Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 462672" data-attributes="member: 177">I'll start out by summing up - I think you're reading too far into things, and also making an error in analysis.On the error - you cannot give your take on Tolkien's conception by looking at the movie.  Tolkien himself didn't create the movie's imagry.  You need to look at the text. Tolkien's conception as shown in the trilogy doesn't include the appearance of Sauron, with or without armor, as far as I recall.  We know that he had a physical form with a hand and a ring, but otherwise the filmmakers were left all on their lonesome.  Disagreements over that image are simply disagreements over art, and have little substance.Looking at teh text, I think you'll find little or no support for the idea that Sauron can "can fill his armies of orcs with hate, a lust for destruction, with strength and endurance beyond what they would normally have, with battle prowess greater than their normal combat abilities." over a distance.  I recall no scene in the book detailing such exertion of his power.  Unless you can find a passage, I'd have ot say this comes out of your own mind.Similarly for his ability to scry.  While they do occasionally refer to the "Eye of Sauron", the more usual reference to his ability to gain information is that "he has many eyes", meaning spies - men, half-orcs, birds, wolves, etc.  A being who's "power to perceive is very great, able to scry anywhere in Middle Earth, piercing through all material defenses" should not have had any trouble locating and stopping the Fellowship.  It seems to me that Sauron's ability to see is actually quite limited. When Frodo looks into the Mirror of Galadirel, and again from the Seat of Amon Hen, the Eye is searching, but does not actually find Frodo.  Funny, that.  One would imagine that Sauron would be able to peg Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship pretty darned easily, considering that they use a srcying magic locked to a known location.  But no.  Note also that Frodo does not actually see the Eye from the Seat.  In the text he feels it.  Tolkien does not give a visual description of an eyeball floating around searching.  That's merely Peter Jackson trying to display a thing that's difficult to get across in film - something going on inside a character's head.Frankly, I think the Eye is merely a metaphor.  It isn't a thing, physical or spiritual.  Mere mortals have problems grokking what goes on inside the mind of a fallen angel.  When they get such information, it is parsed as a metaphorical image they can understand.</blockquote>

Verification