# Why did Sauron need his ring?



## Link (Feb 5, 2003)

*Why in the heck did Sauron need his ring?*

Uh........why?


He had WAY MORE than enough forces of orcs, southrons, haradrim, mumaks (oliphaunts), and other creatures to freaking wipe out middle earth at least 8 times over. Why didn't he just stop pre-occupying himself with the finding of his ring and just utterly obliterrate Gondor? 

He only lost the Battle of the Pellannor Feilds b/c it was a battle he was not fully ready to fight, and had not had all his forces to the front yet. If frodo didn't toss in the ring, The Battle of the Morranon would have been absolutely DISASTROUS. Gondor and Rohan's armies would be gone, and Middle-Earth would be his for the taking. 

Plus, if he would have just launched all his forces int he beggining, it's likely that frodo and sam would have been spotted a helluva lot earlier and killed.

Sauron, you are VERY stupid............


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## Anamatar IV (Feb 5, 2003)

he didn't preoccupy himself with the ring...if anything that was least on his mind. That is why Frodo and Sam had such an easy time getting into Mordor.


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## ILLOTRTM (Feb 5, 2003)

I asked something of the same question a while back I beleive.... gaaah, I can't find the thread. Oh well. Anyway, I uhhhmmmm..... ummm.... oh, I can't answer well.. I will search for my thread and post a link if I can find it.


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## BlackCaptain (Feb 5, 2003)

Actualy, Sauron shouldve put more thought into finding the Ring, and defending Mt. Doom. TWO SIMPLE ORCS is all he needed to gaurd the gates of the Sammath Naur. But he was two pre-ocupied on destroying Gondor and Rohan


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## redline2200 (Feb 5, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Anamatar IV _
> *he didn't preoccupy himself with the ring...if anything that was least on his mind. That is why Frodo and Sam had such an easy time getting into Mordor. *



I wouldn't go as far as to say that. There was no time during the War of the _Ring_ that the ring was the least thing on his mind. In the end the whole purpose of the war was for Sauron to get the ring back so he could take ME.


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## Niniel (Feb 6, 2003)

Tolkien yimself writes (in the Sil)


> 'But to achieve this he had been obliged to let a great part of his own inherent power pass into the One Ring. While he wore it, his power on earth was actually enhanced. But even if he did not wear it, that power existed and was in 'rapoort'with himself: he was not 'diminished'. Unless some other seized it and became possessed of it. If that happened, the new possessor could (is sufficiently strong and heroic by nature) challenge Sauron, become master of all that he had learned or done since the making of the One Ring, and so overthrow him and usurp his place. There was another weakness: if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihiliated, then its power would be dissolved, Saurons own being would be diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to shadow, a mere memory of malicious will.


 So, as long as Sauron does nt know who has the Ring, Sauron lives in constant fear that someone will claim it, who is strong enough to challenge him (Gandalf or Aragorn maybe could, or so Sauron fears). He does not fear that it will be destroyed, beacuse he cannot imagine that someone would own the Ring and NOT want to use it; that's why Frodo and Sam got into the Sammath Naur relatively easy; Sauron had not contemplated the possibility that they would destroy it. The only reason he wants it so badly is that he fears someone would challenge him.


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## chaos (Feb 6, 2003)

Didn't Sauron need the ring to regain physical form? What would be the point of taking over Middle Earth and still not having a physical form.


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## Niniel (Feb 6, 2003)

Yes, if he got the Ring again he would regain his physical form too. But with the Ring he would be so powerful that it didn't matter if he had a physical form or not.


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## Lantarion (Feb 6, 2003)

Great post before, Niniel; but I have to disagree with your last one. 
As far as the testimony of Gollum goes, Sauron had fingers, and therefore a physical form, during the War of the Ring. 
But I think the quote provided by Niniel is quite clear: Sauron's complete power was linked to, or rather contained within, the One Ring, and he could not use his magical powers to full capacity without it.


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## 33Peregrin (Feb 7, 2003)

Sauron did not need the Ring to overcome Middle- earth, he needed to stop other people from getting it and using it for that pupose. Unfortunately for him, the good side did not intend to use the Ring, but to destroy it. What the enemy least suspects.


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## LordOfMoria (Feb 8, 2003)

why just cutting off the ring off saurons hand by Elendil, destroy his physical form? He had a physical form before he forgded the ring right?


