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Originally Posted by Kuruharan
Sauron was a pathological liar. Note the bit about “faithless and accursed.” Under no circumstances could the leadership of his enemies be allowed to escape or live. They could be the source of much trouble later. If I’d been Sauron I would certainly have killed them as quickly as possible. And why spare the army when a tremendous massacre could be used to inspire terror. I’d almost have rather that they fought so that I could give them a good trouncing and cripple the morale of the survivors on the other side of the river. Remember these were his enemies in arms that had marched right up to his gate.
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Right, I'm going to go off at a tangent here:
The question I'd ask is, whether massacring a surrendered army would inspire terror or desperation. I don't think Sauron would want to create a situation where his enemies felt they had nothing to lose, & would be slaughtered anyway. That would make them desperate, & they'd fight to the death.
The question that underlies this is how powerful Sauron would become with the Ring back in his posession. Would he become effectively God on earth, able to manipulate reality, cause his enemies to blink out of existence, etc - would it be absolute power, or would he simply become far stronger than anyone else, so that victory over him became
virtually impossible. If he put all his enemies into a position where they felt they would die anyway, whatever they did, would he be sowing the seeds of his own ultimate defeat? I suppose this depends on the size of the population.
Perhaps it was a more complex matter - Sauron knew (or feared) that the Valar would intervene if he embarked on mass slaughter - would they stand back & allow the Eruhini to be obliterated? - if he was to achieve total victory his only chance would be to enslave the Children through getting their surrender, effectively being able to claim that they 'chose' him as their leader. This would put him in a position of danger, admittedly, as living enemies are potentially dangerous, but they would be more manageable than the Valar arising in their wrath against him. The Valar's role is to protect the Children, so they could not allow their wholesale slaughter, but they cannot intervene as dictators, so if they (the Children) surrendered & accepted Sauron's rule, the Valar would be in a difficult position, as overthrowing Sauron then would be interfering & 'imposing' their decision on the Children. If the Valar had intervened in this way & forced their will on Middle earth, to what extent would they be driven by pride,
ofermod, in that assaulting Sauron, with the Ring in his posession, could have been as devastating in its results as the Assault on Morgoth. It seems to me that the only way Sauron could achieve his goal of domination of Middle earth, without risking his own destruction, would have been to accept the surrender of his enemies, & basically hold to what he'd offered the Captains - at least at first.