XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jon.lennart.beck.its.my.name@mail.its.in.danmark   
      
   "Stan Brown"  skrev i meddelelsen   
   news:MPG.29f727a476f7d34398d6b4@news.individual.net...   
      
   > 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."   
      
      I agree with this.  Story-internally, it is not at all surprising that   
   Sauron ignored the danger that eventually achieved his downfall: that   
   someone might actually reach Sammath Naur with the Ring, and might actually   
   seek to destroy it rather than coveting and claiming it, like he coveted and   
   laid claim to anything that might increase his power.   
      In Tolkien's world evil springs to a great degree from pride, or   
   vainglory, that I suppose elicits a sort of self-imposed delusion and   
   myopia.  "I look at myself, and at me and myself, and I find myself very   
   entitled.  Verily this is a pleasant belief, so I choose it and live and   
   believe it."  Sauron could be seen as a sort of magical super-Breivik,   
   perhaps, to compare with certain current events.   
      And so Sauron did things based on beliefs that must have run counter to   
   his experience.  He would hardly have been so evil, or at least exercised   
   his evil far more modestly, if he had kept in mind his very own memories,   
   his knowledge of Ilúvatar and the Valar.   
      None of the Ainur knew Eru fully, of course; this is stated beyond much   
   doubt in the Silmarillíon.  In the Valaquenta: "...Manwë is dearest to   
   Ilúvatar and understands most clearly his purposes."  But Sauron, like   
   Melkor, did have personal experience with the Creator God.  Therefore, even   
   if he had concluded that the Valar had pulled back from Middle-earth - which   
   they actually largely had - I find it difficult to believe that he did not   
   know this at least: there was a greater and personal power that had created   
   all, himself included, and would one day end it all, when the story be   
   full-wrought.   
      Yet he fell into a habit of thinking himself greatest of all and   
   absolutely entitled; and whatever he desired to have he deserved to have.   
   It is to me not surprising that on the tactical level as well as on the   
   fundamental one he made misjudgements, springing from a fundamental   
   overestimation of his own greatness and strength.   
      
   Hræfn.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)