Poll: LotR: Does Sauron deserve to win?

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Flames66

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Ryotknife said:
Eh, the only way to stop it is either pre-emptive strikes or do what the allies did in WW1 and try to shatter the nation completely.

Either way, you have lost the moral high ground and the "good guys" are no longer good, just slightly less of a jerk than Sauron. Pretty sure a lot of the people in the world are pissed at the US preemptive stance/activism

Course, that doesn't explain the lack of progress especially among the humans. Elves makes sense since they seem to like the status quo.
I agree with the Elves on that. Nothing seems to be broken so why attempt to fix it?
 

Souplex

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I recently watched the LOtR trilogy, and I noticed a pattern through the first two: Sarumon is the only major problem.
"Let's go this way!" "We can't, Sarumon."
"Sarumon's jacking us up with his magic!" "We'll have to find another way!"
"Sarumon's raised an army of Urak-Hai!" "We have to deal with this before we can go after Sauron."
If Sarumon weren't on Sauron's side, the trilogy would be like half the length.
He only sides with Sauron because he thinks it's the only way they would have a chance to survive.
 
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thaluikhain said:
The indexes and supplemental material to LotR, not to mention all the other volumes written by Tolkien or his son on the subject, show quite clearly that the rest of the world was not simply sitting its on collective butt.

After Sauron's defeat at the end of the second age, the rest of the threats he had created didn't disappear. There was decades of cleanup and rebuilding to be done. There were still orcs and trolls running loose, and the Nazgul were still out there.

Once the world seemed secure, what could they do but wait for Sauron to resurface and deal with him then? No one could find him until Gandalf unmasked the Necromancer. Meanwhile, the world of men had repeated invasions from the Haradrim and the Easterlings to contend with. The wildmen were a problem that never went away, and more than once Rohan and Gondor were close to being overrun, not by the pure evil forces of darkness, but just by other ordinary men.

The northern kingdom of Arnor, after losing touch with Gondor in the south, suddenly found itself besieged by legions of orcs out of Angmar in the Misty Mountains. It turns out that Angmar itself had been founded by the chief of the Nazgul-in-exile, and the war that finally destroyed Angmar and chased the Witch King out did in Arnor itself as well.

So the world of men was in steady decline by the time Bilbo comes into the picture. The dwarves had been basically digging themselves deeper adn deeper into the earth in search of riches, until they encountered the breeding grounds of the orcs and goblins deep underground, and ended up in endless wars in the mountains that destroyed everything they had.

Meanwhile, the elves, the leaders of whom had lived in this world for centuries or even millennia, were growing tired. Understand, here, that the nature of the Eldar is stasis. They were immortal, with endless lifespans, and were raised in the Undying Lands of the West. They only came back to Middle-Earth because of Morgoth and what he took from them. The elves are not too concerned with the state of the world; all they want is peace and stability, so they closed themselves off from the meaningless concerns of men and dwarves and strove for their idea of Eden: stagnation.

So when Sauron finally did regain enough of his power to become a threat again, he had taken just long enough to find a world on the down-slope, weaker and more divided than he had ever seen it, and ripe for an evil invasion. It's no wonder that people like Denethor had lost all hope, to the point that they were willing to simply roll over and die, and that Saruman had decided the only way to survive was to join the enemy.
 

Lieju

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I don't really think he 'deserves' to win just because he tries really hard.

Have you seen what Mordor looked like? Nothing grew there, they had to import all their food, his advances in technology weren't really sustainable.

If he had any. What of those advances were his, and what he just got from Melkor?

IceForce said:
Sauron was a complete idiot. He could've simply blockaded the entire mountain, and there's no way the ring would've been able to get through, no matter who was carrying it.

But instead he sends his armies out to meet the comparatively small opposition force at the Black Gate.
The Black Gate is the biggest and strongest gate in the land. There's no way anyone was getting through there. And he left the mountain completely undefended.
He should've just left the gate closed.
It didn't even cross his mind that they would try to destroy the One Ring.

It is a pretty unlikely decision, if you think about it; they have the thing that can be the ultimate weapon in this war, but instead of taking that power and using it, they gave it to someone insignificant and sent him with a small entourage right to the heart of Mordor.
It was such a crazy plan Sauron didn't see it coming.

He didn't fear the ring being destroyed; what he feared was that someone who was powerful enough to use the ring against him would get it and destroy or banish him.
 

Something Amyss

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If anything, the fact that a couple Hobbits can destroy his plans indicates to me he not only deserves to lose, but thoroughly and utterly mocked.
 

HardkorSB

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FalloutJack said:
I'm gonna go with 'No', actually, much as I like the evil.

