Q: Who Was Gothmog in The Lord of the Rings?
ANSWER: This question is ambiguous, for some people may be asking about the Gothmog in Peter Jackson’s movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” while other people have asked about the character who is (apparently) only referred to once in the book.
New Zealand actor Lawrence Makoare played both the Witch-king/Lord of the Nazgul and the Orc officer Gothmog in the movie. In the book Gothmog is described as “The Lieutenant of Morgul”, meaning he was second-in-command of the army that the Witch-king led against Minas Tirith, and thus was a high-ranking officer.
But was J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gothmog an Orc? Inquiring fans want to know.
Several readers have put forth an interesting argument that — to the best of my knowledge — has not been clearly or soundly refuted. These readers feel that Gothmog may have been the Mouth of Sauron. There are some texts which support this interpretation without actually proving it.
For example, in the previous question Did Any Black Numenoreans Fight Against Arnor? I cited a passage from The History of Middle-earth in which Christopher Tolkien suggested his father may have accidentally referred to the Lieutenant of Baraddur (sic) as the Lieutenant of Morgul. But what if the implied connection was no accident? Or what if the accidental connection led to a realized connection later on (like the accident that led to Tolkien deciding there were really two Thrains in The Hobbit)?
The name Gothmog goes all the way back to The Book of Lost Tales but it has been assigned several meanings. One meaning provided by J.R.R. Tolkien was “(Mor)goth’s mouth” or “mouth of (Mor)goth”. One might ask why Sauron’s representative should be using a name (or title) referring to Morgoth. Tolkien himself provided an answer in Letter No. 183, written in 1956 (or possibly 1957) in response to W.H. Auden’s (favorable) review of The Lord of the Rings. In the text of the letter he wrote: “Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants;† if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world.” In a footnote Tolkien added:
† By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. when Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. By the end of the Second Age he assumed the position of Morgoth’s representative. By the end of the Third Age (though actually much weaker than before) he claimed to be Morgoth returned.
Tolkien alludes to this deception by Sauron in “The Departure of Boromir”, where Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas decipher the S-rune on the helmets of several slain Orc-soldiers:
There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs: and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.
‘I have not seen these tokens before,’ said Aragorn. ‘What do they mean?’
‘S is for Sauron,’ said Gimli. ‘That is easy to read.’
‘Nay!’ said Legolas. ‘Sauron does not use the Elf-runes.’
‘Neither does he use his right name, nor permit it to be spelt or spoken,’ said Aragorn. ‘And he does not use white. The Orcs in the service of Barad-dûr use the sign of the Red Eye.’ He stood for a moment in thought. ‘S is for Saruman, I guess,’ he said at length.
So here Aragorn confirms that Sauron’s servants do not think of him by “his right name” (in the sense that Sauron was historically known to be Morgoth’s servant). Throughout the story we only ever hear Sauron’s servants refer to him as “the Red Eye” or “Lugburz” — until, that is, the Mouth of Sauron comes out to parlay with Aragorn and the Lords of Gondor and Rohan. There he introduces himself as “the Mouth of Sauron”.
We don’t know why the Mouth of Sauron so names himself. We only know that he does. But “Mouth of Sauron” certainly echoes the “mouth of (Mor)Goth” translation provided for Gothmog. Sauron’s self-identification with Morgoth — his assumption of Morgoth’s identity — would have exposed him to ridicule if he had sent his emissary to carry on the pretense with those who knew better (including Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, the sons of Elrond, and certainly many of the lords of Gondor).
So it is plausible to guess that Sauron’s masquerade forced him to compromise by allowing Gothmog to assume a new title — although Tolkien should have supported this rationalization with some explanation. Hence, we cannot really assume this is the best inference to make.
But there is one other curious fact that has drawn readers’ attention from time to time. When Frodo, Sam, and Gollum watch the Lord of the Nazgul lead his army out from Minas Morgul, the Nazgul is accompanied by a body of black-clad horsemen. These are too numerous to be Nazgul and there are no further references to them. But were they perhaps Black Numenoreans riding as a ceremonial bodyguard for the chief of the Nazgul? If so, that may lend credence to the idea that the Lieutenant of Morgul was himself a Black Numenorean, and thus by inference strengthens the association between the Mouth of Sauron and Gothmog.
But this is all very speculative and there is no way to prove that the Mouth of Sauron was Gothmog or that Gothmog was even a mortal man like the Mouth. Some readers argue that Gothmog may have been one of the Nazgul. There is no way to disprove such a supposition.
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