"Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages"

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Unlike Peter Jackson's "Hobbit", can you imagine an Orc ever being permitted into the presence of the Dark Lord himself?

Well, except Tolkien actually did.

In the (so far) unpublished Chronology of The Lord of The Rings, Tolkien noted that Shagrat brought Frodo's mithril-shirt and Sam's sword to Sauron, and Sauron was so enraged (at the "spies'" escape) that he killed him on the spot.*

Now, I suppose one might speculate that a very laconic time-line entry may have compressed something a bit more involved, as, say, Shagrat delivered them to some Barad-dur functionary who passed them up the chain to the Dark Lord, who subsequently ordered the Orc's execution- but that isn't what it says.

--------------------

*Sauron was having a bad few days, what with the Heir of Isildur turning up, the Witch-king toast, his armies having been crushed on the Pelennor and so on. So one might forgive him for being a bit testy