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Whoa why do you jump to rear end in a top hat ? There isn’t any evidence he’s an rear end in a top hat.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:04
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euphronius posted:Whoa why do you jump to rear end in a top hat ? There isn’t any evidence he’s an rear end in a top hat. He tries to convince Gandalf and Aragorn that Frodo and Sam are dead.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:13
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sweet geek swag posted:He tries to convince Gandalf and Aragorn that Frodo and Sam are dead. Counterpoint: That proves he has no rear end in a top hat. We know he's all mouth, and thst shows he's full of poo poo. No doubt he just has a smooth distended bulge down there, like a constipated Ken doll.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:16
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sweet geek swag posted:He tries to convince Gandalf and Aragorn that Frodo and Sam are dead. Maybe Sauron told him they were?
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Aug 2, 2018 18:20
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sweet geek swag posted:He tries to convince Gandalf and Aragorn that Frodo and Sam are dead. Nah, just that he has a halfling spy imprisoned. Besides that’s just diplomacy. The only real slur against his character that the action bears out is that he’s really unreasonably rude. His opener about “wit to understand me” makes me laugh every time. e: euphronius posted:Maybe Sauron told him they were? I was wondering this as well actually: does he know that he is wrong to say they have a halfling spy imprisoned? Shagrat left Frodo locked up and guarded on the 14th, he reaches Lugburz on the 17th, the banter at the Black Gate happens on the 25th. It’s not as if Sauron couldn’t possibly have sent a force to Cirith Ungol to report back on whether the prisoner is still there, but the timing would be tightish (if it takes one uruk, albeit wounded, three days to make the journey, then eight days is not much time to get reconnaissance expedition there and back AND THEN send out the Mouth to the Black Gate — especially in the midst of a general mobilization of all the armies of Mordor). Mouth could be honestly wrong and not bullshitting. skasion fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 18:21
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What I'm wondering is what Sauron even thought Frodo/Sam were up to. Spying I guess, but what could he think the West could gain by that? It's no secret that Sauron has huge armies. What spying would there be to do? They're Hobbits, not Orcs or Men, so it's not like they could join his service as double agents. The extent of their spying would be limited purely to what they could observe by sneaking/watching. Just really goes to show how blind Sauron was to their plans because he should have had alarm bells going off in his mind the minute he learned there were enemies abroad in Mordor. It's fortuitous in the end that it was only Frodo/Sam in Mordor because if Aragorn or Legolas was there and the Orcs had spotted them and reported it to Sauron, that surely would have raised his ire more. Although to that point when Sam goes after Shagrat the ring (or perhaps the phial?) makes him look tall and menacing as he's searching the tower for Frodo, and it does so to such an extent that Shagrat panics and runs off rather than risk fighting him. So Shagrat then must have thought Sam was an elf or human warrior which begs the question of why Sauron wasn't more concerned about the possibility of his presence in Mordor once he heard Shagrat's tale. Although I guess it's possible that Sauron was worried about it and Tolkien just doesn't let us know
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Aug 2, 2018 21:39
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Shagrat assumes before he sees Sam that he’s an elf or a dunadan, just because nobody else could have broken past the watchers. Hard to say why that didn’t bother Sauron. Maybe he figured a more parsimonious explanation was a scared, wounded soldier jumping at shadows. e: alternatively, maybe he wasn’t worried because even if elves or men are kicking in the front door of Cirith Ungol, wtf are they even going to accomplish? He has no military weakness for them to spy on, he’s in the most secure fortification in the world and he probably can’t be assassinated by conventional means anyway, even if they do happen to get loose and run around Mordor it’s not like they can get back out in time to actually do Gondor any good. skasion fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 21:50
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skasion posted:Shagrat assumes before he sees Sam that he’s an elf or a dunadan, just because nobody else could have broken past the watchers. Hard to say why that didn’t bother Sauron. Maybe he figured a more parsimonious explanation was a scared, wounded soldier jumping at shadows. Or "hey, it's just a couple of assholes nosing around who cares I've got bigger fish to fry." Tolkien's very explicit all along that it never occurs to Sauron that anyone's going to try and destroy the Ring, so he's unlikely to think anyone sneaking around Cirith Ungol is doing anything other than spying and/or running the wrong way when chased by Shelob.
