Sauron's Great Miscalculation

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Gimli was there, but I suppose he couldn't claim to represent his people.

I can't believe I overlooked that. I was going to include Mirkwood, but then I thought "Wait, Legolas was there." How could I have forgotten Gimli?

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

The Faithful (mere men) continued to defy him, some of them in person. It is ambiguous if Sauron had the Ring with him then, but the fact that Tolkien himself laid out a scenario for Sauron's possession of the Ring in Numenor potentially strengthens the case of Sauron having it there.

Certainly the Ring wasn't guaranteed to control people, but in the same letter in which Professor Tolkien imagines Sauron having the Ring in Númenor he also says that "He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans." This implies that the Ring could be quite effective in dominating the wills of others, if not one hundred per cent. Perhaps Faithfulness was some defence.