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[SPOILERS] Rings of Power: "I am Sauron" "I'm Sauron" "I'm Sauron!"


Ser Drewy

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

My biggest question is, what are the rings of power even for? Why did they make them in the first place? I never understood what their purpose was.

The Elven Rings (not touched by Sauron) were made to preserve what was… hence the enduring magic of Imladris and Lorien.  The Dwarven rings helped enrich the ring bearer… but also ensnared the mind of the bearer… however Dwarves proved too hardy to turn into wraiths.  The Nine rings of men embued their bearers with the power to sway men to their will… but turned their bearers into the Nazgul.  The One gave the bearer… if their will was strong enough the power to control the bearers of all the other rings and to draw people to the the bearer to serve them.  

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3 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

My biggest question is, what are the rings of power even for? Why did they make them in the first place? I never understood what their purpose was.

For the Elves, the passage of time in Middle Earth has become unbearable, especially after the Sun first rose and heralded the dominion of men. Especially for the Elves who were born in Valinor, where we are to understand that time and change were much slowed, Middle Earth with it's quickly changing seasons and change was wearying. 

They could have all just sought passage to Aman, but many wanted to stay, just without feeling the effects of time. 

That desire is what let Sauron get to them. 

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think Tolkien changed his mind about the Rings of Power.

In LOTR, Gandalf sees nothing wrong with the elven rings at least, viewing them as simply about healing and knowledge.

Yet, in his letters, Tolkien writes that it was wrong of the elves to try to hold back the progress of time.  They were defying the will of God, by wanting to enjoy Middle Earth, at the same time as preventing the process of decay, which eventually results in new life.

Nope, even the Three, while not tainted by Sauron's evil, were still beholden to Sauron's power. The Elves couldn't, in the end, hold back time on their own. Doing it required handing over unfathomable power to Sauron, who was perverting the powers granted to the Ainu to gain dominance. 

I don't think there's anything in LotR that suggests the Three weren't viewed as folly and utterly not worth the moral cost. They were used for what good they could do till Sauron was permanently ended. But I don't think any of the wielders of the Three, Gandalf included, felt anything beyond bittersweetness at the thought of the Elven Rings. 

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I have so many Toilken questions. I ordered the main novels but this far have only read the hobbit and some wikipedia trying to understand. 

so Sauron, Sauramon, Gandolf and even the Balrogs are all different forms of the same type of being, right? And then there are the higher beings like Morgoth. Could Gandolf not have worn the ring and stayed chill? Why does it seem like there's such a power disparity between Sauron and all the others? Can Balrogs talk? 

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1 hour ago, RumHam said:

I have so many Toilken questions. I ordered the main novels but this far have only read the hobbit and some wikipedia trying to understand. 

so Sauron, Sauramon, Gandolf and even the Balrogs are all different forms of the same type of being, right? And then there are the higher beings like Morgoth. Could Gandolf not have worn the ring and stayed chill? Why does it seem like there's such a power disparity between Sauron and all the others? Can Balrogs talk? 

Gandalf, Saruman, and the other three wizards were sent to Middle-earth to disrupt Sauron, but they were commanded to not reveal their true power. Thus they took the form of men that looked old and aged extremely slowly. It's unclear how successful Gandalf would have been if hadn't worn one of the three Elven rings. Considering that the two blue wizards disappeared in the far east, Radagast cared more about animals and proved less influential, and Saruman got corrupted, Gandalf would have found his tasks much more challenging without the ring. 

It's possible that the Balrogs could talk but I don't think Tolkien ever put that in. However, in The Silmarillion the chief of the Balrogs had a name - Gothmog.

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1 hour ago, RumHam said:

I have so many Toilken questions. I ordered the main novels but this far have only read the hobbit and some wikipedia trying to understand. 

so Sauron, Sauramon, Gandolf and even the Balrogs are all different forms of the same type of being, right? And then there are the higher beings like Morgoth. Could Gandolf not have worn the ring and stayed chill? Why does it seem like there's such a power disparity between Sauron and all the others? Can Balrogs talk? 