Because, you see, even before all the battles, the planning, the craftiness, and everything...Sauron lost at a critical moment because his Ring of Power, the source of his power and immortality, could be quite easily disabled. All the things that happen afterwards, props for recovery without actually having a body. However, this could have all been simplified if the One Ring were not so easily accessable.

Look at the nine Ring-Wraiths, human kings turned to creatures of darkness forever bound through their own rings to the One Ring. Where are their rings now? In someone else's hands? No. They have them, somewhere. They're just not where anyone can destroy them. Sauron should have made his Ring and fused it to his skull or something, which is under a helmet. Then, all would know his power and none would stand a chance against him.
A cock ring perhaps?
 

Asita

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thaluikhain said:
Lucyfer86 said:
Also, why no guards at Mount Doom? He knew ring was being carried, and not a single guard there.
In the books, it's explained that the idea of destroying the mighty source of power would have been totally alien to him, so he couldn't predict it.

That makes perfect sense, a lot of big disasters are caused when leaders of one nation don't understand the way leaders of another think.
He was very nearly right too, due to the Ring's influence on its bearers. Even Bilbo and Frodo keenly felt its draw, and it ultimately wouldn't have been destroyed if Gollum own lust for it hadn't ended up getting it thrown over the edge.
 

Thaluikhain

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Credossuck said:
WHY THE FCK DID SAURON LEAVE THE CAVE LEADING INTO THE CONVENIENT THROW STUFF INTO LAVA PLACE WIDE OPEN? ? ?
BAR THAT SH*T UP DUDE!
Well, he never thought that anyone would destroy the Ring, because that mindset was alien to him.

Also...that was a big active volcano, full of molten lava. Anyone entering that tunnel should have been cooked more or less instantly. Not his fault that thermodynamics took that day off.
 

FalloutJack

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HardkorSB said:
FalloutJack said:
I'm gonna go with 'No', actually, much as I like the evil.

Because, you see, even before all the battles, the planning, the craftiness, and everything...Sauron lost at a critical moment because his Ring of Power, the source of his power and immortality, could be quite easily disabled. All the things that happen afterwards, props for recovery without actually having a body. However, this could have all been simplified if the One Ring were not so easily accessable.

Look at the nine Ring-Wraiths, human kings turned to creatures of darkness forever bound through their own rings to the One Ring. Where are their rings now? In someone else's hands? No. They have them, somewhere. They're just not where anyone can destroy them. Sauron should have made his Ring and fused it to his skull or something, which is under a helmet. Then, all would know his power and none would stand a chance against him.
A cock ring perhaps?
A nose ring would be safe for work, at least.
 

Sniper Team 4

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They don't do anything because they don't want to admit that Gandalf is right. Admitting that Gandalf is right means admitting that Sauron is coming back, war is coming, death is coming, and stuff is about to get very bad so you better start preparing for it now. It's like how a lot of the countries acted at the start of WWII. The were clear signs of what Germany was up to, and yet no one did anything because people didn't want to. They didn't want the trouble that would come from taking action to prevent something because The Great War had just finished and the agony of that was still fresh in many people's minds.
Look at how Thrandruil (the elf king in The Hobbit) acted: He was literally TOLD that Sauron is coming back, and what does he do? Close his boarders and go, "Nope, that's the rest of the world's problem." That mentality is very common when a huge threat is coming. Hope that other people can deal with it before it gets to you personally.
 

Goofguy

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One word: complacency.

The first time around, the Elves and Men were too busy licking their massive wounds and revelling in their newfound peace following the "defeat" of Sauron. As time went by, they got complacent. The Elves started to diminish and the short lifespan of Men meant that each new generation remembered or felt the effects of the great war less and less. In time (3000 years is a long damn time), the whole Sauron affair became a legend. Just how interested are you in the events of 1000 B.C.?

Furthermore, the One Ring disappeared a few years after Sauron was defeated when Isildur was killed by Orcs. So even if Elrond wanted to do something in all that time, how would he know where to look for it?
 

Silvanus

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Denethor suffered from a case of good guy complacency syndrome, it's true. Cornelius Fudge did, too. I don't think you could accuse Gandalf of the same, though-- seeking out Smaug was also a pre-emptive move to destroy a being that could become a powerful asset for Sauron, was it not?
 

Thaluikhain

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Goofguy said:
The first time around, the Elves and Men were too busy licking their massive wounds and revelling in their newfound peace following the "defeat" of Sauron. As time went by, they got complacent. The Elves started to diminish and the short lifespan of Men meant that each new generation remembered or felt the effects of the great war less and less. In time (3000 years is a long damn time), the whole Sauron affair became a legend. Just how interested are you in the events of 1000 B.C.?
Which is fair enough...excepting for people more than 3000 years old, such as several important leaders of the elves.

