The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
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Here's a question for you Josh,
In LOTR why is Sauron so evil? Does he have a motive to take over middle earth or?
Also, the race of Orcs, why they always be so bad? Why didn't they split after Sauron was defeated?
Stupid questions, I know. Have always wondered though.
In LOTR why is Sauron so evil? Does he have a motive to take over middle earth or?
Also, the race of Orcs, why they always be so bad? Why didn't they split after Sauron was defeated?
Stupid questions, I know. Have always wondered though.
If I recall correctly, the orcs were once elves that were taken by Sauron and beaten and battered until they forgot who they were and became a race all their own. But a more knowledgeable Tolkein fan would probably know more 
Here's a question for you Josh,
In LOTR why is Sauron so evil? Does he have a motive to take over middle earth or?
Also, the race of Orcs, why they always be so bad? Why didn't they split after Sauron was defeated?
Well, he wasn't evil to start with. He's actually a Maiar and started off a good guy, but he was drawn to Melkor who was a bad guy. Sauron also wanted order and things to go as he wanted them to go. So long story short he gets corrupted and becomes what we see and read about.
As the person above me said Orcs were created by evil and from there populated Middle-earth. After Sauron's defeat they went about their business but it was done in the sneaky way we see Orcs do things. As Sauron started to come back they showed themselves more.
Radagaster
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Orcs were once elves corrupted by Melkor.
On a side note, if there's a great movie review that ties both books with chronological info, it's this one:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/dislike-peter-jacksons-em_b_2342591.html
On a side note, if there's a great movie review that ties both books with chronological info, it's this one:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/dislike-peter-jacksons-em_b_2342591.html
Radagaster
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Anyone try to read The Silmarillion?
Tried in eigth grade. Big failure on my part. Wasn't able to get past the first chapter.
Tried it as well. Had to go the audio book route, which helped digest the book, plus puts the correct emphasis in what's written where needed. Otherwise I would be stumbling into long sentences without getting the gist had I stuck to reading.
Radagaster
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One thing that's thrown me off to date: Why did Sauron covet the other rings if he already had the One Ring? What would owning the other rings do for him, since he could control the owners of the others through the One Ring??
Right? Oh man, one sentence was as long as a paragraph. After that I would be like ... "What the **** did I read?"
Anyhow, I'm tempted to pick it up and have at it. Again.
Well, he put everything into that one ring. So after he did that he didn't need to and probably couldn't to be honest. It gave him the ability to control and corrupt those wearing the rings. They would be turned into slaves of Sauron much like the Ringwraiths did. The Elves could feel Sauron and so after they realized it was Sauron they took them off. The sickness you see from Thror at the start of The Hobbit was because of the Dwarf ring he received.
Anyone try to read The Silmarillion?
Tried in eigth grade. Big failure on my part. Wasn't able to get past the first chapter.
Read it cover to cover last year.
Correct.
I linked that article in the movie thread. I agree with the article as a whole.
After he was defeated he needed to draw all the power he could to himself. It would probably along with the one ring would allow him to create enough energy to retake physical form.
He never was able to control the Dwarves through the rings so that's why he took them back. Yes the rings did influence the dwarves but mainly it made them want gold and riches even more and make them more secluded by mining further and further in the mountains. He never had the full control over their will as he did with the 9 rings of men. He probably realized that he couldn't control them from afar so by taking all the rings back he could have his complete power back in his bodily form.
edit: I'd love to actually see how PJ would show Sauron as Annatar deceiving the Elves to forge the rings. His "fair" form.
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roguebaron
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Anyone try to read The Silmarillion?
Read it a few years back, you need to force yourself through about the first 100 pages or so, until everything starts to make sense, then it's actually a decent read. Quite enjoyed it once I got it finished with.
TD-0488
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At the time of the war of the rings...Sauron did have a physical form...
From the Encyclopedia of Arda...
