Q: Why Would Sauron Question Gollum In Person?
ANSWER: I received this question in January 2024:
In “The Shadow of the Past”, Gandalf summarises what he has learned of Gollum’s activities after losing the Ring and says that he eventually made his way to Mordor, and was there captured and questioned (and presumably tortured). The implication, supported by Gollum’s own muttering when he is with Sam and Frodo, is that Sauron carried out some or all of the “examination” in person. However, Gollum was a scrawny being who would not have struck an Orc or other Mordor denizen as of any importance, so why would they bother going to the boss with such a prisoner? Even if Gollum started ranting about the Precious it wouldn’t have meant anything to the average Orc. So, unless there was a long standing order that any captives of any sort should be sent intact to “Lugburz”, what could have brought him to Sauron’s attention?
As I can only make a guess, I shall guess for you.
Gollum’s rantings would mean nothing to Sauron’s servants, except maybe the Nazgûl, who knew what Rings of Power were and what their effects on a mortal would be. But let’s assume for the sake of discussion that Gollum wasn’t brought before any of the Nazgûl for questioning. According to Gandalf, “Mordor draws all wicked things, and the Dark Power was bending all its will to gather them there. The Ring of the Enemy would leave its mark, too, leave him open to the summons.” So Sauron must have ordered his border guards to take an inventory of who showed up: what kind they were, where they came from, what they were doing, etc.
There is an example of this kind of order in the story itself, from the conversation of Shagrat and Gorbag:
‘Now, now,’ growled Shagrat. ‘I have my orders. And it’s more than my belly’s worth, or yours, to break ’em. Any trespasser found by the guard is to be held at the tower. Prisoner is to be stripped. Full description of every article, garment, weapon, letter, ring. or trinket is to be sent to Lugbúrz at once, and to Lugbúrz only. And the prisoner is to be kept safe and intact, under pain of death for every member of the guard, until He sends or comes Himself. That’s plain enough, and that’s what I’m going to do.’
And so while one might think Sauron was too busy to worry about the details of every creature coming into Mordor, remember that his will was enmeshed with the minds of thousands of his followers. Sauron’s death deprived those followers of any direction – thus allowing Aragorn and Eomer’s small army to defeat the vastly larger forces Mordor had unleashed against them.
As well-organized as Mordor was, Gollum’s arrival would have been noted and catalogued and every detail sent up the line. Somewhere along the way the report would have gotten Sauron’s attention.
Why Should Sauron Notice Gollum At All?
Well, I imagine it would be impractical to have every golden ring impounded and sent to Lugbúrz for inspection. First of all, how many evil creatures throughout Middle-earth should be expected to even possess a golden ring? Half of them would probably try to kill each other for it. Look what happened when the Orcs discovered Frodo’s mithril coat. And those were highly disciplined soldiers.
So it wouldn’t be safe to entrust the task of inspecting all incoming jewelry to the border guards.
Furthermore, Gollum didn’t have the One Ring with him. He was looking for it, calling it his “Precious”. Even if Sauron could have entrusted his best soldiers to search for a ring, few if any of them should be expected to make that connection.
Gandalf says the Ring left its mark on Gollum. I think Sauron would have recognized that. If he paid only a small bit of passing attention to Gollum as he was brought toward or into Barad-dûr, I think his Sauron-sense would have triggered alarm klaxons. There would have been something different about Gollum – something maybe only Sauron and perhaps the Nazgûl would be attuned to, able to recognize.
Why Would Sauron Question Gollum Directly?
Since Gollum wasn’t speaking directly about the One Ring – and knew nothing about its true nature – none of Sauron’s servants would have understand the significance of what he was looking for when he was caught by Sauron’s summons.
On the other hand, when Sauron did send Orcs to look for Halflings (such as Grishnákh), they at best seem to have only a vague idea of what they were looking for. They knew Gollum had been questioned. They knew he was looking for something small.
And we don’t know how or why Grishnákh knew about anything concerned with the Ring at all. He could have overheard a conversation and deduced there was some small treasure that Sauron wanted. His only motivation might have been that if he brought it back he would be richly rewarded. I seriously doubt he knew what the Ring was.