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Aug 2, 2018 22:49
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I think the orcs there explicitly theorize it's Gollum leading someone to their doom (which isn't wrong)
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Aug 3, 2018 00:05
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Runcible Cat posted:Or "hey, it's just a couple of assholes nosing around who cares I've got bigger fish to fry." Tolkien's very explicit all along that it never occurs to Sauron that anyone's going to try and destroy the Ring, so he's unlikely to think anyone sneaking around Cirith Ungol is doing anything other than spying and/or running the wrong way when chased by Shelob. And if Sauron thought for one second anyone would ever try to destroy the ring Mount Doom would be swarming with Orcs and Trolls no matter where the bulk of his armies were deployed or how many ways there were into Mordor. Nothing, not even the Eagles would be able to get within miles.
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Aug 3, 2018 00:20
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euphronius posted:Whoa why do you jump to rear end in a top hat ? There isn’t any evidence he’s an rear end in a top hat. J. R. R. Tolkien posted:“And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord’s favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc."
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Aug 3, 2018 01:34
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That’s all minimally informed claims made by the narrator who just mentioned that this stuff “is told” about him. Guy could be completely full of poo poo. Maybe the Mouth of Sauron was just a really sarcastic staffer from the Barad-dur press office and Sauron just sent him out to confuse them.
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Aug 3, 2018 01:39
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skasion posted:That’s all minimally informed claims made by the narrator who just mentioned that this stuff “is told” about him. Guy could be completely full of poo poo. Maybe the Mouth of Sauron was just a really sarcastic staffer from the Barad-dur press office and Sauron just sent him out to confuse them. 60+ years of interning at the failing!!! Lugburz Times (do many orcs know how to read?) would make anyone pretty sassy, I guess.
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Aug 3, 2018 01:55
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skasion posted:I mean that is exactly what it is. I seriously doubt he was writing it with Findegil in mind. The whole LOTR-as-composite-text thing is an ex post facto justification by Tolkien for the vast tonal changes across the book. Imagine him chuckling donnishly about it. To this day I nurse a 20-year-grudge against the English teacher who dismissed LotR as being full of simplistic grand narratives with no moral complexity. 17-year-old me was too stupid to present a counter-argument, sadly.
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Aug 3, 2018 02:48
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The Mouth discussion reminds me of something I hate about the movies: almost all the evil creatures being portrayed as complete monstars when there were plenty in the book who just looked like normal dudes.
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Aug 3, 2018 15:42
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sunday at work posted:And if Sauron thought for one second anyone would ever try to destroy the ring Mount Doom would be swarming with Orcs and Trolls no matter where the bulk of his armies were deployed or how many ways there were into Mordor. Nothing, not even the Eagles would be able to get within miles. Gandalf actually says this at some point in the books. He said the easiest way for Sauron to win would be to just turn man all the borders of Mordor with a ton of his troops. If Sauron had focused purely on doing that, and guarding all ways to Mount Doom, there would have been no hope. In fairness to Sauron though, the plan of bringing the ring to Mordor is practically suicidal. Getting past the Black Gate would have been pretty much impossible without resorting to using the Ring, and anybody that put the Ring on that close to Sauron would have been instantly detected. So that leaves Cirith Ungol which is guarded by the biggest terror in the world apart from Sauron and the Balrog. And if you somehow get past that, you have to travel across Mordor which is filled with troops at all times. Gandalf's plan to draw away the armies of Mordor is a brilliant one because if the West had just turtled in Minas Tirith again and waited for Frodo to win they might have had disaster since Frodo and Sam would have had a terrible time of sneaking around otherwise. So even if Sauron had considered that the West might try to destroy the ring, he probably could have felt pretty confident that such a plan would end in his favor even without bulking up Mordor's security.
