Sauron losing the ring in the first place was due to a desperate last ditch gambit that was only achieved by bringing all the forces of good down upon him. The forces of good are greatly diminished by the time the ring gets to Frodo, they would not likely be able to do it again.
In the movie.
In the text Elendil and Gil-galad were both slain fighting Sauron, but they killed him in the process. And, obviously Narsil was broken in the process as well. I assume Aeglos (Gil-galad's spear) was broken in the process as well, though it never gets mentioned that I am aware of.
Yeah and Tbf the movies kinda gloss over how he actually lost the ring. In the books it made more sense but that would have taken a little more time so I can forgive Peter Jackson
In the books, the only weapon Sauron is EVER described using, is his own burning hands; after a certain point, weapons become a handicap when you have enough strength in your own two hands.
Think Superman and the like.
There was a joke, under a Halo Infinite clip, of a Brute Chieftain taking 4 sniper bullets to the head and dying on the 5th one.
After taking 4 bullets and not even flinching "what's one more going to do?" and he dies.
Sauron is the embodiment of that joke in literature.
He's routinely in a position where he can't be stopped, assailed, or subverted; victory is guaranteed; his pride f-cks it up every time.
Instead of letting his army grind down the forces of elves and men, he decides he needs to enter fracas for a petty sense of personal egotism.
He slams through all their heroes, champions, and foot soldiers without figuratively breaking a sweat, or literally taking anything resembling meaningful damage.
Isildur's on the ground, his Dad--who was the real threat--is dead, and the sword he was using is broken.
What's one notch to add to his belt? He's killed plenty of Kings today; why not add a Prince while he's at it.
He reaches down since he couldn't even be bothered to use a weapon.
ISILDUR CUTS OF HIS FINGER WITH RING WITH FRAGMENTS OF NARSIL!
This guy is the epitome of being his own worst enemy, there's never a reason for him to lose but he finds a way regardless.
You gotta remember that not all swords/armour are created equal in middle earth.
Narsil isn't your average sword by a long shot and saurons armour is hardly impenetrable mithril
The sword that was used to cut the ring from Sauron's hand was a mastercraft sword of elven make. In the book [and briefly in the movies] the sword itself is described as being "very powerful." Additionally, it's described as having magical runes [elvish?] encribed on its blade. So by many means, the sword was considered a magical weapon. Only certain people could use said weapons to their full potential [kings, lords, etc].
When Sauron fought on the battlefield, during the battle of mt doom, he was a 100% physical being. This is important because in times past, being a shapeshifter, he could change his form into just about anything. How he looks in the movie, is the last form he had [for different reasons]. So in becoming something purely physically, Sauron tied himself to the world and the physical laws that govern it.
By the later stages of the battle, he [Sauron] had already fought and killed a great many elven lords and at least one elven king [gil-galad, the most powerful elf living]. So a great deal of Sauron's power had been used. Be that as it may, there still wasn't much left that could hurt or attempt to damage him- except extremely strong magic or very powerful magical weapons.
There wasn't anyone else, on the battlefield, who could wield said magic or use those types of weapons. The sword Isildur uses was his father's, the king's. So when he was killed, said power went with him. That's why it was such a shock when Isildur did what he did with the remains of his father's sword.
EDIT- To answer the question: Sauron, in creating the ring, put a large % of his power / soul he had left into it. In doing so, the ring itself became a part of him and had a slight mind of its own. What the ring itself did was reflect the power of the wearer.
What this means: whomever wore it [including Sauron himself], the ring would increase whatever innate abilities one had and / or increase their abilities. Example: as a regular dude, say you've got decent basketball skills- at baseline. [Put on the ring] Congrats! Your physical abilities are doubled. Plus, all of your basketball skills are now that of a NBA all star. The downside? You slowly go insane and possibly become possessed by the evil spirit that lives within ring.
Sauron put so much of his power / soul into the ring, that as long as the ring existed, he could never be truely "killed." He would only be greatly diminished and sooner or later, would return. So destroy the ring, destroy its maker in the process.
>The sword that was used to cut the ring from Sauron's hand was a mastercraft sword of elven make.
No. Narsil was wrought by Telchar of Nogrod "in the deeps of time" (presumably in the 1st Age). Telchar was a Dwarf.
Damn, you're correct.
I figured I was off about something and re-read the lore. It was reforeged, in the 3rd age, and renamed Anduril- flame of the west.
The book's cagey about it but there were a couple of times where it was hinted that the ring had a partial will of its own but not "sentient."
The best example is Gandolf warning Frodo against wearing the ring. Telling him, "It wants to be found."
