Sauron's Great Miscalculation

[Mithadan]

By "poor intelligence" I assume that you mean lack of strategic or military intelligence, i.e. where is the ring, as opposed to pure stupidity. Or maybe I am wrong.

The lack of "intelligence" relates to the efforts of Gandalf in concealing the path of the Ring, and, candidly, Sauron's failure to perceive that his opponents might seek to destroy the Ring rather than use it against him. So, perhaps, Sauron's "poor intelligence" was really a lack of understanding. The Ring was not being brought to Imladris to be wielded. It was not being brought to Lothlorien to be wielded. It was not being brought to Gondor or even Rohan to be wielded. it was not to be wielded at all, but rather destroyed.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

By "poor intelligence" I assume that you mean lack of strategic or military intelligence, i.e. where is the ring, as opposed to pure stupidity. Or maybe I am wrong.

The lack of "intelligence" relates to the efforts of Gandalf in concealing the path of the Ring, and, candidly, Sauron's failure to perceive that his opponents might seek to destroy the Ring rather than use it against him. So, perhaps, Sauron's "poor intelligence" was really a lack of understanding. The Ring was not being brought to Imladris to be wielded. It was not being brought to Lothlorien to be wielded. It was not being brought to Gondor or even Rohan to be wielded. it was not to be wielded at all, but rather destroyed.

The phrase "poor intelligence" also covers poor assumptions since in intelligence complete information is rare so assumptions are part and parcel of the thing.

So Sauron's poor intelligence was many-layered.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

One thing that Tolkien was very aware of, as a former Army signals officer,* is that it takes time for information to be relayed. Reading through Tolkien's detailed chronologies, one is struck by how carefully he tracked when Sauron, Saruman, the Witch-king etc actually learned a significant piece of intel- and the time-lag was significant, usually significant enough to make it "non-actionable."

One thing I hate about the movies is that PJ pretty much assumes that everything is known instantaneously across Middle-earth. Everyone knows way too much about what is going on, whereas the books are notable for how much most characters don't know.

*In 1916, realtime communication on the battlefield was restricted to field telephones, which only extended to your own front lines and even then were often knocked out, by shells, damp or just plain unreliability. Wireless was confined to divisional radio stations communicating in Morse code with higher headquarters. At the battalion level, it was still flares, carrier pigeons, and foot- or horse-borne couriers just like Waterloo. No wonder the commanders had no idea what was happening once the Tommies went over the top!

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

I posit that Sauron was a fool in creating the One. It did not succeed in its purpose. The creation of the One placed a large portion of his strength in an OBJECT that could be lost or destroyed. If he had not created the One and invested time and effort into trying to fool the Elves, he could have retained all his strength in himself and would have been no worse off. And ultimately, what happens? He loses the Ring when it is cut off his finger by Isildur, and eventually it is destroyed, also destroying him. The creation of the One Ring was a colossal miscalculation.

Hello Mithadan, it's a really interesting topic. I vary from seeing Sauron (Maia of Aule) as suffering from autocentric self-centred 'foolishness' and at my most unforgiving as suffering from monocentric lock. The two ideas place egocentrism on a continuum, with the latter serving, perhaps, ideas about egoic greed and narcissism in evil emotional pleasure of Sauronic greed, fed by the deployment of the Rings of Power, which divert to Sauron, autocentric control over Ring Bearers. It's the common interpretation of the mythology, where Tolkien cites Sauron at Eregion as passing some kind of critical point in egocentric, sadistic 'runaway mode', and uses actual word lust and greed in a conjoined reference to that tipping point leading to the War of Elves and Sauron (i'd need to lookup the citation - recognising Morth-oron is not far away hahahah).