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Aug 3, 2018 16:08
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Sauron was pretty justified in not considering the plan, because it relies on someone having possession of the ring, and then not only willfully discarding it, but destroying it. There are a number of people who are able to refuse to take the ring, but I think its an open question question whether they would also be able to give it up once they had carried it. Could Aragorn or Faramir still refuse the ring, once they had taken it up and carried it all the way to Orodruin? Even Frodo, who had carried the ring and was able to offer it up to someone else three times, balked at actually destroying it. I believe that Tolkien stresses (outside the text) that Frodo did as well as anyone else could have just bringing it to the mountain. Sauron likely knew this, and even if he considered that they might try to destroy it, he'd expect that their will would fail and all they would accomplish would be to bring it directly to his stronghold.
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Aug 3, 2018 16:26
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:The Mouth discussion reminds me of something I hate about the movies: almost all the evil creatures being portrayed as complete monstars when there were plenty in the book who just looked like normal dudes. Counterpoint: The Mouth's design in the movie is loving dope as hell. Other than him who else do you think was overdone? The men who attack Rohan are shown, and the Haradrim and Easterlings are not shown as anything other than dudes with weird taste in fashion.
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Aug 3, 2018 16:38
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Ashcans posted:Sauron was pretty justified in not considering the plan, because it relies on someone having possession of the ring, and then not only willfully discarding it, but destroying it. There are a number of people who are able to refuse to take the ring, but I think its an open question question whether they would also be able to give it up once they had carried it. Could Aragorn or Faramir still refuse the ring, once they had taken it up and carried it all the way to Orodruin? Even Frodo, who had carried the ring and was able to offer it up to someone else three times, balked at actually destroying it. I believe that Tolkien stresses (outside the text) that Frodo did as well as anyone else could have just bringing it to the mountain. Sauron likely knew this, and even if he considered that they might try to destroy it, he'd expect that their will would fail and all they would accomplish would be to bring it directly to his stronghold. Isildur's refusal to destroy the ring (and his ensuing death) is clearly meant to show that none of them could have thrown it into the fire in the end. They all know this and that's why they refuse to take the ring even once. Boromir being tempted to try and steal it (which also indirectly causes his death) is another reminder of this. It's because Frodo and Sam are comparatively meek that they're able to go as far they did.
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Aug 3, 2018 16:53
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I seem to remember at the time, people had an issue with Gothmog's ridiculously OTT swollen face, even though it's particularly clear in the books whether Gothmog is even an orc or a man or even a wraith. He's just described as the lieutenant of Morgul iirc
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Aug 3, 2018 17:18
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Yeah, I thought the Mouth's design looked good enough that I didn't care, but Gothmog just didn't look great and I still haven't decided whether he was a wraith or a man.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:24
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Ashcans posted:Sauron was pretty justified in not considering the plan, because it relies on someone having possession of the ring, and then not only willfully discarding it, but destroying it. There are a number of people who are able to refuse to take the ring, but I think its an open question question whether they would also be able to give it up once they had carried it. Could Aragorn or Faramir still refuse the ring, once they had taken it up and carried it all the way to Orodruin? Even Frodo, who had carried the ring and was able to offer it up to someone else three times, balked at actually destroying it. I believe that Tolkien stresses (outside the text) that Frodo did as well as anyone else could have just bringing it to the mountain. Sauron likely knew this, and even if he considered that they might try to destroy it, he'd expect that their will would fail and all they would accomplish would be to bring it directly to his stronghold. Which makes it a curious plan by Gandalf. He knows that Frodo couldn't even toss it into his small fire in Hobbiton. Why did Gandalf think he'd have the will power to do it in Mordor? I do agree that in the end nobody save Tom Bombadil could have willingly destroyed it (and that's assuming Bombadil's power even works outside of his borders which I doubt) I think even Gandalf, Galadriel, etc would lack the power to willingly destroy it. It took fate and mercy (sparing Gollum) to get it done. A lot of Gandalf's plans seem to basically come down to putting the right people in place and then hoping poo poo gets solved by providence. He puts together Bilbo's party but he knows they have no way to kill the dragon or realistically steal from it. Yet he hopes that by them going there and trying that something good will happen. And something good does. He knows that Frodo is unlikely to have the will to harm the ring. In Hobbiton when they do the fire test Frodo can't even bring himself to put it in that fire. But Gandalf puts together the Fellowship and figures if they can get the ring into Mordor it will get destroyed somehow. And it does.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:27
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A lot of Gandalf’s plans seem to basically come down to putting the right people in place and then hoping poo poo gets solved by providence Yes But when you are a literal angel who has met god that seems like an ok plan