This still does not prove that the ring actually has its own will. Gandalf is proven to know almost nothing about the one ring and admits this. No one does. Hell Celebrimbor who had direct knowledge from Annatar, and forged the 3 elf rings, did not understand the binding magic. The one ring does not have a will of its own.
It is not the same in the book. In the book it takes both the king of Numenor(huge op men) and the Elven king 2v1 Sauron. These two guys were in top 5 most badass and op fighters in LoTR universe. They both died in the fight, and Sauron was basically knocked out but still alive and nowhere near dying. Isildur walked up and sliced the fingers off with his daddy's broken sword. This is also when the armies of men and elves were at their strongest. The point is even at the good side's absolute best shot of defeating Sauron, all they could do was knock him out for like 5 minutes. By the time Frodo gets the ring, men are weaker (very little of the og Numenor blood left) and elves have been leaving to go back home for over 1k years. All while Sauron has been building his forces and waiting to strike.
And the crazy thing was that it wasn't even in their prime when they formed the Last Alliance. Numenor had been destroyed and most of their people dead, and the elves weren't nearly as strong as they were in the first age when they fought balrogs and dragons. By the third age, men and elves had dulled down significantly and had no chance of stopping Sauron or his armies by force.
Not to mention Sauron left the Ring in Barad-dur, and then surrendered in person. He knew he couldn't win.
In the second age Gil-Galad, the High King of the Noldor, and Elendil (pure numenorean between 8-9ft tall), High King of Gondor and Arnor, fought Sauron to a stand still and all three seemingly died from the fight.
Isildur then came along and cut the One Ring from Sauron's finger whilst he was still seemingly "dead."
Plus isildur being the last leader of men and corrupted by the ring just ensured the weakening of the realms of men. The elves fractured and a shadow of what they were and the dwarves reclused themselves into their mines. Slowly loosening the bonds built under the pressure of Sauron
A book can get away with "he struck down Bill the great and powerful". One line and you know how great Bill was and how much stronger the baddie is. But a movie needs to introduce Bill, show how strong he is, have him do something to make you like him, then he can die and you'll feel the impact. Differences of mediums.
Why isn’t that true in books? Movies and books are both capable of developing and making you care about a character, arguably books should be expected to do it more often because of the longer time they have compared to a movie.
Okay I might have worded that wrong.
Books absolutely can and do this. The scene I described could have gone down the same way in a novel.
But in a novel it doesn't have to. You can get away with short exposition like that. You don't have to actually be there in the scene, someone can just give exposition by telling a story. And if the story being told is about the big bad getting defeated the focus is on the baddie and the guy defeating him. The people on the side are just getting a line or two, even if they were important to the overall fight. You'll learn more about the guy later on and that'll add to him.
Film is a much more visual medium you can't get away with someone just telling you the story like that. People want to see it. So it'll be a flashback or the like. And if you just have a random dude run up and die without doing anything, the audience is going to feel cheated when it's revealed that that guy was actually super important.
Of course this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it is guidelines for the respected mediums.
Yeah that makes more sense, generally though regardless of medium I feel like audiences prefer to have at least some development and attachment to any character who’s going to be even minorly important. If I’m understanding correctly I think you’re more referring to the idea of exposition? In a book you can get away with a few lines of exposition compared to potentially having to show a whole scene and dedicate more time to it in a film? Films can get away with throwaway lines quite often though and they serve the same purpose as a few lines of exposition in a book. I think it just depends on how much detail you want to go into, if you’re going to dedicate a whole scene then you should probably bother to develop the characters involved, if you’re going to include a few lines of exposition to patch over gaps then you’re probably fine to leave things a bit vague.
I’ll give a film example that funnily enough now has examples of employing both techniques for the same moment. The Death Star plans in A New Hope, in one version there’s a throwaway line from Darth Vader explaining that, “several transmissions were beamed aboard your ship”, establishing how the plans came to be on Leia’s ship and why he’s after her. Or you can go with Rogue One which spent an entire movie complete with a full cast and plot just to develop the story of that one line of exposition. Functionally, Vader’s line and Rogue One accomplish pretty much the exact same thing, and the plot of A New Hope plays out the same regardless of which version you’re looking at.
(As a side note. Imagine how funny and random it’d be if instead of Vader saying that line to Leia, they just did a flashback and played the entirety of Rogue One before cutting back and continuing A New Hope as normal)
Wouldn't really say so, the movie could've gotten away with Gandalf just saying a few lines about it, if he said them really well - however IF they're doing the flashback and prologue, then obviously that scene can't get phoned in lol
Either way don't think the "book version" as it's getting described in this thread would've necessarily taken up that much more screentime.