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## Eriol (Feb 8, 2003)

This is an instance in which I think the movie was confusing. Sauron was just plain killed by Elendil, Gil-Galad and Isildur. It was not like it was pictured, a lucky stab by Isildur at a healthy Sauron. Isildur is said (I think, I'm not sure) to have delivered the death blow, but surely Gil-Galad and Elendil did more than their share of wounds to the old fella. After his death his spirit departed and waited a long time before building a new body, no doubt because of lack of power. (Compare with Sauron's "first death" at Númenor, in which he lost his "fair body". Since he left voluntarily that body, he was able to form a new one in no time. At Isildur's hand, he was _forced_ to leave the body, because of his wounds).

So Isildur just grabbed the Ring out of a dead Sauron's hand.


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## Beleg (Feb 8, 2003)

*L*

Lets clear our facts. 

Firstly the concept of Spirits is not very clear in Tolkien's Mythology. Tolkien i think has never described the battle between Elendil, Ereniel and Isuldur. I believe that when Isuldur cut the ring from his finger, (To cut the ring, the Finger of Sauron needs to be solid.) I am not implying that during the battle Sauron was as princely and as wise looking as he was when he manipulated Hollin's folks. But i think that as Suaron produced the ring by adding his own malicious essence in the form of enchantments, whenever he wore it the nothingliness of his evil power got stronger for most of his power returned to him and he was able to solidfy his mere phantom self. 
For it is said that after the drowning of numenor Sauron could never take a shape seeming fair to look upon. 
Since The malice and Power of Sauron was increasing and the dread of Sauron was spreading everywhere, his corrupted soul was gaining more energy. Sauron feeds on fear and the self belief in himself that he would sooner or later, (after seeing the dwindling power of Gondor and Arnor) gain the control of Middle earth, strengthened and by pure self will he was able to give his nothingly form a shape. 
Anyway anything visible needs to have some kind of Shape and maybe Gollum being in quarter wraith world was able to see more of him then a normal middle earth being. 

His physical form was lost in the Drowning of Numenor. People tend to forget this.

It is clearly stated that Isuldur cut the ring from Sauron's finger. 

Actually as Niniel has described before, being a body of corrupted mind, he could fathom the way justice and truth works. His mind had become so evil that it brought others on his own scales and he judged the others as not bearers of peace but people like him, lesser maybe but still seeking power. He was so caught up in Evil that he for even one moment didn't thought that sometimes Power isn't the most deadly weapon.


Actually, Physcial form to Sauron would be like Passing of a summer to Elves. While Judging this we bring everything to the current world standard, forgetting that Tolkien's middle earth is quiet different. Sauron's purpose was to call himself the King of Middle Earth and to Corrupt everything good. 
While as for the matter of shape, Tolkien implies that fair shape comes from fair deeds. If one's heart is filled with evil his physcial features would also change. And In Tolkien's world, fairness is assosiated with Lightside. 
*
TWO SIMPLE ORCS is all he needed to gaurd the gates of the Sammath Naur*

Are you sure Morgal King. I guess even Frodo and Sam with their depleted power would be able to kill two Simple Orcs.


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## Blueduindain (Apr 3, 2018)

It was because he placed most of his soul into the ring; when it was destroyed there went most of his soul. 

See it like this;
In Dungeons& Dragons, there exists an undead creature called a lich; now, when it was alive it was a powerful spell-caster that feared death, so it underwent a ritual that turned it in to it's current state. One of the things that had to be done was bind it's soul into an object. this object could be anything, so long as it's not alive (including possibly a ring.) this object called a "phylactery" contains it's soul. The lich will remain "Alive", so long as the phylactery is intact. If the phylactery is destroyed, than so is the lich.

Now obviously Sauron is not a lich, but it is a good analogy, for you see, the ring is kind of like his phylactery; which is why those that have it get possessed.


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## Azrubêl (Apr 4, 2018)

Blueduindain said:


> It was because he placed most of his soul into the ring; when it was destroyed there went most of his soul.
> 
> See it like this;
> In Dungeons& Dragons, there exists an undead creature called a lich; now, when it was alive it was a powerful spell-caster that feared death, so it underwent a ritual that turned it in to it's current state. One of the things that had to be done was bind it's soul into an object. this object could be anything, so long as it's not alive (including possibly a ring.) this object called a "phylactery" contains it's soul. The lich will remain "Alive", so long as the phylactery is intact. If the phylactery is destroyed, than so is the lich.
> ...



Wow beautiful. I am very ignorant of D&D but I would add something to this - The early conceptions of Sauron and the Witch King are very much lich-like in that they are associated more with sorcery and necromancy than military power.


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## Blueduindain (Apr 4, 2018)

Azrubêl said:


> Wow beautiful. I am very ignorant of D&D but I would add something to this - The early conceptions of Sauron and the Witch King are very much lich-like in that they are associated more with sorcery and necromancy than military power.


