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Post by khazarkhum on Apr 30, 2008 9:13:17 GMT
Sauron isn't particularly good at encouraging his people, is he? Killing every commander you have doesn't get you better commanders; it gets you the old guys' underlings. For as long as he's been out there fighting, you'd think he'd learn that.
But no, he doesn't. It's like the old proof of insanity: repeating failed actions in the hope that this time it will somehow work. I wonder how often the Nazgul pointed out to him that he's doing it wrong, only to face punishment for insubordination. By now I can see them not even bothering to try, unless the general involved has been successful in the past or is a protege/relative.
So when do we get a new chapter?
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Post by Angmar on May 2, 2008 6:51:51 GMT
Sauron isn't particularly good at encouraging his people, is he? Killing every commander you have doesn't get you better commanders; it gets you the old guys' underlings. For as long as he's been out there fighting, you'd think he'd learn that. Khazar, perhaps that is why he seldom won anything in the West, and when he did, he wasn't able to hold it for very long. (At least for an immortal being) He seems to have fared better in the East and South, but Tolkien never wrote much about that. He was far better at diplomacy and manipulation than he ever was with war strategy. After all those years, you would think he would have learned something about military strategy. He seemed to fail at that pretty much. I suppose it all goes to prove that even being a maia couldn't guarantee wisdom. I always thought Tolkien wrote Sauron as a being driven mad (or on the verge of being driven mad) by his obsessive quest for power. I don't think a Nazgûl could persuade him of his follies. He is very much reminiscent of Hitler, who tried to command armies that weren't there. Elfhild and I are in a major rewrite of some early chapters, and that is taking a lot of our time. We hope to get a new chapter up soon.
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Post by khazarkhum on May 3, 2008 16:18:29 GMT
Treachery also seems to have been his style. That & threats. He also managed some of it up with gold, apparently. Buying off groups, things like that. He seems to have done well with the Dwarves: by giving them their rings, he seems to have bought their neutrality.
Except he did still have armies, but just didn't use them well. I wonder if his orders were ever countermanded by the Nazgul, only for them to pay for the insubordination--regardless of the outcome. I can see a good general doing his best to save his army from certain doom. Hell, even Hitler's generals tried their damndest to save Germany from him.
Most of them don't need much in the way of rewrites. My own experience with editing is that you reach a point where all you're doing is shifting commas around. ;D
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Post by Angmar on May 7, 2008 5:26:11 GMT
Except he did still have armies, but just didn't use them well. I wonder if his orders were ever countermanded by the Nazgul, only for them to pay for the insubordination--regardless of the outcome. I can see a good general doing his best to save his army from certain doom. Hell, even Hitler's generals tried their damndest to save Germany from him. Khazar, yes, some of Hitler's generals tried to save Germany from Der Führer, even attempting to assassinate him. Maybe the Nazgûl wished they could successfully achieve the same thing, although Tolkien never, ever would have admitted the possibility. He always wrote things from the viewpoint of a Western scribe in the 4th Age, many years after the War of the Ring. You have to wonder why one of the Nazgûl wouldn't have countermanded an order at least once. There again, Tolkien is silent. We do know that in previously unpublished material which is featured in "The Lord of the Rings Companion," that the Witch-king had great doubts about the Ring Quest and found out quickly that he did not want to be on it. "[The Witch-king] had been shaken by the fire of Gandalf, and began to perceive that the mission on which Sauron had sent him was one of great peril to himself both by the way, and on his return to his Master (if unsuccessful); and he had been doing ill, so far achieving nothing save rousing the power of the Wise and directing them to the Ring." - p. 180 Obviously the Witch-king had far more insight into the true situation than did Sauron. (Some might say far more intelligence.) It seemed that he had a certain degree of foresight, too (which, according to some of the material Tolkien wrote on thought-speech, should have been denied unto him as one of the "Dark" forces). After all, he allowed Grima to leave because he had a "feeling" that Grima would prove detrimental to Saruman in the end. Elfhild felt that some of her earlier work was not as smooth as it could have been, so she made some edits to earlier chapters in Book One. Then I decided perhaps I should start going over my material again, and it became a joint project of rereading and minor edits. I don't know if we succeeded in making it better or worse. ;D
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Post by khazarkhum on May 9, 2008 5:17:20 GMT
Khazar, yes, some of Hitler's generals tried to save Germany from Der Führer, even attempting to assassinate him. Maybe the Nazgûl wished they could successfully achieve the same thing, although Tolkien never, ever would have admitted the possibility. He always wrote things from the viewpoint of a Western scribe in the 4th Age, many years after the War of the Ring. Which is why so much of it reads in such a heavy-handed manner. Somehow I doubt the people of Arnor felt that they were being "saved" when Gondor wandered over once their actual King was safely removed. And for all their pretty words, Elves are arrogant bastards. Well, where were they when Sauron was getting his ring cut off? Either they refused to fight, or they were in a position where they were unable to fight. If he had imprisoned them somewhere for failing to stop the war, then when various people ransacked the place they should have been found. Since we don't have any record of that, they had to be somewhere else, which implies that they took off at the first opportunity. There is the scene in ROTK where Angmar senses Frodo & the ring. Instead of ordering his men to go & check it out, he simply continues on. The movie gave a nod to this when he flew directly over Frodo. As Numenorean royalty, the forsight was part of his nature & probably not something that could be taken away. Or it could be a sign that he was more conflicted than the others, and not completely under Sauron's hold.
