[William Cloud Hicklin]

I think that there is a bit too much emphasis in the discussion on Sauron's ability to "sense" various personages, which strikes me as very Movieverse. Remove the Irritable Lighthouse and go back to Sauron as the Lord of Barad-dur, aware of the world beyond his presence only via his spies and servants, and the dubious utility of the Palantir*, and the notion goes away.

In Tolkien's full synoptic Chronology, which hopefully will see print in the not too distant future, it's clear how blind and groping Sauron really was, and how limited to fairly conventional means of intelligence-gathering (e.g., T calculated the distance from Moria to Barad-dur and how long it would take messenger-birds to traverse it, and how long Orc-runners would take to reach Isengard).


*Yes, a Palantir could see anywhere in Middle-earth one wanted. But first one had to know where to look. For all of the US' spy satellites and drones, it took ten years to spot the only six-foot-four Arab in the AfPak border region.......