XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm   
      
   On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:09:51 -0700, JG Miller wrote:   
   >   
   > On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:53:04 +0200, Geza Giedke    
   > wrote:   
   > >But why not spare half a dozen orcs - or maybe even Men (who are   
   > >slightly less likely to kill each other while nobody is looking) - to   
   > >guard the entrance to the core of his realm and his most vulnerable spot?   
   > >   
   > >Of course, that this was his most vulnerable spot was so alien to his   
   > >thought that it did not even enter his darkest dreams, according to   
   > >Gandalf. Maybe Sauron should have looked for a better therapist to make   
   > >sure he had some real nightmares occasionally.   
   >   
   > Or park a Nazgul 24/7 in front of the Cracks.  He had eight to spare   
   > for most of the War.   
   >   
   > The explanation by Gandalf really reeks of plot hole-filling.  We have   
   > to believe that Sauron was super-intelligent and a rational   
   > strategist, having orchestrated a massive compaign to reclaim the Ring   
   > across a couple millennia.  Such a being uses readily available   
   > resources to cover even unlikely contingencies, if their fruition   
   > means utter failure and destruction.   
      
   And yet great evil geniuses in the real world had surprising  blind   
   spots.  Napoleon was master of Europe and much of the non-European   
   world, and was generally popular at home.  Yet for some reason he   
   took on the impossible task of conquering Russia, and destroyed his   
   empire in the process.   
      
   Hitler may not have been popular in the early 1940s, but he was not   
   universally hated, and he had Germany well in hand, and he was the   
   master of all of Europe.  If he had invaded the UK instead of Russia,   
   his reich would have been secure.  But somehow he had a blind spot on   
   that point, invaded an empire that was his natural ally, and in the   
   process destroyed his own empire.   
      
   So I don't have any trouble believing Sauron was incapable of   
   imagining that anyone would seek to destroy the Ring.  Outside of the   
   real-world analogies, in Tolkien's world one of the themes is that   
   evil sets itself up for destruction: "oft evil will shall evil mar."   
      
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