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Aug 3, 2018 17:28
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euphronius posted:A lot of Gandalf’s plans seem to basically come down to putting the right people in place and then hoping poo poo gets solved by providence At the same time he also is only there because he himself is the help god has sent and knows there is not any more coming. His decisions are made in that context. Tolkien really tries to walk a line between the Norse pagan idea of fighting in Ragnarok despite knowing you will lose, and the more Christian hope in Divine Providence no matter how bleak it gets. For all we know Gandalfs original plan may have been to just toss Frodo into the fires of Mt Doom, since in the grand scheme of things, it would be worth it.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:35
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The gods are all up middle earth during the war of the rings besides just sending wizards 500 years ago or whatever
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Aug 3, 2018 17:36
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WoodrowSkillson posted:For all we know Gandalfs original plan may have been to just toss Frodo into the fires of Mt Doom, since in the grand scheme of things, it would be worth it. Maybe they were just going to walk to the edge of Mordor and then have the Eagles buzz Frodo in and drop him. That would explain why he didn't want provide a lot of details ahead of time.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:39
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Finding the best people he can and pointing them in the right direction is Gandalf's purpose. The Istari are in Middle Earth to offer consul, not to lead. Gandalf knows the odds and the stakes. Especially after Saruman turns he has to realize any sort of intricate plan he could come up with is going to end with him in charge and succumbing to the Ring.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:39
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Gandalf and the wizards do a lot of leading. I’m not so sure that charge is accurate. I guess Gandalf never makes himself king or whatever but he is a General in the army.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:41
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euphronius posted:The gods are all up middle earth during the war of the rings besides just sending wizards 500 years ago or whatever It's closer to 2000 years before, and the whole reason is because the last time the gods directly intervened they sunk a quarter of a continent and probably killed hundreds of thousands of people in the collateral damage. The istari are the representatives of valar in Middle Earth, and it's explicit there will not be a repeat of the end of the first age.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:45
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Well yeah they aren’t landing an army and marching to Angband but they are still present in and influencing middle earth
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Aug 3, 2018 17:46
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When? What are you specifically referencing
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Aug 3, 2018 17:48
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euphronius posted:Well yeah they aren’t landing an army and marching to Angband but they are still present in and influencing middle earth
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Aug 3, 2018 17:48
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Off the top of my head Ulmo sends dreams to Frodo, the eagles , manwe dissipates Sarumans soul, they send back Super Gandalf, they dissipate Saurons clouds in pelannor, bombadil! I could probably think of more. Edit Elbereth definitely helps to defeat shelob
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Aug 3, 2018 17:53
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WoodrowSkillson posted:When? What are you specifically referencing When the darkness is dispersed right before Theoden’s charge at the Pelennor, it’s pretty obviously Ulmo’s doing if you read between the lines.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:55
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Ulmo or manwe. Is it an ocean breeze?
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Aug 3, 2018 17:55
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Ok, I was thinking of direct intervention since the topic was Gandalfs plan to destroy the Ring. I had forgotten there we're hints of things like the above. The greater point was Gandalf was not going to have Orome show up and ferry the ring bearer to Mt Doom, nor was Tulkas gonna show up and chokeslam Sauron. He had to work with what he had in front of him, and there were no good choices.
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Aug 3, 2018 18:02
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quote:“I live upon the open Wold in days of peace; Wídfara is my name, and to me also the air brings messages. Already the wind is turning. There comes a breath out of the South; there is a sea-tang in it, faint though it be. The morning will bring new things. Above the reek it will be dawn when you pass the wall.” Could be Manwe, but you’d think he’d use a west wind.
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Aug 3, 2018 18:03
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That’s def Ulmo who has been helping a lot.
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Aug 3, 2018 18:05
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Yeah they are def past the point of raising the host of Valinor and raiding Mordor
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Aug 3, 2018 18:09
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euphronius posted:Yeah they are def past the point of raising the host of Valinor and raiding Mordor Wonder what they'd have done if Sauron won though. Would the Gods be content to sit by while Sauron had dominion over all of Middle Earth?
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Aug 3, 2018 18:10
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