So Sauron probably couldn’t entrust the questioning to anyone else. Maybe the Lord of the Nazgûl or Khamûl would have been capable and trustworthy enough to do the job, but it’s not like Sauron kept the Nazgûl hanging around Barad-dûr ready to question prisoners. They were assigned to more important tasks, or stationed far away.
Sauron could only entrust himself to find out the truth from Gollum.
See also
Should Gollum Have Known That Bilbo Took the Ring?
What Happened to Sauron’s Monsters When He Died?
Could An Orc Wield A Great Ring of Power?
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@michael "highly disciplined" . Well… for orcs, maybe, as disciplined as they can get.
Michael,
Thank you very much for your thoughts on my question.
I suppose, without further information from Tolkien, we can only speculate! One other possibility that occurred to me was that successful infiltration of Mordor’s security was so rare an event that one of the Nazgûl (or the mysterious Lieutenant Gothmog) took an interest on general principles, and picked up some vibes that they reported to Sauron.
Shagrat’s orders to strip all prisoners and send a description of their possessions to Lugburz may have been relatively recent, as you suggested on another thread. At any rate, Gorbag seems not to be aware of these orders.
One thing I would add is that I think the term “Precious” might be more important than you’re giving it credit for. Gollum uses the term a lot, but so does Bilbo when he’s considering leaving the Ring behind for Frodo, and Gandalf is alarmed by Bilbo using Gollum’s phrasing.
But they’re not the only two. The scroll of Isildur has this passage.
“ But for my part I will risk no hurt to this thing: of all the works of Sauron the only fair. It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain”
Using the term precious’ very much seems to be part of the ring taking control, and while your random orc guard might not know that, I’m sure Sauron does. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Sauron thinks of the Ring as his precious too. As long as whatever reports are filtering up mention that term, I’m thinking Sauron’s interest would be piqued.
Good point.
Adam, I think you may well be on to something here, however as Tolkien almost never narrated things from Sauron’s point of view we can’t be sure. Of course we do have Frodo asking Gandalf how Sauron came to lose the Ring, “if it was so precious to him”, and Bombadil saying “Show me the precious Ring.” When Pippin is trying to bluff Grishnakh into untying him and Merry, he says “Nothing, my precious”, and it clearly means something to the Mordor-Orc. And I think even Shagrat uses the word of Frodo, when he is a prisoner in the tower of Cirith Ungol. The word does crop up fairly frequently, like a leitmotif.
Could the Orcs looking for Halflings suspect or assume Gollum was one (since that is his heritage and he has their general stature)? If so that would be reason enough for him to be singled out.
Until Gollum’s interrogation (according to Tale of Years started sometime between 3000 and 3009), Sauron had no idea that the Ring had been retrieved by a hobbit/halfling, so halflings were not on his radar, so to speak. He still believed the Ring was lost.
For his part, Gollum seems to have lived near Shelob for many years before finding his way into Mordor itself. How he persuaded Shelob not to just gobble him up, and what he did with himself all that time, remains obscure.
Obscure, indeed. All we can really infer is that both of them ate orcs/goblins from time to time to survive. They were both, in their own ways, consummate survivors. I wonder if their strange alliance started with Gollum promising to help Shelob acquire meals: Most likely by leading isolated members of the Cirith Ungol garrison into or near her lair.
How exactly they wove (pardon the pun there!) this rogue’s alliance is anyone’s guess. Shelob was the last child of Ungoliant, which makes her at least a partial Maia. We know she was much more than just an arachnid of monstrous size. Perhaps she had limited telepathy as one of her powers (doesn’t TTT mention that Gollum was mentally trying to hide his desire for the Ring from Shelob? Suggesting that she has mental powers to read his thoughts, on some level? That’s intriguing in its own right–why would he need to conceal this ambition from her?
Because we have some other explicit text about Shelob’s motives, we understand that her mind had no interest in plots, purposes, or possessions beyond her own hunger, I’m not sure what she really had to offer Gollum–maybe just a temporary place to hid while he tried to resist Sauron’s evil summons to all creatures given to evil.