It's interesting that Tolkien refers to 'seduction' and 'lust' in how he describes what I always saw as the basis of the 'egocentric blindness' (autocetric lock) or Vanity of Narcissism where Suaron becomes nauseatingly self-referential, in imagining everyone wants, in the end to be 'evilly pleasured' by power and greed. Think legally here Mithadan and Morthoron, as in 'intention elements and evidentiary weight for culpability analyses. We use 'psychopathy' in law and society as the analogue, where we suggest that 'wise foolishness' perhaps is the analogue for the 'absence of seeing/perspective taking/empathy' of psychopathy. It is interesting that the implications of a singularity of monocentrism, is inconsistent with positing that Sauron had not another 'plan' post Third Age. He needed beings NOT to be OF his 'self' as well, so he could avoid boredom, if nothing else. hahahha

It's interesting that the Rings imbue a Sauronic solution about 'lack of affective empathy' inherent in psychopathic (the lust/greed motif) by making the Ring Owner 'able to see' the actual thoughts of each bearer. This, I think is what 'wise foolishness' might be Tolkien's idea. It follows the ideas in The Return of the King about Sauron's failure to infer that 'they want to what? destroy the Ring').

The topic of sadistic greed of Sauron, however, has Tolkien's Christianity in a biasing (again the legal idea of bias works well here) motivation of perpetrators. The bias tends to obviate any likelihood that Sauron had any beneficent motivation. We know this is incorrect. His Orcs were sentients, and had will. He wanted to thrive, and had a parental relationship with them. And frankly, they were much better at coping with dust and impoverished environments than vain, conceited Elves, determined to make creepy artifacts in their own images, which is a nausea at times I have about how Elves make things. At times, I see Sauron's point about Galadriel, whose vanity had NO end (e.g. she was "UNfriends" with Feanor "FOREVER"), and that mirror was offensive. Anyhows, hahah that's for another topic, and no doubt it upsets Elf lovers.

More recently, however, I've wondered a great deal about the Ring Command upon Sméagol at Orodruin. If you place Gollum betwixt the Barad Dur and Frodo, then the 'Vanity Inversion' (theory, okay ) of the Ring Command it was that struck Gollum OF the Ring, and not BY Frodo's residual Hobbitish Flesh. I wonder, then, was it instead, the Vanity Vector traces to the Barad Dur, implying that Gollum's awareness of Frodo made Gollum enabled with Free Will, at exactly that point forwards.

At the Sammath Naur, then, Gollum and Sméagol both exert Free Will in the Sméagol/Deagol analogue, this time, with Frodo in the 'Smeagol' role and Gollum atoning for Deagol. This is a Vanity Direction theory. It's premise is that the Ring not Frodo self-commanded OF itself OF Sauronic Origin, directionally TO Gollum, WITHOUT Frodo's contribution.

I also have a 'Sauronic Foresight' hypothesis, if anyone is interested, after this post is looked at.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

The bias tends to obviate any likelihood that Sauron had any beneficent motivation. We know this is incorrect. His Orcs were sentients, and had will. He wanted to thrive, and had a parental relationship with them. And frankly, they were much better at coping with dust and impoverished environments than vain, conceited Elves, determined to make creepy artifacts in their own images, which is a nausea at times I have about how Elves make things. At times, I see Sauron's point about Galadriel, whose vanity had NO end (e.g. she was "UNfriends" with Feanor "FOREVER"), and that mirror was offensive. Anyhows, hahah that's for another topic, and no doubt it upsets Elf lovers.

I disagree with your assessment of Sauron's relationship with the orcs.

First, there is a wide range of possible interpretations about the level of sentience for the orcs, but operating from the assumption that they all had full sentience Sauron deserves no credit for this because he didn't make them, or at least was not the prime engineer in their creation.

Second, at best he regarded them as "useful servants." In the context of the expression of that very sentiment he didn't care if Shelob ate some of them. The Witch-king, and by extension Sauron himself, did not care how many of them were killed in the assault on Minas Tirith. He never seems to have gone to the bother to effectively equip and train the orcs. Saruman seems to have done a better job on that front.

Orcs may have been better able to exist on a more primitive and impoverished level than the Elves but Sauron never did anything to raise them above that status. They were trapped in miserable conditions in a brutal tribal society barely able to function at even the most basic level. Orcs functioned adequately enough, in Sauron's mind, for the purposes he desired and so he kept them trapped at that level. He didn't care about them. He certainly didn't have a parental attitude toward them.

