The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum


Visit The *EVEN NEWER* Barrow-Downs Photo Page

Go Back   The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum > Middle-Earth Discussions > The Books
User Name
Password
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-20-2002, 04:10 PM   #1
Jessica Jade
Wight
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Tirion upon Túna, Atlanta
Posts: 154
Jessica Jade has just left Hobbiton.
Send a message via AIM to Jessica Jade
Sting Sauron's revenge on hobbits?

Did Sauron have it all set up the whole time, to ruin the Shire just to spite hobbits? DId he get Saruman to go there and have his men take it over and enslave the hobbits and make them suffer? So it was the work of Sauron the entire time?
In the chapter Shadow of the Past, Gandalf says:
"I believe that hitherto, he [sauron] has entirely overlooked the existence of hobbits. You should be thankful. But your safety has passed. He does not need you-he has many more useful servants- but he won't forget you again. And hobbits as miserable slaves would please him far more than hobbits happy and free. There is such thing as malice and revenge.( Fellowship of the Ring, page 48).

and Frodo asks, "Revenge? Revenge for what?"

and then when Sam and Frodo come back to the Shire in The Scouring of the Shire, sam says that this is worse than Mordor because they knew what it was like before it was ruined. And frodo says,
"Yes this is Morder. Just one of its works. Saruman was doing its work all the time, even when he thought he was working for himself.And the same with those that Saruman tricked, like Lotho." (Return of the King, page 994.)


What i really want to know is, why did Sauron want to avenge hobbits in the first place? Is it because all the ring-bearers were hobbits (Gollum, if he counts, Bilbo, Frodo)? he obviously didn't need them as slaves, but Why else would Sauron want to go out of his way to make hobbits miserable ?
__________________
http://www.cadential64.com

The musicians had indeed laid bare the youngest, most innocent of our ideas of life, the indestructible yearning for the way things aren't and can never be. ~ Philip Roth, The Human Stain
Jessica Jade is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-20-2002, 04:19 PM   #2
Mhoram
Dead and Loving It
 
Mhoram's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: The land of fast cars and loud guitars.
Posts: 363
Mhoram has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Just as Gandalf said, Sauron desires all to be miserable rather than free and happy. Did Sauron specifically say to Saruman, go take over the Shire and make them miserable? I guess we'll never know.
Mhoram is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-20-2002, 08:17 PM   #3
Marileangorifurnimaluim
Eerie Forest Spectre
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Buried in scrolls of fanfiction
Posts: 798
Marileangorifurnimaluim has just left Hobbiton.
Pipe

Jessica, I think it's unlikely Sauron directed Saruman to take over the Shire. It was Saruman's own mean-spirited idea.

The take-over of the Shire (and all the trouble in the areas around Bree) had to come after the Rangers left for war (right around the time of the battle of Helm's deep). Until then the Rangers protected the borders of the Shire.

Yet only days after Helm's Deep, Wormtongue chucked the Palantir, Saruman's only source of communication with Sauron, at Gandalf. It's too narrow of a window of time to learn the rangers were gone, receive instructions, and then gather thugs to send west, plus it would have taken forces away from Saruman's attack on Rohan. Both Sauron and Saruman would have considered the Shire a minor matter easily dealt with at their leisure. Once they were victorious.

Now Saruman did have previous connections with the Shire (recall the barrels of Longbottom Leaf found in the wreckage of Orthanc), and had learned of its connection with the ring in the summer before the battle of Helm's Deep.

But he had no reason for revenge until the attack of the ents. He would have seen Merry and Pippin with ents during and after the attack on Orthanc, and in the manner of bullies everywhere, decided to take his revenge on the weakest, easiest target. With the fall of Sauron that wish for revenge would have redoubled, against Frodo.

He had plenty of time after the end of the war of the ring to wreak havoc. The war ended in the Spring, but the Hobbits didn't return to the Shire until mid-fall.
__________________
Deserves death! I daresay he does... And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them?
Marileangorifurnimaluim is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-20-2002, 11:31 PM   #4
Birdland
Ghastly Neekerbreeker
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: the banks of the mighty Scioto
Posts: 1,757
Birdland has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

I'd almost have to say Sauron's ultimate revenge on the Hobbits were that they became "known" to the outside world again.

Up until the events of the War of the Rings, halflings were a forgotten race, and flourished because of it. I almost think this was an intentional choice of The One.

In the short term having the protection of the King and the renown for the part they played in the overthrow of the Dark Lord may have been beneficial, but as other kings and other wars occured, I'm sure that the events of history and the greed of Man would have eventually defeated them. Halflings would have dwindled, or even died out in the end.

Unless The One could find them another Shire, and hide them away for another 5000 years. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Birdland is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2002, 04:41 PM   #5
Lyliac
Pile O'Bones
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: The Dead Marshes
Posts: 25
Lyliac has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

two words-why not?
__________________
"Atheism is a non-prophet organization"
[img] C:\Documents and Settings\user1\My Documents\My Pictures\sig1.gif [/img]
Lyliac is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2002, 09:15 PM   #6
Merendis
Animated Skeleton
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: An hour from Eden and the Stairway to Hell
Posts: 45
Merendis has just left Hobbiton.
White-Hand

i would have to say that saruman wanted to rule [i]something[\i] when he was ruined, perhaps he saw them as a last chance to gain power, for he probably assumed they would be easy to overtake. maybe he had some other personal reasons, but this seems valid to me, he just wants power
__________________
Merendis Mthe Mmariner's Mwife

Riding one day in the forest of the Westlands he saw a woman, whose dark hair flowed in the wind, and about her was a green cloak...and he knew her for Erendis...then suddenly he knew in himself the love that he bore her, and he felt the emptiness of his days.
Merendis is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2002, 09:32 PM   #7
Kalimac
Candle of the Marshes
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Flyover Country
Posts: 780
Kalimac has just left Hobbiton.
1420!

From the way the story is written, it doesn't seem like it was Sauron's idea - in fact he seems to have been fairly preoccupied with Gondor and Rohan and looked on hobbits as being rather like annoying flies - something to be dealt with later. Doubtless he would have gotten his revenge on the Shire in time, if he had had the chance, but it wouldn't have been like that. Saruman began corrupting the Shire while he was still Sauron's agent, but it was definitely a sort of private side-enterprise for him (as quite a few other things were - would Sauron really have let Saruman have the long-distance run of the Shire for that long without interfering directly?) The fact that Saruman made for the Shire after he had left Orthanc and was in bad favor with Sauron, and the fact that he considered the Shire a good hiding-place for him would show that Sauron couldn't have been terribly interested in it (since the Ring-bearer was long gone), as of early March of that year.

OTOH you could say it was Sauron's fault ultimately for corrupting Saruman and turning him into a tool who would do things like that which were very much after the spirit of Sauron himself. But Saruman was always a weak imitation of Sauron - Sauron would never have wasted time bullying hobbits with Shirriffs and taking pipeweed, he would have gassed them all in the first day and turned the Shire into a waste that even Sam's box might not have been able to replenish. We can safely credit Saruman for this particular corner of destruction.
__________________
Father, dear Father, if you see fit, We'll send my love to college for one year yet
Tie blue ribbons all about his head, To let the ladies know that he's married.
Kalimac is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:11 PM.



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.