Ironically, of all the bad guys, Shelob likely was one of the only survivors of the War of the Ring. If she hadn’t starved to death by the time Gondor decided to reclaim Minas Morgul and its environs, I wonder how they ultimately dealt with this issue. I doubt they would have been content to try to wall her out of the newly restored city. No individual man could contend with her, so maybe the Gondorians sought a magical, anti-spider solution from the Elves.
“As I can only make a guess, I shall guess for you.” Michael, I think I speak for all of us when I say how much I look forward to reading your guesses.
An intriguing question from Martin (who gives us all a lot of intriguing questions and replies, actually). I really liked this one because of just how unique it is–no one has ever posed it before, as far as I know.
Good answers here, Michael–they expound some more on your reply to my original question, “What Did Barad-Dur Look Like from the Inside?” Sauron’s original purpose and traits as a Maia were related to having Aule as his mentor: He became a master forger, builder, architect and administrator in his own (divine) right. In that early incarnation, I recall reading that his greatest dislikes were confusion and wasted friction. So his empire in Mordor reminded me very much of Orwell’s 1984, in terms of a state that literally processed, oversaw, inventoried, and surveilled everything it possibly could. But where Big Brother was a construct of that state’s vast security apparatus, Sauron’s Eye and Mind literally were the security apparatus, just as Michael wrote.
I think it was Gandalf who underscored this point by commenting simply but effectively that Sauron “sees much and knows much.” Few details escaped him, and he had a vast intelligence-gathering network beyond Mordor’s walls. So I’m sure Michael is right that when Gollum was captured, it wasn’t long before this odd creature came to Sauron’s initial attention–perhaps simply because Gollum couldn’t be easily classified by those border guards during initial intake! Since they collectively knew nothing of hobbits, what would they have classified Gollum as? Depending on the timing of his capture, those same guards might also have noted the oddity that Gollum did not fall prey to Shelob. I think that Gollum probably became a “person of interest” to Sauron before he ever passed the gates of Barad-dur.
I also really liked Adam’s point above that the simple word “Precious,” oft repeated, would likely have made it into any advanced border-guard report as a critical keyword. There’s an absolutely wonderful duality to that term: In Gollum’s speeches, we come to understand that it’s literally an accursed artifact that’s taken over his mind. But in Isildur’s scroll, he is mesmerized by its beauty and seduced by what he believes is the only fair item Sauron ever created. When he wrote that line, had he forgotten (or had that memory of knowledge suppressed) that Sauron as Annatar had also made a number of other “fair creations” as “gifts” for the free peoples of Middle Earth?
Michael, if I can tag a small, related question on at the end: Was Grishnak’s comment about the “Questioner” of Barad-dur then just another name for Sauron (or maybe one of Sauron’s guises)? Given Sauron’s inability to take a fair shape, I think it’s amazing that a tet-a-tet interrogation wouldn’t have simply blasted poor Gollum’s mind beyond sanity. I would think that, after having his mind enslaved and nearly overthrown by “Ring-as-Sauron,” meeting the Real Thing might simply cause him to die from terror on the spot.
Did Isildur know that Sauron as Annatar created other supposedly fair things? Did Sauron in fact make anything in that guise besides the rings with the Elves. I don’t think the text is clear on it.
Good point, Hanna. Sauron’s masquerade as “Annatar” was well before Isildur’s time, and although Gil-Galad, Cirdan and Elrond had all been suspicious of him, by the time of the Last Alliance things had moved on. In an earlier essay, Michael concluded that the Elves kept the matter of the Rings under wraps for some time, but would most likely have briefed Elendil and his sons before the war began. We can’t tell how much detail they would have gone into, or if they would have thought it was important to brief their human allies about Annatar, a guise long since abandoned by Sauron. Elendil and his sons knew enough about Sauron’s time in Numenor, and his role in their homeland’s downfall, to want to destroy Sauron, without needing to know the details of how he had behaved centuries before. So it’s entirely possible that Isildur knew little or nothing about that period.