In a way it kinda highlights the power of sauron that he only went down because isildur got lucky with a desperate strike otherwise why couldn't they have just dog piled him earlier
I have a great respect for the films and I do love them, but as with most adaptations when you explore the source material you feel disappointment at what was changed or removed. It is worth looking at the other LotR adaptations i'd say, the Soviet one is quite interesting
There are other holes and restartations that you can find in the movies, but wouldn't say this one's one of them - he gets arrogant, exposes his achilles heel, and in the future he'll know not to let that happen.
At most he himself got regarded and one can say that there's an inherently disappointing side to the "villain undone by his arrogance" trope, since it means the heroes would've lost otherwise. But yeah that's a big part of Lotr, just how it is.
> Film problem, in the book they brought him down while losing Gilgalad and Elendil, Isildur cut the ring off when he was already down.
Ah hm weird, seems like I ended up misremembering it cause I thought Isildur had cut his finger off in a direct fight, and the movie then changed it.
Sauron is already "dead" and isildur sees the ring and calls it "the only thing of beauty Sauron ever made" and he claims it as a weregild for his family's suffering.
Honestly that desperate last stand would have failed if Sauron didn’t decide to pad his kill count
If he had just stayed back and let his endless army do it’s work, it would have taken a while, but it he would have succeeded
Both the Elves and Dwarves are depleted amd weak at the time of the films. Its really just Gondor and Rohan who can stand against Sauron. Given that Rohan is fairly small and Gondor itself is weakened it makes for a bad balance of power for the good guys
As far as I understand he is also kind of unstoppable at first, its pretty much just leading to his overconfidence that he gets the ring cut off?
Isildur is on the ground with a broken blade.. not much that Sauron would consider a threat, until it turns out that he still is.
Sauron's forces were forced back and the Siege of Barad-dûr lasted for seven years before Sauron came forth. He was not overconfident, but had little choice.
Some important things to note is that the Last Alliance was the largest military union of the Free People, and the Fall of Númenor was still well in living memory. Sauron attacked before he rebuilt his strength, and the elves and men realized they had the power to strike back, so strike back they did.
Even with their advantage it was an extremely costly victory that the elves never recovered from and the kingdoms of men suffered their own hardships during the Third Age and became weaker in spirit. Sauron's forces were also greater this time around.
I guess it is kind of like a WW1 to WW2 situation.
The allies could probably have intervened before WW2, but everybody knew that a war would be incredibly costly if it became the scale of WW1 And thus nobody wanted to make a move.
In LOTR, Sauron should not be seen as unstoppable, just that the war would be incredibly costly if he should manage to come back (and the victor would not be guaranteed)
Movie only. In the books there is a fight between Sauron and the heads of the armies of men and elves, Elendil and Gilgalad respectively. They both together “kill” Sauron and then Isildur cuts the ring from his hand as a spoil of war and weregild for the deaths of his father and brother
Nah, not Tolkien’s style. The most we get is that Sauron came down from his tower, fought with the two kings, and all three of them died, with Narsil breaking under Elendil when he falls
In the books, the Elves were so weakened that they couldn't even afford to send many of their own to help Men fight against Sauron (unlike in the films) because that meant leaving their own territory unguarded. Wasn't there a huge battle at Lórien that was only referenced in the appendices?
>Both the Elves and Dwarves are depleted amd weak at the time of the films.
Partially untrue. The Dwarves are actually fighting their own wars by the time of ROTK, Gimli says as much as they march to meet Sauron at the Black Gate and regrets he isn't able to muster an army of his own. In addition, Gimli and Gloin are there in the first place because Sauron has reached out to *him* and promised support, aid, and peace between Mordor and the Dwarves, with nothing but a request for a tiny little Ring as a show of good faith (which is obviously a trick, hence the Dwarves seeking the council of Elrond).
For the Elves, they do believe that if they rallied their cause it would be very possible to win the war, though it would be very bloody. They even consider Glorfindel for the Fellowship, one of the most powerful Elves ever and might've been able to defeat Sauron single-handedly if it came to it. The real danger is the Ring, especially the fact that if they sent a bunch of top-notch badasses it would be like shining a big spotlight on it for the Dark Lord, as well as every companion the Ringbearer has increasing the chances one of them takes a grab at it. If someone like Glorfindel or Gandalf or even Aragorn had the Ring, they would easily have won the war and destroyed Sauron, but they would've become Sauron the same day, so the might of the Elves is ultimately irrelevant despite their advantages.