Really? That explains Sauron's "the Necromancer" persona!


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## Alcuin (Apr 7, 2018)

In _Letters of JRR Tolkien_, _Letter_ 200, Tolkien writes,


> [The Ainur (i.e., the Valar and Maiar)] often took the form and likeness of [Elves and Men]… Sauron appeared in this shape. It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was “real”, that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructible like other physical organisms. But that of course did not destroy the spirit, nor dismiss it from the world to which it was bound until the end. After the battle with Gil-galad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Númenor (I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit, which might be called the “will” or the effective link between the indestructible mind and being and the realization of its imagination). The impossibility of re-building after the destruction of the Ring is sufficiently clear “mythologically” in the … book.


 Sauron is not some giant, floating, disembodied eye as Peter Jackson portrays him, but as Tolkien describes him in _Letter_ 246,


> 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. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanor and countenance.


As long as the One Ring was intact, the power that was in him at his creation by Eru was intact. The Ring allowed him to see the thoughts of those who wore the other Rings of Power, but only when he wore it himself. In “The Mirror of Galadriel”, Frodo asks Galadriel why _he_ cannot see into the minds of those who wore the other Rings of Power, to which Galadriel replies,


> You have not tried. Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.


Tolkien also says that no mortal, not even Aragorn, could keep the Ring from Sauron in his actual presence; of the Wise, possibly Elrond or Galadriel could wield and keep it from him; Gandalf certainly could. The end for Sauron would be the same as if the Ring were destroyed, because all his native power and knowledge since the making of the Ring would be transferred to the new Ring Master; but in those instances, whoever kept the Ring would be overcome by the evil and malice of Sauron present in the Ring, and himself become evil. In reproving Boromir for his coveting the One Ring in “The Council of Elrond”, Elrond says,


> If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear.


There has been some considerable discussion over whether Sauron held the Nine Rings of the Nazgûl himself, or whether he allowed them to wear their Rings. I think the argument is stronger that, while he was without his One Ring, he kept the Nine Rings in his possession, controlling them through their Rings, to which they were enslaved. Hence Gandalf’s warning to the Nine Walkers at the beginning of “A Journey in the Dark” as they debate a passage through Moria rather than returning in defeat to Rivendell,


> The Ringwraiths are deadly enemies, but they are only shadows yet of the power and terror they would possess if the Ruling Ring was on their master’s hand again.


and Elrond’s explanation in “The Council of Elrond”,


> [A]ll that has been wrought by those who wield the Three will turn to their undoing, and their minds and hearts will become revealed to Sauron, if he regains the One. It would be better if the Three had never been. That is his purpose.


Only when Sauron actually _wears_ the One Ring can he dominate the wills and see into the minds of the other keepers of the Rings of Power. The Men who became the Nine Nazgûl were quickly enslaved to their Rings; as Gandalf told Frodo in “Shadow of the Past”,


> A mortal … who keeps one of the Great Rings … becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. … [S]ooner or later – later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last – sooner or later the dark power will devour him.


Sauron kept the Nine Rings to ensure their obedience; but those Nine Rings were still under the sway of the One Ring, which had not been destroyed. 

The Ring had other powers, too, that Tolkien did not describe. Frodo learned to use some of them. In the _Two Towers_, Frodo twists Sauron’s Ring-spell to enslave Gollum:_One Ring to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them._​
Especially after Sam wears the Ring, he sees Frodo “with other vision” (on the slopes of Orodruin) in his confrontations with Gollum. At the approach to the Sammath Naur, Frodo uses the power of the Ring again,


> [A]s before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw … with other vision. … [S]tern, untouchable now by pity, [stood] a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice.
> 
> “Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.”


Frodo is able to do this because he possesses the One Ring and has learned how to use it: The Ring has given Frodo power according to his measure. 

Sauron’s whole purpose was to dominate and control others, his will was far stronger than Frodo’s, and the Rings of Power were his plot, his scheme to further those ends through the use of the One Ring: _a machine_, Tolkien calls it. 

Imagine for a moment that you had a computer wired into your brain. It helps you search, learn, remember. You can immediately call up any bit of knowledge in recorded human history. You can immediately understand and comprehend the most complex scientific and mathematical theories. You know instantly how to engineer and build every imaginable construct. You can communicate with your friends and family instantly, without regard to distance. 