Hello Hanna. I think Martin answers your question pretty neatly below. Isildur, although possessed of a long mortal lifespan, didn’t enjoy Elfish immortality. Therefore he only knew Sauron as Sauron, although similarly clothed in a fair guise. I don’t think we can get a definitive answer, but my hunch has always been that “Annatar” must always have been his favored, fairest guise, even if he didn’t always use that name.
Annatar the secret Maiar eventually found an Elven realm whose leadership he could seduce. Sauron the Lord of Mordor must have seemed very odd to the conquering Numenoreans. He commanded an army comprised of orcs, trolls, Easterling men, and probably some fell beasts in that train too. If the Numenoreans hadn’t glimpsed him during their critical intervention in the War of the Elves and Sauron, at last they saw him come alone from his Dark Tower and voluntarily surrender: A likely 9- to 10-foot tall humanoid of powerful body and supremely royal countenance. In other words, a small, handsome, statuesque giant. Why didn’t this make the Numenoreans more suspicious that they were dealing with someone greater than any man? Did the Numenoreans even know the Maiar existed? I think they were permitted to see the Eagles of Manwe from time to time, but Sauron’s appearance should have really puzzled them–what was a being like that doing in Middle Earth, appearing as a giant man while commanding an army of monsters?
I digress, sorry: I don’t think Sauron made any other fair works that Isildur would have been aware of. If anything, he sought to burn down the white tree and probably destroy other holy artifacts so that he could replace them with his Morgothian religion. However, I did some extra digging tonight and found this:
2221: The people of Númenor divide into two parties. The King’s Men, later known as the Black Númenóreans, are those who were corrupted by Sauron and worship the Darkness and its Lords. The Faithful, also known as Elendili, remain in an alliance with the Elves. 2259: The Nazgûl, or ringwraiths, first appear.
It’s not a lot to go on, and I’m not sure exactly when Sauron forged the Nine rings, but I think here at last we get an answer: He did make more fair items other than the One, but they were also rings designed to ensare their bearers. When it comes to creating fair objects, it sounds like he was essentially a one-trick Maiar: It was all about the fair, accursed rings.
When and how he doled out these nine rings we can’t get any definitive answer on. But as before, with the Annatar disguise, my hunch is that Sauron cast about for some likely Numenorean prospects, and probably appealed to their fear of impending mortal death and love of dominion, just like he did with Pharazon. Here his influence and seductive power must have been at their greatest: He had his most charimatic disguise(s) to use and was able to exploit man’s psychological weaknesses to make them offers they couldn’t refuse.
I think another writer opined this too, but the more I think about it, the more I doubt Sauron could have easily wormed his way into their confidence when these Numenoreans were in the primes of their lives and power. At this time, an unknown charismatic outsider telling tales of strange life-enhancing jewelry probably would have been met with much more skepticism. After all, all the Numenoreans at one point were keenly aware of the Ban of Valar, and that they could not take any road or shortcut to longer life.
So if Sauron had already gained Pharazon’s fealty secretly by 2221, and caused a huge rift in loyalty over the entire population, from where did he get his 9 Nazgul candidates 40 years later? At that time, Pharazon was the sole ruler of Numenor; the Nazgul are described collectively as having once been “great kings of men.” So did Sauron go to some of the Numenorean colonies in Middle Earth to find his prize human subjects? Did he leave the island of Numenor for a time to make sorties back in Middle Earth to do so? I’ve always wondered about this puzzle.
I don’t think Sauron’s presence was quite so deadly as you suggest. We’re told in Letters that no mortal could withhold the One Ring from Sauron in his actual presence – but that’s a far cry from dying at the sight of him.
There are living Men in Sauron’s service- surely some of them (and some Orcs, who I doubt are as tough spiritually as Hobbits) meet him personally? Everything can’t be handled through the Nazgul, can it?
Also, I think Gollum’s mono-focused obsession on the Ring might have protected him rather than weakened him. Gollum survived a lot, after all. (While corrupted, I think he still had the basic toughness of Hobbits, too.)
