Why had Sauron not heard of the Shire?

why had sauron not heard of the shire the nazgul spent a long time searching for it but it had existed for centuries by then was its location really such a big secret hi everyone this is robert welcome to in deep geek on this channel we cover the best in science fiction and fantasy books and tv shows the lord of the rings the song of ice and fire the witcher and so on if you like the sound of that there's a subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen it's one of the most nagging questions in the lord of the rings how did sauron not know where the shire was the nazgul were sent out seeking the shire but it took them a while to track it down a delay that ultimately proved vital the black riders arrived at bag end just as frodo was leaving if they had arrived the previous day or even a few hours earlier they would have caught frodo alone in bag end with the ring and no one to protect him gandalf was off in rohan and they hadn't met aragorn yet so why didn't sauron know about the shire it's 20 000 square miles big well let's start by going back to the year 105.0 of the third age after his defeat at the end of the second age when the ring was cut from his finger sauron lost his ability to take on a physical form when he resurfaced in 105-0 under the disguise of the necromancer it was to take up residence in southern merkwood he was biding his time regaining his strength and powers but obviously his main focus was on finding the one ring the choice of dolgoldur in mirkwood was not a coincidence the ring was last seen in the gladden fields in the anduin river valley just to the west of merkwood sauron sent his minions scouring the land around there to find it he was right to think it was there of course that's where deagle and schmiegel found it much later although schmiegel becoming gollum took it westwards into the misty mountains rather than eastwards into murkwood and it is gollum we can thank for telling sauron about baggins and the shire sometime after bilbo had taken the ring from gollum or the ring decided to abandon gollum and attach itself to bilbo if you prefer gollum started trying to track bilbo tracing his route through merkwood as far as dale and the lonely mountain and then back again through merkwood he took his time listened spied and crept and eventually learned that at the end of his adventure bilbo had set off home again to the shire sauron was at that time calling and tugging at all dark things drawing them to mordor and gollum forever bonded to the ring even when he didn't possess it found himself heading south and east he was captured tortured and sauron eventually learned that the one ring was in the shire gollum must have told him still more of the story for sauron sent an emissary to the lonely mountain to the dwarves who had been with bilbo and his adventure seeking information about a hobbit who was a thief the dwarves obviously didn't say anything and sauron's usual network of spies were being disrupted by a combination of the dunadane rangers and sarah mann who was secretly working against sauron to find the ring for himself so sauron sent the black riders out to continue the hunt on horseback and it's clear they had literally no idea where the shire was they searched the veils of anduin which is a reasonable place to start but the shire wasn't there so they went to isengard to ask sarah mann he told them only gandalf knew where the shire was and gandalf had just escaped him so they headed into rohan to hunt for gandalf they instead found grima wormtongue who begged for his life to be spared and gave them directions to the shire he basically told them at the same time that sarah mann was double crossing sauron which is obviously plot important but in terms of the hunt for the shire it meant that the black riders were now able to head straight for their destination happily for them even encountering another of sarah mann's spies on route and relieving him of his map and description of the shire so it was that kamul one of the nazgul entered hobbiton on the 23rd of september 3018 in the third age seeking baggins the very day frodo left it was a very very close run thing if the dunadane rangers holding the sun forward had not held the mazdal back for the few hours they did or if sarah man hadn't lied to them or if they had happened slightly earlier upon grima when searching for gandalf or had any one of dozens of other small details been slightly different they would have got to hobbiton in time but the biggest difference of course would have been if saron or any of his advisors knew where the shire was when he first heard of it from gollum a few years earlier so why didn't he know well the first part of the answer is probably the most straightforward it was such a backwater in middle-earth life and politics that it wasn't just sauron who hadn't heard of it almost no one had at least no one east of the misty mountains that mountain range really did cut middle earth in two there were very few passes and people and information rarely passed either way treebeard had never heard of the shire the trolls bilbo encountered didn't know what hobbits were smaug didn't and so on the shire was self-governing didn't engage in geopolitics and hobbits rarely ventured out beyond their borders it was a rural backwater so that's the first reason the second is that the shire had been protected the ranges of the north that dunadane had taken seriously their inheritance of protecting the settlements of the former kingdom of arnor even generations after the kingdom fell they did this in secret so no one knew that there was a protective force around the shire and debris and places like that but if any evil or wild creature came close it was dealt with swiftly so although dwarves and men and even elves and wizards sometimes passed through or nearby none of sauron's allies ever did or lived to return to tell others this protection was only increased over time and focused ever more around the shire in particular as gandalf became more and more concerned about the magic ring bilbo had found third there are hints dotted around tolkien's writings that the shire and hobbits weren't just a random rural backwater but something more gandalf mentions in passing that there is a power in rivendell to withstand the might of mordor for a while and elsewhere other powers still dwell there is power too of another kind in the shire gandalf doesn't elaborate on this but it's hard not to note how gandalf who sees things and understands things that few others in middle earth do has a particular soft spot for the shire and hobbits he visits their much more regularly than you might expect for such an obscure part of the world and it's hard not to notice how the hobbits and their kin frodo bilbo sam even smeagol given the length of time he had the ring have an innate resistance to its power perhaps hobbits as distant cousins of humans one of the children of a louvitar and that part which did not succumb to the lust for power other humans did and many elves did too are special in some way and perhaps there also is something to the fact that their land was bordered by tom bombadil's domain which definitely did have some impressive and bewildering defenses but an exploration of his particular role and powers is beyond the scope of this video i have done a video on him if you're interested there so the shire was protected and hidden by geography the hobbit's lack of engagement with the outside world the rangers and perhaps some power of its own as gandalf hints and there's one other twist or irony to this story sauron couldn't find the ring because it was in the shire and he didn't know where that was but the shire only existed because saron was looking for the ring let me explain way back when sauron first started looking for the ring and he set up base in dolgodur he sent his minions to scour the veils of anduin and the shadow started to grow in the area the residents of the anduin valley at this point were a short homely race of people who later became known as hobbits fearful of this new threat and always wanting a safe easy life they slowly emigrated on mass westwards and after a few centuries in the year 1601 of the third age they settled in the area that became known as the shire so it really was sauron's own remorseless searching for the ring that led to it ending up in the one place he didn't know to look or even know where it was but for sauron the shire would never have even existed if you'd like to see more lord of the rings videos please click on the link on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this channel or get access to some content i produce exclusively for my patrons please click on the link on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching and i'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 938,659

Keywords: in deep geek, deep geek, lotr, lord of the rings, the lord of the rings, tolkien, jrr tolkien, middle earth, shire, the shire, was the shire, sauron, protected, hidden

Id: c7QLNqf4TtI

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021