Quote:
Originally Posted by Puddleglum
I'd guess it was an oversight on Tolkien's part (one of few) - unless we hypothesize that the Mouth was so high in Sauron's favor that he was allowed to use the name. In that case we could say that Aragorn's information was not 100% correct (perhaps he had only before encountered servants of Sauron that were not permitted to speak/write the name).
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
My position is that Sauron did not allow his servants to use any personal name for him under normal circumstances, probably due to a desire to be as impersonal to his minions as possible, befitting the "king and god" status he wanted to have with them. When dealing with his enemies, however, the use of a name was required.
|
Also, there's the matter of context: the three were hurriedly trying to work out the allegiance of the
Orcs bearing the "S" insignia. Aragorn (and the author) might have thought it irrelevant to mention any such exceptions to the rule at that point.
Whatever the details of Mordorian etiquette, I don't think this concept (that Sauron's servants avoid using his actual name) is just a "freak", brought up in that one chapter and then forgotten. The various Mordor Orcs we meet
do go out of their way not to say it, instead substituting
"The Great Eye", "Him" etc. (Gollum, who also talks like this, can be presumed to have picked up the habit in Mordor.) It's true that the good characters aren't too keen on using Sauron's name either– there's obviously some kind of "speak of the devil" notion in play in Middle-earth– but they're not nearly so consistent about it.