Yes, they’re all of the Order of Maiar, incarnate Angels.

Morgoth is a Vala, an Archangel, once the greatest of them, and the Satan of the story.

Gandalf says that the One Ring would have corrupted him, through his desire to do good.  He would have become a self-righteous tyrant.

Sauron was a very powerful Maia, whose abilities varied hugely, on a par with Eonwe, the herald of the Valar.

Balrogs can speak.

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5 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think you could make the argument that Return of the King has a twist ending, by nature of Gollum inadvertently destroying the ring rather than Frodo. Same for Return of the Jedi, with Vader turning on the Emperor and saving Luke instead. The problem with The Last Jedi is that the answer to every mystery was “nothing.” It didn’t come up with any new and exciting answers to questions set up in the first movie, it just completely blue-balled the audience (sorry for using that phrase twice in one day lol). 
 

That seems to be one big difference between LOTR, written by a Catholic, and Star Wars, written by a Methodist with an interest in Buddhism. It may seem a little weird that Vader or Kylo Ren could be “redeemed” despite all their crimes, but the possibility for redemption is part of what makes SW an ultimately hopeful story. If Halbrand is a repentant Sauron, then his story is a nihilistic and depressing one—we’ve seen how the story ends, we know there’s no redemption for him, and we’ll have to sit through four more seasons knowing that. That’s quite a letdown for what started as a promising character. And if he was just a schemer, ala it-was-Agatha-all-along, then that opens the story up to a million little plot holes.

Nihilism seems to be the flavour of these times.

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48 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Gandalf says that the One Ring would have corrupted him, through his desire to do good.  He would have become a self-righteous tyrant.

I just have a hard time envisioning how Gandalf tries to be good and fucks everyone worse than the guy who set out to be a dick. 

 

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So I can understand why the elves wanted special rings, but why make additional ones for humans and dwarves then? What were they supposed to accomplish?

Also, this may have never even come up, but would half-elves like Elrond feel the change in the passage of time as the other elves did, or were they immune to it?

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2 hours ago, RumHam said:

I just have a hard time envisioning how Gandalf tries to be good and fucks everyone worse than the guy who set out to be a dick. 

 

What the One Ring does is give power over the wills of others, and inflaming a desire to control the wills of others.  One can assume that Gandalf would have become like Robespierre or Jean Calvin on steroids, executing others in the name of virtue.

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1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

So I can understand why the elves wanted special rings, but why make additional ones for humans and dwarves then? What were they supposed to accomplish?

Also, this may have never even come up, but would half-elves like Elrond feel the change in the passage of time as the other elves did, or were they immune to it?

Elrond had opted to be an elf (mortality is the default position for half elves, but he and his brother were granted a choice).

 

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

So I can understand why the elves wanted special rings, but why make additional ones for humans and dwarves then? What were they supposed to accomplish?

 

The dwarven rings, I think, were intended to enhance their skills as craftsmen and technologists.  Sauron perverted this into a lust for gold.

Mens’ rings were to enhance rulership skills, which became a lust for power.

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7 hours ago, RumHam said:

I have so many Toilken questions. I ordered the main novels but this far have only read the hobbit and some wikipedia trying to understand. 

so Sauron, Sauramon, Gandolf and even the Balrogs are all different forms of the same type of being, right? And then there are the higher beings like Morgoth. Could Gandolf not have worn the ring and stayed chill? Why does it seem like there's such a power disparity between Sauron and all the others? Can Balrogs talk? 

There are three distinct orders of "higher being."

There's the one, Eru, or Illuvatar, who is effectively God (in the singular Christian sense). He doesn't do a huge amount after the creation of Arda.

Then there's the Valar, or Powers, who are effectively "gods" (in the plural Greek or Roman sense), powerful beings with areas of responsibility over facets of life on Arda. They are Manwe, Ulmo, Aule, Orome, Mandors, Lorien, Tulkas, Melkor, Varda, Nienna, Este, Vaire, Yavanna, Vana and Nessa. The Valar are very powerful but have limitations, in that they can create new forms of life but not life itself (Aule created the dwarves and Yavanna the Ents, but they did not live until Eru breathed life into them, and Eru created elves and humans - and presumably hobbits - alone).