As an aside, I would argue that orcs didn't function to a serviceable level at all. In the narrative we see the entire garrison of one significant border fortress exterminated and the remaining garrison of an even more significant border fortress seriously depleted all through a petty little tribal conflict over a single piece of loot.

It can hardly be overstated how "non-functional" this is in a military context...or indeed in any context.

I'm not convinced that in the event of Sauron's victory that he would have even kept orcs around. They were not good slaves. In the event of his dominance they would have served their purpose. He might well have extirpated them. He was always more interested in Men and Elves anyway. Orcs were just a tool for him to achieve domination over them.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

He never seems to have gone to the bother to effectively equip and train the orcs.

The essay on Orcs in Morgoth's Ring does mention "trained armies" of Sauron's Orcs: "the Orcs of his own trained armies were so completely under his will that they would sacrifice themselves without hesitation at his command." He also points out that "many were by training as tough as Dwarves in enduring hardship," which is interesting. I like the idea that Dwarves are the standard for endurance, and it's noteworthy that some Orcs were trained to comparable levels.

Also, when Frodo and Sam are with the Orcs in Mordor, the column collides with a "troop of heavy-armed uruks from Barad-dûr". I think you're right that Sauron didn't care about the Orcs, but at least some of them may have been better soldiers than we give them credit for. It seems to me that there were "lesser" Orcs used as "cannon fodder" as it were, but also better, tougher Orcs used as heavy shock troops, not elite in any sense by the standards of the Free Peoples, but strong and as professional as you could get in Mordor.

As you point out, however, the tendency of Orcs to fight amongst themselves if not wholly dominated by the will of a powerful Ainu seems to have been one of their most serious shortcomings as soldiers. The essay on Orcs even points out that Orcs "hated one another, and must be kept ever at war with some 'enemy' to prevent them from slaying one another." This certainly explains the incident at Cirith Ungol, in which idle Orcs on guard duty fall to violence amongst themselves. Also, Sauron's will was occupied elsewhere at the time, upon his forces in Gondor.

The essay on Orcs also mentions of Morgoth's armies that "orks who dwelt long under the immediate attention of his will - as garrisons of his strongholds or elements of armies trained for special purposes in his war-designs - would act like herds, obeying instantly, as if with one will, his commands even if ordered to sacrifice their lives in his service". In this manner, the "training" of Orcs might seem to involve and include a heavy dose of brainwashing, conditioning them to accept their Master's commands without hesitation.

As such I would argue that there probably were fairly well-trained and well-equipped Orc forces in Sauron's hosts, but that they still needed to be heavily monitored and centrally directed to prevent them from relapsing into their natural tendency to fight each other and cause chaos.

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I disagree with your assessment of Sauron's relationship with the orcs.

First, there is a wide range of possible interpretations about the level of sentience for the orcs, but operating from the assumption that they all had full sentience Sauron deserves no credit for this because he didn't make them, or at least was not the prime engineer in their creation.

Second, at best he regarded them as "useful servants." In the context of the expression of that very sentiment he didn't care if Shelob ate some of them. The Witch-king, and by extension Sauron himself, did not care how many of them were killed in the assault on Minas Tirith. He never seems to have gone to the bother to effectively equip and train the orcs. Saruman seems to have done a better job on that front.

Orcs may have been better able to exist on a more primitive and impoverished level than the Elves but Sauron never did anything to raise them above that status. They were trapped in miserable conditions in a brutal tribal society barely able to function at even the most basic level. Orcs functioned adequately enough, in Sauron's mind, for the purposes he desired and so he kept them trapped at that level. He didn't care about them. He certainly didn't have a parental attitude toward them.

As an aside, I would argue that orcs didn't function to a serviceable level at all. In the narrative we see the entire garrison of one significant border fortress exterminated and the remaining garrison of an even more significant border fortress seriously depleted all through a petty little tribal conflict over a single piece of loot.

It can hardly be overstated how "non-functional" this is in a military context...or indeed in any context.