Goofguy said:
Furthermore, the One Ring disappeared a few years after Sauron was defeated when Isildur was killed by Orcs. So even if Elrond wanted to do something in all that time, how would he know where to look for it?
He might be a bit more worried about the hordes of orcs running round, though.
 

Lionsfan

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FalloutJack said:
HardkorSB said:
FalloutJack said:
I'm gonna go with 'No', actually, much as I like the evil.

Because, you see, even before all the battles, the planning, the craftiness, and everything...Sauron lost at a critical moment because his Ring of Power, the source of his power and immortality, could be quite easily disabled. All the things that happen afterwards, props for recovery without actually having a body. However, this could have all been simplified if the One Ring were not so easily accessable.

Look at the nine Ring-Wraiths, human kings turned to creatures of darkness forever bound through their own rings to the One Ring. Where are their rings now? In someone else's hands? No. They have them, somewhere. They're just not where anyone can destroy them. Sauron should have made his Ring and fused it to his skull or something, which is under a helmet. Then, all would know his power and none would stand a chance against him.
A cock ring perhaps?
A nose ring would be safe for work, at least.
How wouldn't a cock ring be safe for work? Nobody would know it's on, unless Sauron never wears pants. Which means that either HR is doing a bad job, or that sort of thing is fine to do in Mordor
 

Private Custard

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Asita said:
IceForce said:
Sauron was a complete idiot. He could've simply blockaded the entire mountain, and there's no way the ring would've been able to get through, no matter who was carrying it.

But instead he sends his armies out to meet the comparatively small opposition force at the Black Gate.
The Black Gate is the biggest and strongest gate in the land. There's no way anyone was getting through there. And he left the mountain completely undefended.
He should've just left the gate closed.

Also, more than once, the ring has been right under Sauron's nose, and he didn't even notice. He even thought the wrong hobbit had the ring.
He didn't even realize how close the ring was to the fires of Mount Doom, until it was actually inside and Frodo put the ring on, and it was too late.

So no, Sauron didn't deserve to win.
Say what you will about the forces of good, but Sauron and the forces of evil were stupid beyond imagining.
It didn't make it into the final cut of the movie, but if memory serves Sauron was led to believe that Aragorn (who revealed himself as heir to Isildur's line) had come into possession of the Ring, thus inspiring both his attack on Minas Tirith and subsequently meeting Aragorn's armies at the Black Gate. It wasn't just riding out to face a threat, he thought that was where the Ring - embodying both the bulk of his power and his only true weakness - was being held.
But there's no way that could work.

Sauron saw Frodo, after he put the ring on. Sauron then saw Frodo, just standing in plain sight in Mordor, being fucking useless as normal. There's no way Sauron could have thought any different......unless he was a monumental retard.

Unless hubris was his major failing. Did aragorn call him out in the extended edition, showing him Anduril during a seeing-stone Skype chat? I can't remember now, it's been a while!
 

FalloutJack

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Lionsfan said:
A not-nose ring?
His nethers are easier to hit. Sauron's like eight or nine feet tall. At least if it were a nose ring, earring, or somewhere on his head somehow, it's secret and it's high up and there's a bitchin' helmet keepin' it safe.
 

Asita

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Private Custard said:
But there's no way that could work.

Sauron saw Frodo, after he put the ring on. Sauron then saw Frodo, just standing in plain sight in Mordor, being fucking useless as normal. There's no way Sauron could have thought any different......unless he was a monumental retard.

Unless hubris was his major failing. Did aragorn call him out in the extended edition, showing him Anduril during a seeing-stone Skype chat? I can't remember now, it's been a while!
One of the pivotal scenes left out in this regard was the retaking of Orthanc and Sarumon's final deposition, during which Pippin became fascinated with the Palantir of Orthanc, through which he saw Sauron and Sauron saw him. Sauron made the critical mistake of assuming that Sarumon had captured the hobbits who bore the ring, a mistake that was further exploited when Aragorn deliberately revealed himself to Sauron as Isildur's heir through the same Palantir, leading Sauron to conclude that Sarumon had failed and that Aragorn had claimed the ring for himself and intended to march against him with it, and unlike other potential ringlords, he feared that the heir of Isildur not only could master the ring to an extent that would threaten him but would if given enough time, so he attacked Minas Tirith earlier than planned (and failed) and saw the direct challenge at the Black Gate as both a threat and opportunity he couldn't afford to pass up.
 

Private Custard

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Asita said:
So Sauron's definitely stupid. He failed to tell the difference between Frodo and Pippin, even though he had a damn good look at both of them.

Weren't the ringwraiths drawn to the ring, cursed forever to gravitate towards it? Didn't they have even the slightest inkling that it was still with Frodo, when they were getting buzzed by the fell-beast, when they were travelling across the Dead Marshes?