Sauron was a Maia, and in his early career this meant that he had the ability to change shape at will: in the First Age, he seems to have had a generally human form (he's variously described as smiling, laughing, standing and so on), though in his battle with Huan he was able to shift freely between the forms of a wolf, a serpent and a flying vampire. In the Second Age, during the time when the Rings of Power were made, he took on the semblance of a noble teacher. However, his shape-changing abilities were not limitless, and after the Downfall of Númenor they were severely curtailed:
'...he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men...' (1)
After his defeat in the War of the Last Alliance, things became even worse for him, and he lost his physical form altogether:
'...he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and hid in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many long years.' (2)
This was in the last year of the Second Age. The story of The Lord of the Rings is set more than three thousand years later, in the closing years of the Third Age, but that book includes only the slightest hints of a description of Sauron. No doubt Tolkien kept Sauron in the shadows for good dramatic reasons, leaving it to the reader's imagination to create something darker and more fearsome than a mere description could convey. This literary device has left behind something of a puzzle: what actually did Sauron look like? For that matter, did he have any kind of physical body at all?
The question is made more complicated by the recurrence of the image of the Red Eye, which often appears to signify Sauron. In some places, this is clearly used as a symbol, but in others it actually seems to be - at least partially - a physical description. This is the Eye that Frodo saw in the Mirror of Galadriel:
'The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.' (3)
This has led more than a few readers to interpret the Eye absolutely literally, to the point where Sauron is imagined simply as a burning eyeball. The most notable of these readers, of course, is Peter Jackson, who used the motif of the glowing eye throughout his trilogy of movies. Indeed, at one point in the movie The Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman explicitly states of Sauron that 'he cannot yet take physical form' (though nothing comparable to this appears in the book).
This isn't an unreasonable position to take. There are numerous references to the Red Eye as a symbol for Sauron, and in places it's difficult to tell where the symbol ends and the physical description begins. For example:
'The Red Eye will be looking towards Isengard.' (4)
On the other hand, there are several references to 'the red eye' that clearly have nothing to do with Sauron at all. There's an example of this in the following quote, where the 'red eye' is in the Tower of Cirith Ungol:
'Now the orc-tower was right above him, frowning black, and in it the red eye glowed.' (6)
Here, the idea of the red eye embodies the unsleeping watchfulness of Mordor, and has no direct relation to Sauron. In fact, there are reasons to think that the capitalised 'Red Eye' is simply an extension of this metaphor. For example, speaking of Sauron's fingers, Gollum - who has apparently seen the Dark Lord with his own eyes - says:
'He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough.' (5)
It follows that if Sauron has a Black Hand, he cannot merely be a Red Eye. There seems to be at least one metaphor in use here. Actually, there is quite a weight of evidence within The Lord of the Rings that Sauron had some kind of physical form:
'...if the Nameless One himself should come, not even he could enter here while we yet live.' (7)
'And the prisoner is to be kept safe and intact ... until He [Sauron] sends or comes Himself.' (6)
'He [Sauron] will not come save only to triumph over me when all is won.' (7)
The characters who say these lines (including his own Orcs) all seem to believe that Sauron could easily travel from one place to another. In particular, Aragorn seems to believe that Sauron not only has a physical form, but that it would be possible to do harm to that form:
'Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice shall be done upon him.' (8)
Curiously, this line was used word-for-word in the movie version of The Return of the King, despite the fact that Sauron was depicted there as an apparently immobile glowing eye.
If we move to Tolkien's letters, it becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that Sauron did, indeed, have a physical shape. For instance, there's a reference there to:
'...the year 1000 of the Third Age, when the shadow of Sauron began first to grow again to new shape.' (9)
The War of the Ring started in the year 3018 of the Third Age - it's hard to imagine that after more than two thousand years, Sauron still hadn't formed a new shape for himself. There's another reference among Tolkien's letters that goes even further, to the extent that it effectively settles the discussion:
'Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic.' (10)
This is from a letter specifically discussing the events at the end of The Lord of the Rings, so there's really no question that it describes Sauron as Tolkien saw him then. In fact, it seems that the huge armoured Sauron that appears at the beginning of the movie The Fellowship of the Ring probably fits Tolkien's vision rather better than the image of a glowing eye.