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Post by Agan on May 9, 2008 6:42:53 GMT
If he had imprisoned them somewhere for failing to stop the war, then when various people ransacked the place they should have been found. Since we don't have any record of that, they had to be somewhere else, which implies that they took off at the first opportunity. They did take off East at the first opportunity. Here is what is said in the Note 20 to the "Disaster of the Gladden Fields" in UT: It is unlikely that any news of Sauron's fall had reached [the orcs by the Gladden], for he had been straitly besieged in Mordor and all his forces had been destroyed. If any few had escaped, they had fled far to the East with the Ringwraiths. I think the nazgul were in the besieged Barad-Dur all right, but when the siege was broken and Sauron went West to Orodruin, the Ringwraiths led all the remaining forces East to safety.
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Post by khazarkhum on May 17, 2008 3:01:25 GMT
"[The Witch-king] had been shaken by the fire of Gandalf, and began to perceive that the mission on which Sauron had sent him was one of great peril to himself both by the way, and on his return to his Master (if unsuccessful); and he had been doing ill, so far achieving nothing save rousing the power of the Wise and directing them to the Ring." - p. 180 We've been kicking this quote round for a while. It suggests things that we all suspect, frankly. 1, they know that going home empty-handed is going to be bad; 2, going home with the ring is going to be worse; 3, they are in for an unpleasant time if they get caught by anyone. The last makes me wonder if any of them were held at any point, and what became of the poor suckers who had them. It won't be pretty. And as for Sauron losing his ring to Isildur, they aren't at that battle, which means they are somewhere else. That's a No DUH, but hear me out. If Sauron had to go out himself, it means they've failed to perform at the desired/demanded level. They may have been driven back by the combined power of the Elves, OR they may have gone to command armies elsewhere. If they did go elsewhere, there would be nothing to prevent them from continuing on until they got as far away as possible. The other possibility is that some fell in battle, only to reappear later; resurrected by the rings.
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Post by Angmar on May 17, 2008 23:02:43 GMT
Agan and Khazar, I always find these discussions very enjoyable and enlightening. Please continue.
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Post by khazarkhum on May 19, 2008 20:36:15 GMT
Agan and Khazar, I always find these discussions very enjoyable and enlightening. Please continue. Me too. The battle has always bothered me, because I would expect them to be handling the army. Sauron seems to have used them as his generals, although he seems to have never really listened to them--his disasters always seem to be of his own making. If they were there, why didn't they attack Isildur? Why was he allowed to get away with the ring? There's no answer to that. If they were there, saw him fall & Isildur take the ring, their failure to then pursue Isildur undermines many of the suppositions given in the later stories. If we consider them merely as extensions of Sauron, then they too should have fallen & vanished with him. But this isn't what happens, or rather it doesn't seem to happen. In some versions they "go east", in others they simply disappear. We know they didn't bring down Isildur; there's no way they could have donwe so & not been seen. the only possibility would be to do so from a distance, but that allows the possibility for the ring to either fall into the wrong hands or be lost. Since it was lost we have to dedeuce that they weren't involved. We're told that they couldn't use the ring. Whether this was because they were told so or whether because one tried it isn't explained. If I were Sauron I'd sure as hell want to be sure that no one else could use it at all, in any way, form or manner, but since foresight wasn't his long suit that didn't happen. In fact that's such a critical weakness of the ring that it's surprising he held it as long as he did. Since they didn't pursue Isildur, we have to decide where they were. If they were already in the east, handling armies, that's one thing. But if they were there, then they seem to have used it as a chance to escape. Actually the escape scenario fits what is known reasonably well. Maybe they hoped Isildur or someone else would claim the damned thing. They must have felt that things couldn't possibly be any worse under Isildur than they were under Sauron. And Saruman would be an ideal master--they knew they could bully him. Saruman seems to have been respectful of them, if not actually afraid. In the few encounters between them, Saruman is acting from weakness, not strength; he's barricaded himself inside or some such thing. He might have a golden tongue, but that's not much use against a sword. So I think we can say they used the chance to escape, hoping that they were free of Sauron.
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Post by Elfhild on Aug 17, 2008 6:47:07 GMT
After three months, a new chapter of The Circles has at last been posted! Aziru contemplates the alchemy of cooking, and how the Elixir of Life might be found by combining a mysical combination of ingredients. Read all about it in Chapter Three, "The Search for the Sublime Elixir."
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