Haig, I think you’re overlooking something: Sauron had input into forging the rings that eventually became the Nine and the Seven, but he didn’t make them himself. He seized them during the invasion of Eregion, but failed to get hold of the special three that became Narya, Nenya and Vilya. The only one he actually made with his own hands was the One. I think you’re right, though, that he took some time to decide how best to use the sixteen that he had stolen. I think he chose the human recipients, especially the Numenoreans, with great care, wheedling his way into their confidence, and waiting until they were older (though still vigorous) and thus more amenable to the idea of having longer lives.
A random aside on this topic of Sauron’s industrious creations: In ROTK, during the aftermath of the Cirith Ungol garrison rebellion, Samwise remarks to Frodo that the Morgul orcs’ gear in his opinion was better made than that of the Cirith Ungol guards.
Does this line strike anyone else as odd and/or intriguing? Why would the Morgul garrison received superior arms, armor, and equipment? Morgul was a strong point and well defended against incursion, but we’re told that Sauron is mostly fixated on an opposing army showing up at his main gates–wouldn’t he want those troops to have the best arms and equipment?
My questions don’t exactly align with the question about producing fair artifacts, but rather why was Sauron creating better artifacts for one area of his realm than another? Were there smiths within Morgul taking advantage of some type of remnant Gondorian metal-working technologies? We know that the Gondorians built cities that were both practical, well constructed, and beautiful–they seemed to sculpt their citadels to best reflect natural phenomena nearby. But Sauron, as a Maia under Aule’s direct tutelage, surely would have been the greatest smith/architect in all of Middle Earth–what could they Elves or Numenoreans in exile have taught him that he didn’t already know?
There’s probably no good canonical answer here, but it’s an odd little detail that intrigues. Was the Morgul gear better made because Morgul was Sauron’s base for launching his advance force vs. Gondor? Perhaps those troops needed better gear to lay proper seige to a strong walled city?
Indeed, it’s an oddity. A regime like Sauron’s would be expected to have uniform standards for – er – uniforms Maybe some kind of favouritism was involved, or there was a process of upgrading going on which hadn’t worked through to the Cirith Ungol garrison.
“Uniform standards for – er – uniforms.” Well done, sir.
That’s intriguing in and of itself: In the LOTR films, which loom large because Jackson attempted his own visual stamp on Tolkien’s rather vague descriptions, the Sauronic forces to me look like one big band of irregulars and mercenaries. A very Motley Crew, as it were. With the exception of ROTK, where the largely orcish host seems to attempt some siege tactics and strategy, in other film-universe engagements they just kind of fight like a ragged rabble, you know? They overwhelm through superior numbers and general fiendishness, but not much through any strategic thought.
In this thread, Dror Bedrack made a general joke about orcish discipline, or lack thereof. And maybe this comment helps provide an answer to my original question: Without the Sauronic will to guide them (and fear to keep them in line), the orcs weren’t often very “uniform” in their ability to run the Mordorian shop, so to speak. We know some of them were assigned ranks (Captains Gorbag and Shagrat, who consequentially ended up killing each other, to Dror’s point), but my hunch is the majority were just lackies and dog soldiers.
Hence their lack of uniform garb, back to the original question. I think Jackson got their skiffle battle kits, including poorly fitting/forged armor and weapons, right in the films. This gear had to be produced en masse (e.g. cheaply), with the better metalwork and materials probably saved for important projects (forging Grond, reinforcing the Black Gate and Barad-dur, etc.) and lieutenants like the Nazgul and the Mouth of Sauron. The higher-level commanders under Sauron seemed to be either living men or undead men, and I don’t think there were very many of these. Sauron, after all, did not like to share power.
If everyone in Mordor had a special uniform and rank, then you’d have a much more complex power structure, and possibly the greater chance of factional rifts or even outright rebellion if large, core military groups decided to break free and set up shop somewhere else (just as Gorbag alluded to). Mutiny is much more possible where the soldiers are better organized and granted more autonomy. The Sauronic way was to rule through terror and fear alone–it wasn’t like his Orcs were going to get pay raises and better living conditions if their side won the War of the Ring.