Sources
1 The Silmarillion: Akallabêth
2 The Silmarillion: Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age
3 The Fellowship of the Ring II 7, The Mirror of Galadriel
4 The Two Towers III 9, Flotsam & Jetsam
5 The Two Towers IV 3, The Black Gate is Closed
6 The Two Towers IV 10, The Choices of Master Samwise
7 The Return of the King V 4, The Siege of Gondor
8 The Return of the King V 10, The Black Gate Opens
9 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 144, dated 1954
10 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 246, dated 1963
From the Encyclopedia of Arda...
Sauron was a Maia, and in his early career this meant that he had the ability to change shape at will: in the First Age, he seems to have had a generally human form (he's variously described as smiling, laughing, standing and so on), though in his battle with Huan he was able to shift freely between the forms of a wolf, a serpent and a flying vampire. In the Second Age, during the time when the Rings of Power were made, he took on the semblance of a noble teacher. However, his shape-changing abilities were not limitless, and after the Downfall of Númenor they were severely curtailed:
'...he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men...' (1)
After his defeat in the War of the Last Alliance, things became even worse for him, and he lost his physical form altogether:
'...he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and hid in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many long years.' (2)
This was in the last year of the Second Age. The story of The Lord of the Rings is set more than three thousand years later, in the closing years of the Third Age, but that book includes only the slightest hints of a description of Sauron. No doubt Tolkien kept Sauron in the shadows for good dramatic reasons, leaving it to the reader's imagination to create something darker and more fearsome than a mere description could convey. This literary device has left behind something of a puzzle: what actually did Sauron look like? For that matter, did he have any kind of physical body at all?
The question is made more complicated by the recurrence of the image of the Red Eye, which often appears to signify Sauron. In some places, this is clearly used as a symbol, but in others it actually seems to be - at least partially - a physical description. This is the Eye that Frodo saw in the Mirror of Galadriel:
'The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.' (3)
This has led more than a few readers to interpret the Eye absolutely literally, to the point where Sauron is imagined simply as a burning eyeball. The most notable of these readers, of course, is Peter Jackson, who used the motif of the glowing eye throughout his trilogy of movies. Indeed, at one point in the movie The Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman explicitly states of Sauron that 'he cannot yet take physical form' (though nothing comparable to this appears in the book).
This isn't an unreasonable position to take. There are numerous references to the Red Eye as a symbol for Sauron, and in places it's difficult to tell where the symbol ends and the physical description begins. For example:
'The Red Eye will be looking towards Isengard.' (4)
On the other hand, there are several references to 'the red eye' that clearly have nothing to do with Sauron at all. There's an example of this in the following quote, where the 'red eye' is in the Tower of Cirith Ungol:
'Now the orc-tower was right above him, frowning black, and in it the red eye glowed.' (6)
Here, the idea of the red eye embodies the unsleeping watchfulness of Mordor, and has no direct relation to Sauron. In fact, there are reasons to think that the capitalised 'Red Eye' is simply an extension of this metaphor. For example, speaking of Sauron's fingers, Gollum - who has apparently seen the Dark Lord with his own eyes - says:
'He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough.' (5)
It follows that if Sauron has a Black Hand, he cannot merely be a Red Eye. There seems to be at least one metaphor in use here. Actually, there is quite a weight of evidence within The Lord of the Rings that Sauron had some kind of physical form:
'...if the Nameless One himself should come, not even he could enter here while we yet live.' (7)
'And the prisoner is to be kept safe and intact ... until He [Sauron] sends or comes Himself.' (6)
'He [Sauron] will not come save only to triumph over me when all is won.' (7)
The characters who say these lines (including his own Orcs) all seem to believe that Sauron could easily travel from one place to another. In particular, Aragorn seems to believe that Sauron not only has a physical form, but that it would be possible to do harm to that form:
'Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice shall be done upon him.' (8)
Curiously, this line was used word-for-word in the movie version of The Return of the King, despite the fact that Sauron was depicted there as an apparently immobile glowing eye.