All of the Valar are "good," apart from Melkor, who turned to evil and became known as Morgoth, the first Dark Lord.

Below them are the Maiar, or "Hands," angelic or demonic servants of the Valar and Morgoth. The Maiar vary immensely in form, function, appearance and capabilities, and whilst the Valar are vaguely on the same power level as one another, the Maiar are all over the place. The most powerful Maiar are very, very powerful, like Eonwe, the herald of Manwe, and Sauron (who does not start off in that league but seems to graduate there), but the least Maiar are not much more powerful, seemingly, than skilled mortals, like the elves.

The Valar tend not to get directly involved in affairs in Middle-earth because their power levels are off the charts and they can cause immense collateral damage. During the Second and Third Ages, the Valar prefer to send Maiar to do their bidding, and in the case of the Istari (Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast, Alatar, Pallandor) they deliberately weaken them by incarnating them in human bodies (albeit resilient ones, and able to use magic) to act as guides and advisors rather than direct leaders (Gandalf admittedly skirts that, but then Saruman goes right over it).

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I’ve been on holiday so I had 2 to catch up on (and what a slog that was … what’s the opposite of ‘binge-worthy’?)… So back to episode 6, I skim read the thread and I didn’t see this given much discussion for how problematic it is; Galadriel fears that Sauron / Orcs are coming back. But she’s operating on a timescale of centuries. She kinda gives up and gets on a boat, but jumps off, and ends up in Numenor. She implores them to help her with a problem that she still believes is something that might not even come up for decades, they agree, fill up a pathetic 3 boats and then make a bee line directly for the one village that’s actually dealing with an orc attack, and turn up just in the nick of time. So what the actual fuck? How did they possibly know to go there, and why the urgency? 

I remain confused why anyone gives a shit who Sauron is, or why it has to be anyone. Also confused at how Halbrand is known to everyone as their missing King and why they all immediately rejoice. The show seems to think that “hey remember Aragorn? Yea, that.” is an explanation.

Also weren’t Galadriel and Theo with everyone when Mount Doom erupted? How come they went for a walk for most of the episode and then circled back around?

The text coming up with Southlands … no wait, MORDOR was really heavy handed. As usual the show seems very confused about how much its audience knows, one minute assuming intimate knowledge of appendices and the next, telling us that this Mordor shaped place with the Orcs and the darkness and the volcano? Yea that’s Mordor.

I will say I enjoyed the dwarves a lot more when they aren’t there as comic relief; Durin’s argument with his father was really strong and I hope the actor gets more serious scenes like that.

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12 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

This may help, scroll down to the Sauron and the Real World section. This is set in the second age, but they are changing it quite a bit since they don't have rights to some other parts of the story.

https://lotrscrapbook.bookloaf.net/ref/letters_evil.html

Some interesting and pertinent quotes for this series from those Letters:

 

Quote

SECOND AGE

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 demeanour and countenance. But at the beginning of the Second Age he was still beautiful to look at, or could still assume a beautiful visible shape – and was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all 'reformers' who want to hurry up with 'reconstruction' and 'reorganization' are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up. But many Elves listened to Sauron. He was still fair in that early time, and his motives and those of the Elves seemed to go partly together: the healing of the desolate lands. Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make a separate independent paradise. Gil-galad repulsed all such overtures, as also did Elrond. But at Eregion great work began – and the Elves came their nearest to falling to 'magic' and machinery. With the aid of Sauron's lore they made Rings of Power ('power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods). Sauron dominates all the multiplying hordes of Men that have had no contact with the Elves and so indirectly with the true and Unfallen Valar and gods. Thus, as the Second Age draws on, we have a great Kingdom and evil theocracy (for Sauron is also the god of his slaves) growing up in Middle-earth. He rules a growing empire from the great dark tower of Barad-dûr in Mordor, near to the Mountain of Fire, wielding the One Ring.