This is why I think the Mouth of Sauron and his other human servitors probably did all the remotely complex diplomatic work of forging and maintaining alliances, making overtures, bribery, treaty creation, etc. In virtually every example provided canonically, the orcs make a wonderful mess of virtually all endeavors that don’t involve slashing and burning–they didn’t need fancy uniforms to help them do their dirtywork!
We do know that the Orcs weren’t a homogeneous species – whatever their origins, they seem to have evolved into several different tribes, and maybe there was still some clannishness underlying the staffing of different garrisons within Mordor. If that were so, some communities may have been better than others at maintaining their kit in good shape. Or it depended on supervision – Gorbag’s crew were under the eye of a Nazgûl who perhaps insisted on keeping battle gear up to scratch, while the less closely supervised Corinth Ungol guards had got a bit slapdash.
Great point about the rival tribal aspects of the different Orc, Uruk, and Goblin societies we learn about in LOTR. In TTT, we get an earlier version of their propensity for in-fighting, when the Isengard Uruk-hai and the Mordor orc contingents clash over whose orders to follow, Saruman’s or Sauron’s, respectively. I got the impression that the Uruk-hai of Saruman were far better disciplined and a great deal more imposing…possibly because they were better equipped and far better at acting as a military unit.
(Another small but curious fact, from that encounter: The third orc faction there seems to a group of Moria orcs out to avenge their fallen comrades, after the Fellowship passed through the Mines. The lone orc who speaks for that group basically says all he wants to do is kill the trespassers, then go home. Martin, that really speaks to what you wrote about the distinctness of Orc tribalism. This orc’s assertion I think proves the Moria brood really had no knowledge of and nothing to do with either locating the One Ring or even delivering the knowledge of that encounter with the Fellowship up to some higher office. To them, it was simply an unprecedented home trespass, and they weren’t looking for any reason or purpose to it beyond exacting vengeance.
The Moria orc branch of the family then seems to have no interest or involvement in the War of the Ring–although I think in Frodo’s vision on Amon Hen we understand that this group may be called into action (presumably vs. Lothlorien) if the successes and summons of Sauron steadily increased. Maybe. Michael speculated in another essay that Sauron could not easily control the Balrog, a fellow powerful Maia.
The Cirith Ungol vs. Minas Morgul rumble has some confusing aspects. Shagrat definitely suggests that his disciplinary hold on his garrison isn’t as stable as he’d like; he also tells Gorbag he doesn’t trust any of his people either. So that statement really underscores your point here, Martin. I found this captains’ dialog to be bleakly humorous in a kind of Orwellian way: Each one is quietly bragging that their duty is much worse than the other’s (“You should try being up here with Shelob for company” was my favorite comeback line).
But if Gorbag’s crew is the more disciplined unit, why did he and his garrison try to steal the mithril coat for themselves? What was their purpose in this theft? Did they hope to obtain some extra reward if they were the ones who first delivered it to Sauron (probably via the Lord of the Nazgul)? I just don’t get the impression that currying favor would get you much, in either Minas Morgul or Barad-dur.
These events suggest that Sauron’s orders to report potential spy contacts and inventory their possessions if caught weren’t always followed. Where possible, orcs seem to want to lift or pinch extra wealth for themselves–perhaps they could so in Mordor because its surveillance system tended to focus more outward than inward on policing its own state. But the way both garrisons massacred each other seems pretty extreme over a single mithril item that was too small for any of them to even wear…and I seriously doubt there was any way to pawn it to obtain extra money, goods, or services.
For both factions there, discipline eroded pretty quickly. Perhaps all we can really speculate is that the Eye was marshalling all its strength and reserves for a huge military campaign vs. its chief foe, for total control of Middle Earth. Thus, as you observed, Martin, supervision of outpost garrison probably did get lax, as Sauron’s Iron State mobilized for total war. Proof of this possibly lies in the fact that both garrisons literally cleaned each other out to an orc before one of the Nazgul was dispatched to investigate. When that internal battle occurred, I wonder if both posts had been reduced to skeleton crews, and those crews quickly reverted to their baser instincts when they perceived they weren’t being watched over and suddenly had a small but glorious mithril treasure right in their claws. I think a chief orc motto could be: Loot over loyalty.