I'm not convinced that in the event of Sauron's victory that he would have even kept orcs around. They were not good slaves. In the event of his dominance they would have served their purpose. He might well have extirpated them. He was always more interested in Men and Elves anyway. Orcs were just a tool for him to achieve domination over them.

Servants or no, it implies a parental relationship. We don't know what secret affectations and affections Sauron had with his Orcs in hierarchies. Certainly, if Eru's manifestation of sentience was in Elvendom and Humanity, then Aule (craftsman) who 'created' the Dwarves was channeling the architect. Likewise, Morgoth and Sauron and Orcs same, same.

@Zigur,

Hi there Zigur, great to see you. Well trained and equipped to war craft is certainly probable. We might remember also they had craftsmanship capacity in appreciation of the beauty of hatreds and rages. Do you remember the Orc blade with the leering tongue during Merry's and Pippin's captivity.

@Reader

In a competing appreciation of Sauronic purpose, I wonder: did the Three and their preservation ideology, bely the Noldorin undercurrents of greed for Elevendom's preservation, by accelerating the Fading of Ea in Middle Earth.

Certainly, it seems that the three Elvish regions (Ost In Edhil, Imladris, Cirdan's Grey Havens) with a Ring each, were syphoning lifeforce and concentrating it into small territories. Forgive the reference to physics, but that seems very Entropic to me, and rather like turning a gas flame on your stove high, to boil a small area of water, while the rest of the home is providing the biosphere of support.

So, in my 'Sauronic-Beneficence' theory, Morgoth and Sauron were aware that Ea were ill crafted, and during the insurrection in the music, they were both obviously aware that Eru would prevail and so were volunteering themselves for a dire, labour or horrific burden, bearing the sacrifice of the Vanity of the Host, by pooling the 'bleeding' energy of Ea into a repetitive Song of Sustain.

Thus, in the Second Prophesy of Mandos, where Morgoth returns through the Doors of Night, this is the parable as read by the Eyes of Vanity WITHING the Middle Earthian biosphere. It's a Vanity Inversion and only Eru sees the unfolding of the illusion FROM the Void's Beyond, where obviously, Sauron, and Morgoth were not disconnected from Eru.

I wonder then, what Middle Earth would have been like without Balrogs, and Dragons and what role these mythological creatures played in their theory about Energetics.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

The essay on Orcs in Morgoth's Ring does mention "trained armies" of Sauron's Orcs: "the Orcs of his own trained armies were so completely under his will that they would sacrifice themselves without hesitation at his command." He also points out that "many were by training as tough as Dwarves in enduring hardship," which is interesting. I like the idea that Dwarves are the standard for endurance, and it's noteworthy that some Orcs were trained to comparable levels.

That's a good find, but I find it interesting that we don't seem to run into such orcs much in the stories.

I've re-read the sections on the Battle of the Pelennor from The Return of the King. Humans seem to have been Saruon's most effective troops in that battle. After the arrival of Aragorn the orcs are not referenced again, but rather the Easterlings and Haradrim are stated to have stayed and fought. Even before that point the Easterlings and Haradrim are referenced as antagonists more frequently than orcs. The orcs seem to have been primarily used for manual labor in digging siege lines and manning heavy artillery.

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

Servants or no, it implies a parental relationship.

There is nothing in the books that implies anything other than an exploitative relationship.

I'm quite curious as to what instances you can cite of Morgoth's or Sauron's genuine care for the welfare of their orcs.

We don't know what secret affectations and affections Sauron had with his Orcs in hierarchies.

Perhaps not, but I would like to see any reason to think that Morgoth's or Sauron's attitudes toward the orcs were anything other than what I laid out above. And by reason I mean citations from Tolkien's writings, not speculations or personal opinions.

were volunteering themselves for a dire, labour or horrific burden, bearing the sacrifice of the Vanity of the Host, by pooling the 'bleeding' energy of Ea into a repetitive Song of Sustain.

That is an interesting theory, but the text lays out Morgoth's motives and they don't support it.