THE ONE RING

But to achieve this he had been obliged to let a great part of his own inherent power (a frequent and very significant motive in myth and fairy-story) 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 'rapport' with himself: he was not 'diminished'. Unless some other seized it and became possessed of it. If that happened, the new possessor could (if 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. This was the essential weakness he had introduced into his situation in his effort (largely unsuccessful) to enslave the Elves, and in his desire to establish a control over the minds and wills of his servants. There was another weakness: if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihilated, then its power would be dissolved, Sauron's own being would be diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will. But that he never contemplated nor feared. The Ring was unbreakable by any smithcraft less than his own. It was indissoluble in any fire, save the undying subterranean fire where it was made – and that was unapproachable, in Mordor. Also so great was the Ring's power of lust, that anyone who used it became mastered by it; it was beyond the strength of any will (even his own) to injure it, cast it away, or neglect it. So he thought. It was in any case on his finger. Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of 'mortals' no one, not even Aragorn.

Clearly the show is taking a loose approach with its adaptation in some ways. Whatever Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor's plan is in Eregion, it started of their own design and pre-Sauron influence. The invented Mithril element has been brought in but the forging of the Rings not yet. Its unclear to me what Celebrimbor is actually doing in Eregion at the start of the show, when they get the help of the dwarves.

So a possible outline for episode 8 is that Elrond brings the mithril to Eregion, that Halbrand also goes there, turns out to be Sauron, and then in season 2 we will see him convince them to create the Rings with the idea that this will halt their fading. 

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I don't think Sauron can own up to being Sauron and get away with it. Maybe he uses the name Halbrand or some other name instead of Annatar, or they'd all look like even bigger fools.

I truly hope they don't have Galadriel realize it's him, and nobody believes her. That would be so wrong. Halbrand as Sauron just seems like the wrong thing to do for a number of reasons.

Anyway we don't have long to wait!

I also saw this:

Speaking to an audience including Total Film following a cinema screening of the seventh episode, The Rings of Power showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay discussed the theory. And while they refused to offer a definitive answer, they did talk about their thought process behind Sauron in the series.

"Sauron is a deceiver, Sauron can be anyone," McKay says. "We always felt like it would be a waste to just have him out in front from the beginning, and that if there was a story, that would engage people and let them lean in and let them read into things and have ideas and theories that would be delightful and wonderful. 

"And if you think it's Halbrand, it's one version of the show. If you think it's somebody else, that's another version of the show and I just hope the next episode is exciting for you."

https://www.gamesradar.com/rings-of-power-sauron-episode-7-lord-of-the-rings/

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52 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

I don't think Sauron can own up to being Sauron and get away with it. Maybe he uses the name Halbrand or some other name instead of Annatar, or they'd all look like even bigger fools.

I truly hope they don't have Galadriel realize it's him, and nobody believes her. That would be so wrong. Halbrand as Sauron just seems like the wrong thing to do for a number of reasons.

Anyway we don't have long to wait!

I also saw this:

Speaking to an audience including Total Film following a cinema screening of the seventh episode, The Rings of Power showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay discussed the theory. And while they refused to offer a definitive answer, they did talk about their thought process behind Sauron in the series.

"Sauron is a deceiver, Sauron can be anyone," McKay says. "We always felt like it would be a waste to just have him out in front from the beginning, and that if there was a story, that would engage people and let them lean in and let them read into things and have ideas and theories that would be delightful and wonderful. 

"And if you think it's Halbrand, it's one version of the show. If you think it's somebody else, that's another version of the show and I just hope the next episode is exciting for you."

https://www.gamesradar.com/rings-of-power-sauron-episode-7-lord-of-the-rings/

Vindication!!! :P

So this is the only way these guys could craft a story in Middle-earth. wow

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19 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Are there any instances of the mystery box working? Both Lost and Star Wars fell flat on their face. Westworld managed to surprise people, but it also lost most of its audience.

Westworld season 1 is all I can think of.  The first season of True Detective was well done, but that mystery also fizzled at the end.

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44 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Are there any instances of the mystery box working? Both Lost and Star Wars fell flat on their face. Westworld managed to surprise people, but it also lost most of its audience.

Who is Keyser Söze!!!?

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