Assuming (and of course it’s only an assumption) that Shagrat’s troops and Gorbag’s were drawn from different tribes (or clans, or what have you), then it’s possible that there was already tension between them, like a vendetta (or an Orcish version of the Baggins falling-out). Although it would be damped down by the need to unify against the common enemy (enforced by Sauron and the Nazgûl), such a feud might need only a spark to flare up again – like a particularly enticing item of loot.
Another sharp observation. And that seems to be one of the key psychological trends the canonical LOTR text bears out: Left to their own devices, without a common foe to unify them or a single master’s powerful will to dominate them, inter-tribal relations seem to break down fairly easily.
In TTT, we do get some inkling from the captains’ dialog that they’re sitting on some kind of boiling cauldron–I think you’re right, Martin: Maybe the mithril shirt was just the catalyst for longer-simmering resentments. I think at one point Gorbag implies that Shagrat & Co. are incompetents at their jobs, when stating his view that spies have already slipped past or through his position. It seems very possible to me now, after our discussion, that some kind of deep feud was waiting to be lit like a powder keg: Each captain felt that he alone manned the most difficult post more competently than the other.
Perhaps most importantly, I now get the idea that each captain either tacitly or explicitly felt that part of their job was to spy on the other group and report weakness or lapses. Two rival Praetorian guards eyeballing each other in close proximity sounds to me like a grenade with a loose pin. And so it was the mithril shirt that caused that pin to fall out–I go back to the idea that maybe Gorbag seized it not to possess it but rather so that his branch of the Secret Police would be the ones to properly report it. Perhaps it was less an act of theft for gain and more like a scenario where one Secret Police group pulls rank on the other.
(Alternately, we learn in a rare moment of Orc nostalgia that Gorbag harbors dreams of setting up shop somewhere on his own, with just a few loyal lads and lot of loot/booty, probably gained by despoiling. Maybe he saw the mithril shirt as “seed money” and his ticket out via mutiny/desertion while the larger war was raging. Only problem for him was that Shagrat had possession of the prisoner and all his possessions.)
At that moment, as we speculated, the only possible adjudicator would have been one of the Nazgul, but they’d already been dispatched to war. Neither Shagrat nor Gorbag were the type to sit down and write an angry letter when they could grab their swords and dispense justice immediately.
Kind of ironic, though, that Gorbag’s initial, partially accurate theory, got lost in the blood feud: that a great fighter armed with Elvish weapons, one who had badly wounded Shelob (considered to be an almost impossible feat by both the Morgul and Ungol factions), had outmaneuvered two detection points (another seemingly impossible feat) and was now somewhere loose within Mordor’s inner fences. Quite a lapse!
We’ll probably never know definitively but it’s fun to speculate. The captains’ dialog to me was one of the most memorable parts of TTT: It gave the Orcs some missing human qualities without excusing their bad deeds. It also opened up some intriguing questions: Gorbag’s recollection of those Orcish glory days made me wonder whether his knowledge was apocryphal or if he was truly old enough to remember those Second Age events first hand. Were he and Shagrat actually around then to observe what great Second Age fighters could really do? Were either of them living independently, away from Sauron’s resurrected plans for dominion, and then either summoned or conscripted back into servile roles they secretly wanted to escape.
I always wish we could have heard part two of this dialog, maybe just prior to their open factional clash. Was Shagrat the captain who thought he could curry favor with Sauron and rise in rank? Did Gorbag try to persuade him to desert with those most loyal and trustworthy, combine their resources and loot, and basically head for the hills and freedom?
