forces to seize the crossings over the anduin and another to guard the main road from Rohan to Gondor the Corsair of Amber were raiding the south coast of Gondor as well preventing minth from calling all its banners saon was taking no chances the battle of the pelenor fields itself was a pretty close-run thing with the help of grond the great battering ram and fronted by the witch King sinon's forces breached Minister's Walls Within hours then Rohan came to gondor's Aid and Aragon attacked from the south both of those things shouldn't have happened from Saron perspective he was not to know that thein would strike a deal with the woses to take a shortcut through their forest or that Aragorn would go through the paths of the dead and recruit a ghostly Army to scare off his allies he also wasn't to know that a hobbit would be on the field of battle with an ancient Enchanted blade and a fierce Female warrior to Vanquish the witch King but for all that From sauron's perspective the loss didn't actually matter Aragon had been flushed out gondor's defend is crushed and only a remnant of Gondor and rohan's combined Army survived and Saron had an even larger host back in moral any lingering doubt he might have had about Aragon having the one ring was eliminated when Aragon inexplicably and rashly as far as Saron could see took that much depleted Army and marched on Mordor surely only a Madman or one driven mad for power by the one ring would try something so foolish now around this time Frodo was stung by sheilo and captured by the Orcs of kirth angol his mithal shirt Elvin cloak and Sam's short sword were taken and shown to Sauron which prompts some to wonder how saon didn't then realize what was going on but again from sauron's perspective he has found a hobbit who conspicuously didn't have the ring remember Sam took it and had heard reports of a mighty elf Warrior for that's how Sam appeared to them the obvious conclusion given by now he's convinced that Aragon has the ring is that these are spies anyway Aragon soon has his attention by marching on moral as far as Saron is concerned now this is just a matter of defeating that Army reclaiming the one ring from Aragon's dead body and all Middle Earth would be at his Mercy he tries a little diplomacy before the end sending the mouth of saon to try to persuade Aragon to just give up but he didn't care whether it worked or not Aragon's force was out numbered 10:1 the climax of The Lord of the Rings feels therefore like grasping Victory from the jaws of defeat gandal and Aragorn were very clear that they were probably riding to their deaths but for saon it was the other way around as his forces surrounded Aragon he will have felt that victory was finally his after 3,000 years of waiting and planning The Heirs of Al lendel will be finally vanquished and the ring his once more saon will have been savoring his victory sending the mouth of saaron out was surely as much about gloating and taunting as it was trying to give Aragon a way out of a battle he would surely lose Saron was toying with his enemy and then he senses the ring being put on in Mount Doom and everything changes he issues a last gasp order to the Nazgul to fly back and help they wheel around on their fell beasts and make for orodruin but it is too late Panic fear death desperation and then finally Destruction for just a few moments or minutes before the ring was destroyed saaron knew that he had been wrong not everyone would want to use the ring for their own power and Glory yes Frodo succumbed at the very very end but he and Sam made it that far and fate or Providence or the intervention of U himself did the rest some people are capable of selfless and purely good acts it wasn't just just Sauron who fell it was his entire worldview hope and love and care and friendship can triumph over evil however powerful it may seem at the time if you'd like to see more videos diving deep into the world of The Lord of the Rings there's a playlist on the left of your screen now or to support this channel the best way to do that is via my patreon page there's a link appearing now on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching I'll see you again again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

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Id: iU9FEimgsRw

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024