# Ring Retrieval?



## spaceboy (Jun 1, 2004)

Hi guys,

So glad to have found this forum! I have currently finished The Hobbit and was so enthralled that I just started The Fellowship and am planning to go through all of Tolkien's works (as time permits). I totally understand how slow and meticuliously the reading has to be approached and a clear understanding of the writing cannot be reached after the first read of the material nor the second.

I am just finding some difficulty grasping something (as I am 3 1/4 through the fellowship). Since the necromancer was already manifested in the hill of sorcery in The Hobbit, why were not legions sent to retreive it? The nazgul were already dead (therefore undead) and Sauron was strong at the time....

Thanks guys, and again I am happy to be among you guys!!

PS. Am I the only one that totaly got turned off by the movie after reading the original text?


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## Turin (Jun 1, 2004)

Well, I'm not really sure what you're asking but, just to clear things up a bit, the Necromancer is Sauron, I didn't know if you already knew that.


> PS. Am I the only one that totaly got turned off by the movie after reading the original text?



No, there are many here(including me) who feel this way.

Btw, welcome to the forum!


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## Maeglin (Jun 1, 2004)

Legions sent to retrieve the Necromancer? Well it just wasn't that easy, because: 1.) who would do it? 2.) The White Council, being decieved by Saruman, did not believe it to be a real threat at the time. 3.) Gandalf did go to find out what it really was, and found it was indeed Sauron. 4.) The council did drive him out, however, Sauron was only feigning his defeat. He simply retreated a little ways into the east, and then secretly re-entered Mordor from the east.

Concerning the Nazgul, nobody really knew how many there were around still, and where each was. Aside from that, everyone is afraid of them, so they wouldn't go near them.


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## Arthur_Vandelay (Jun 1, 2004)

SPOILER ALERT (for spaceboy)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you guys have missed the point of spaceboy's question. I think he's asking--given the title of this thread--why Sauron didn't retrieve the _Ring_ himself, being in such close proximity to it (relatively speaking) in his stronghold of Dol Guldur?

If that is indeed what you're asking, spaceboy, the answer is simple. Sauron, at the time, did not know where the Ring was bestowed. He _might_ have had a faint idea, his servants having discovered the fate of Isildur at the Gladden Fields only two years before the events of _The Hobbit_ transpired. Driving Sauron from Dol Guldur achieved little: three of his Nazgul were back there within ten years. It is not told whether these Nazgul resumed their investigations in the Gladden Fields, for Sauron spent the intervening years between the White Council's assault on Dol Guldur and Gollum's capture on the borders of Mordor building up his war machine. Sauron would not learn where the Ring had been, and who now possessed it, until he heard this information from the lips of Gollum himself.

Of course, all the while, _Saruman_ was searching for the Ring as well, and was even hotter on the trail than Sauron. He agreed to the attack upon the Necromancer in 2941 because he wanted to prevent his rival from searching near the River. Therefore, in the light of the "Hunt for the Ring" essay in _Unfinished Tales_, it seems that the White Council of 2943 is one of the most pivotal events leading to the destruction of the Ring--less for what was said there than for what appears not to have been revealed. In the "Tale of Years" it is told that at this Council Saruman feigned that the Ring had passed down the Anduin and into the Sea. According to the "Hunt for the Ring", Gandalf first became suspicious of Saruman's intentions at the Council of 2851--when Saruman counselled against an assault on Dol Guldur. In 2941, Gandalf learnt of Bilbo's discovery of a Ring--which he plainly recognised as a Great Ring though it was not until 3001 that he began to suspect that Bilbo's ring was in fact the One Ring. So you have a period--a dangerous period--of about 60 years in which the Ring might have fallen into Saruman's hands--if Gandalf had spoken to Saruman about Bilbo's ring at the Council of 2943. But--at a Council which had been convened to discuss the very topic of the Great Rings--Gandalf appears not to have said anything about Bilbo's discovery. Saruman knew the Ring had been lost in the vicinity of the Gladden Fields. Bilbo found a Ring not far from here. If Saruman had become aware at the Council that a Great Ring had been discovered in the vicinity of the Gladden Fields, it would not have taken him long to put tw-and-two together. And things might have turned out very differently.


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## spaceboy (Jun 4, 2004)

Thanks guys! And thanks for the welcome Turin. Art that was exactly the answer that I was looking for your a champ!!

Take care guys


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