If we move to Tolkien's letters, it becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that Sauron did, indeed, have a physical shape. For instance, there's a reference there to:
'...the year 1000 of the Third Age, when the shadow of Sauron began first to grow again to new shape.' (9)
The War of the Ring started in the year 3018 of the Third Age - it's hard to imagine that after more than two thousand years, Sauron still hadn't formed a new shape for himself. There's another reference among Tolkien's letters that goes even further, to the extent that it effectively settles the discussion:
'Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic.' (10)
This is from a letter specifically discussing the events at the end of The Lord of the Rings, so there's really no question that it describes Sauron as Tolkien saw him then. In fact, it seems that the huge armoured Sauron that appears at the beginning of the movie The Fellowship of the Ring probably fits Tolkien's vision rather better than the image of a glowing eye.
Sources
1 The Silmarillion: Akallabêth
2 The Silmarillion: Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age
3 The Fellowship of the Ring II 7, The Mirror of Galadriel
4 The Two Towers III 9, Flotsam & Jetsam
5 The Two Towers IV 3, The Black Gate is Closed
6 The Two Towers IV 10, The Choices of Master Samwise
7 The Return of the King V 4, The Siege of Gondor
8 The Return of the King V 10, The Black Gate Opens
9 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 144, dated 1954
10 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 246, dated 1963
TD-0488
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Not all the dwarf rings were recovered by Sauron. Some were destroyed by dragons.
Sauron created the seven for dwarves and nine for men. He played no part in creating the three elvish. They were made by Celebrimor, son of Feanor.
Sauron created the seven for dwarves and nine for men. He played no part in creating the three elvish. They were made by Celebrimor, son of Feanor.
Yeah, I've always imagined Sauron had some kind of physical form. Something as simple as say what we saw of the Necromancer in The Hobbit.
Right not all of them were recovered. He didn't create the Elvish rings but he did show them how to create them. That is how he was able to even through his ring control them. He deceived the Elves and and taught them the skills needed.
Right not all of them were recovered. He didn't create the Elvish rings but he did show them how to create them. That is how he was able to even through his ring control them. He deceived the Elves and and taught them the skills needed.
TD-0488
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Yes, he did teach them. Another interesting read is a book called Morogoth's Ring. Basically tells how magic is in middle earth. It is where Melkor (he who arises in might) put his power in ME to control his building of great structures. This is the magic used to make the rings of power.
Which is one on the reasons Sauron is so powerful...Melkor gave he some of his power. The same with Gothmog, Glaurung ( the great worm), and Charoroth (sp) the great wolf.
Celebrimbor was great in creating, just as his father.
Explains why Gandolf is afraid of Sauron and did not want to come as a wizard. Manwe makes him leave Valinor and go to ME.
Which is one on the reasons Sauron is so powerful...Melkor gave he some of his power. The same with Gothmog, Glaurung ( the great worm), and Charoroth (sp) the great wolf.
Celebrimbor was great in creating, just as his father.
Explains why Gandolf is afraid of Sauron and did not want to come as a wizard. Manwe makes him leave Valinor and go to ME.
Sounds like an interesting book and I'll have to check it out sometime in the future. 
I agree it totally explains why Gandalf is fearful of Sauron and what would become of Middle-earth if he was left to take over.
I agree it totally explains why Gandalf is fearful of Sauron and what would become of Middle-earth if he was left to take over.
Snadinator
Super Freak
Strangely enough if Gandalf wore the one ring he would be more powerful than Sauron as he would be adding its power to his own. It would corrupt him eventually though.
Gandalf wields one of the elven rings of power. Narya. It is believed it gives him the power to inspire courage and hope in others.
Gandalf wields one of the elven rings of power. Narya. It is believed it gives him the power to inspire courage and hope in others.
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