But into that interface, someone has placed malicious code. They can distort your vision of the world, but you cannot detect it. They can intercept every communication, every thought, every memory. They can read all your memories, and even replace your real memories with their falsehoods. They can communicate with you, subtly, quietly, without interference of any sort. If you try to resist, they can cause pain, agony, confusion, even death. 

_That_ is the power of Sauron with the One Ring over those who wear the Nine, the Seven, and even the Three. But he needed possession of the One Ring to exercise that power. 

Lest you think this a purely imaginary example:
Mind-Reading Computer Instantly Decodes People's Thoughts
Researchers Develop Mind-Reading Machine that Works With 90% Accuracy
Brain–Computer Interface Spellers: A Review
How linking our brains to computers could change humanity
And this is but the merest sampling. 

The Lord of the Rings has become real. It’s here. It’s now. We are about to live it.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 16, 2018)

Well that's a depressing thought! Let's hope the "Free peoples" can once again resist.

I have to say, as an aside, that I've never been comfortable with Tolkien's answer to the question of what happened to the Ring upon the destruction of Numenor, and I suspect he wasn't either; it always struck me as a somewhat uneasy rationalisation. I prefer to think that he would have left it behind, safeguarded, if you like, by powerful spells. Reasons could be found in some of the posts above; for one thing, in Numenor, he would not have need to worry about what the Elves in Middle Earth were doing; and of course, there were no Rings where he was going. His power and majesty were undiminished, if the Ring was in his possession, whether he was wearing it or not; its physical distance from him shouldn't have mattered. His innate power as a Maia alone, if turned to evil, would have been enough to corrupt Numenorians longing for something they couldn't have -- immortality, especially -- even without the Ring.

Which brings us back to the original question: why did he need the ring? And that leads to the question of how the ring functions. Actually, at least two questions: how does it function in the story, and how does it function as a literary symbol? That Tolkien was interested in the latter is shown from his short discussion of it in "On Fairy Stories", significantly from around the time he was beginning LOTR, and the conception of Bilbo's ring was changing to that of The Ring.

Of course, the question of what the Ring represents has been a subject of debate and argument ever since the book's publication, some serious, some silly. Many will have read Isaac Azimov's essay from years ago, expressing a then-common idea that the Ring is a symbol for "technology", pure and simple -- that he then argues against. That seemed a short-sighted strawman argument, to me and others.

Another, more serious conception, is that the Ring represents "Power", which brings Acton's Law into play, as pointed out by T. A. Shippey, and there are certainly cogent arguments to be made in favor of it. But I 've always been a bit dissatisfied with that idea; Tolkien never seemed to me to have conceived of power as inherently evil: witness Gandalf's answer to Gimli's observation that he now seems "dangerous", in the White Rider chapter.

And this early exchange with Frodo:

"You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring"?

"No!. . .With that power I should have power too great and terrible".

Frodo is not mistaken; Gandalf is indeed powerful; but there is clearly a grave difference between Gandalf's power, and that represented in the Ring. What is it? Notice the ambiguity in his words: "With _that_ power. . .". Is he talking about a _level_ of power -- that the amount of power in the Ring is too much for anyone to handle without becoming corrupted? As I said, there are good arguments for that view.

But what if he is referring to a _kind_ of power, one which is inherently evil, or at least corruptible, in and of itself? What would that power be?

I'll close this already too-long post by offering my own tentative suggestion, an idea sparked by the critic Northrop Frye: discussing demonic imagery, he describes one individual pole as

"the tyrant-leader, inscrutable, ruthless, melancholy, and with an insatiable will, who commands loyalty only if he is egocentric enough to represent the collective ego of his followers".

On that reading, the Ring could be seen as representing pure, unadulterated, or perhaps even unlimited ego, separated from,and therefore unconstrained by (since I'm using Freudian trms here), the "superego" of Sauron's original Ainur nature.

Consider Gandalf's words: ". . .hobbits as miserable slaves would please him far more than hobbits happy and free". Frodo's question,just before this, "Why would he want such slaves?" is a reasonable one; as Gandalf says, he doesn't "need" hobbits; by any rational criterion of power, the payoff for enslaving the Shire wouldn't be worth the effort.

But from the viewpoint of pure egotism, it would be absolutely necessary; any resistance to the egotist's will is an injury to the self, at least as the ego sees it. For an unrestrained, unlimited ego such as I have in mind, all existence must reflect that self-image; the world, in a sense, must become "me".

That, it seems to me, at least gives one reason for the refusal of the Wise to take the Ring: the Bearer would simply replace one egocentric world with his own. And that, in terms of Middle Earth mythology, would be a rebellion against Eru, no matter how "noble" his intent.


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