Tolkien went to some trouble to depict his Orcs as coarse, belligerent beings with few or no redeeming qualities – expressions such as “Happy as an Orc” or “Friendly as an Orc” probably were not commonplace in Middle-earth. However, as you say, Haig, when we get to eavesdrop on dialogue between Orcs we realise that they have a back story: there is an Orc point of view that we can understand without necessarily approving.
From an Orc’s standpoint, Sauron is the rightful Overlord, and Dwarves, Elves and Men are filthy rebels who need putting in their places.
Tolkien almost certainly didn’t expect readers to be curious about Orcs’ “off-stage” activities, and Gorbag’s pipe dream about finding a cosy hideaway with “good loot handy” is one of very few clues we have as to an Orc’s idea of the good life. Which prompts me to wonder: what sort of loot? Gold, silver, jewels and the like, presumably, but those are fairly useless commodities if there is no wider economy. Where would he spend his ill gotten gains? I don’t imagine Gorbag hosting a glamorous party where his guests admired each other’s jewellery, and there is no evidence in Mordor of posh boutiques offering elegant outfits or fancy diners specialising in Tark a l’Orange.
And in any case, from whom did Gorbag expect to get his loot? Did he imagine the (defeated) Men, Dwarves and Elves would still be prosperous under Sauron’s rule, or was he proposing to raid other Orcs? He hadn’t thought it through, had he?
Perhaps Gorbag did not believe that Sauron’s rule would be so total as to remove opportunities for looting. He didn’t know of the One Ring, did he?
Without the Ring, Sauron could destroy Gondor, Rohan, and so on, but he’d presumably have to rule the world indirectly, through governors/satraps with their own independent wills.
While he can directly influence the forces in the battle at the Black Gate with his will (so their morale collapses immediately when his attention is distracted by Frodo), his range seems pretty limited – in “Hunt for the Ring” in Unfinished Tales, Sauron sends messengers to the Nazgul; he’s not directly telepathically controlling or even communicating to them. The Orcs in Moria have their own goals, as you point out above.
And even in Mordor, there’s a limit – Gorbag and Shagrat surely aren’t under Sauron’s will when they fall out.
With the Ring, Sauron could give the Nine to the Nazgul and directly control them, hand out the Three, etc. But I don’t think Gorbag had any knowledge of that.
Thanks for the correction, Martin. Perhaps the lure of finding another example of one of Sauron’s fair works overtook the limitations of my knowledge. Save for the One, the Elves under Celebrimbor made all the other rings, with Sauron advising them as their “left hand in darkness,” so to speak.
Well, I guess we can still say that his ring creations were all fair, in that they tempted their eventual wearers with dreams of immortality everlasting (the Numenoreans) and greater gold lust and dominion (the dwarves. I think we get a detail in the LOTR annals that the foundation of each Dwarf-King’s treasure hoard was said to be a single golden ring).
Annatar translates I believe to “Lord of Gifts,” and as such, I’m pretty sure Sauron retained his ability to give a fair gift or two when the necessity arose. We know at various teams he bribed the Easterlings with gold and treasure to pay for their ongoing alliance. We see no evidence of anything fair of his metallurgical works wrought in Mordor–unless you really go in for ravening wolf’s-head battering rams and the like. Yet we all generally accept that Sauron continued to create and forge projects at his special workshop within Mt. Doom.
We know he had some mithril to work with. Unless something about his inherent evil prevented him from manipulating it, it’s not a stretch to imagine him crafting so magnificent-looking weapons, teams, or adornments to present as gifts to powerful human lords whom he needed to field his armies from (since he was so horrible to look upon in the Third Age, I can imagine him embossing rings and jewelry with his formerly handsome bust, accompanied by inscriptions like, “Your friend always in perpetual Middle Earth reorganization, Sauron.”).
My final hunch goes back to my idea that the Sauronic state of Mordor was driven entirely by things like utility, surveillance, and war-machine building–Sauron had no real use or interest in pretty designs or beautiful objects, unless they served some other purpose. None of the canonical texts state anywhere if Sauron had any interest in or appreciation for the Silmarils, for example. Ultimately, his wars and bids were or dominion and power, not becoming Middle Earth’s Michelangelo.