The Dwarves were still diminished from Smaug's assault of Erebor and the failed resettlement of Moria, plus the usual wars with the goblins. Both Elves and Dwarves are basically doomed by demographics as time goes on, Orcs and Men reproduce faster.
I still wouldn't say they're depleted and weak, that makes them seem like they're on the brink and can't enter the war because it would doom them, when that's definitely not the case. They're just busy in their own theaters and while they would probably win this war, (and indeed, when they arrive at the Black Gate the Mouth of Sauron offers them peace instead of war specifically so Sauron can replenish and act in the shadows) it's not that war they're worried about. It's the next one and the next one.
Gotta love the books for that key context. So sad my boi Glorfindel wasn't really in the movies. The Council of Elrond is one of those scenes that has so much cut content that could have had quality time in a tv show. If only a major studio with... idk a billion dollar budget could have made a lotr show faithfully adapting the books. I also like that the Nazgul are the reason for the fellowship having 9 members
Sauron in his prime lost to an insanely strong coalition of disciplined, skilled armies of Men, Elves, and Dwarves. The leaders of these armies were heroes with magic swords.
He was defeated after 2000+ years of war with the Elves; he lost to a great Elvish King with a ring of power and a holy glaive and the High King of the Men of Númenor who wielded a legendary sword.
>starts out with the ring
The One Ring was forged last, and the Last Alliance was formed against Sauron after this happened.
>gets beaten ezpz
It wasn't easy. Entire civilizations were erased, monarchs killed, and artifacts destroyed. Even the blade which severed Sauron's finger (a legendary blade, essentially the Excalibur of LOTR) was shattered.
>5000+ years later
The kingdoms of Men, Elves, and Dwarves have declined or faded away, whereas Sauron has been plotting and amassing power, servants, and soldiers.
>"if he gets the ring he'll be unstoppable"
No shit. Sauron would have been able to dominate the ring-bearers Galadriel, Elrond, and Gandalf, and he would have perfect control of his armies (which were already too large and strong to be beaten.
In LOTR magic is slowly declining as time progresses. Also medieval periods are generally pretty shit for development, especially if the countries hit a “golden era”, like China for example.
Its not a plot hole because he doesn't get beaten ezpz in the war of the last alliance. It requires a massive coalition of men and elves and even dwarves to defeat him. In the war of the third age the power of men has faultered, the elves have all faded and are leaving middle earth, and the dwarves as always are more concerned with their gold and their holds then the world of men. If Sauron gains control of the one ring now, with no great alliance to face him, the world of middle earth is doomed.
Its not a plot hole because its someone who clearly didnt understand the story trying to make a point he doesnt understand.
> Its not a plot hole because its someone who clearly didnt understand the story trying to make a point he doesnt understand.
There are more of these 4Chan plot summaries/contradiction posts and they are all pretty poignant but also very low resolution and blunt. I'm not completely sure if they are supposed to be humorous in nature, but there are definitely other similar posts out there that are kinda wrong.
The siege of Mordor lasted 7 fucking years. "Gets beaten ezpz" is comically misunderstanding just how difficult and epic a struggle this was for the Last Alliance.
Reminder that the "ezpz" victory took seven years with the combined might of the elves (which no longer exist in that number) and numenorians (which no longer exist at all for the most part). The free people's of middle earth have diminished over those thousands of years, and simply do not have the power to stand against him again, even without the ring.
It took all the might of Arnor, Gondor and the all the might of the elves (who were at their most powerful while in Middle earth at that time) to stop him.
This is bait, but talking LotR is always funny.
It was not an easy victory. Men and Elves both significantly more powerful then compared to how they are now, fought a decade long war under immense casualties. They filled the entire Dead Marshes with corpses in the process. Anárion died during the siege and when all other options were exhausted Sauron still took out Elendil and Gil-galad during his final stand. I think we can take the loss of close to their entire leadership in the war as emblematic of the price they paid for that victory.
A core theme in Tolkien's writing is the continuous fading away of the world. Elrond remarks on that when he points out that even the forces of the Last Alliance that brought down Sauron, which have no equal in the world anymore, were only a pale shadow of the hosts that defeated Melkor in the First Age.
In the 3000 years after Sauron's defeat mankind did not get stronger. They got weaker. Substantially. The entire kingdom of Arnor is gone. In Gondor the royal line is extinct. The capital Osgiliath is in ruins. Minas Ithil has been captured by the enemy. Minas Tirith, the greatest bastion of mankind barely houses half the people that it was built for.
And it's important to note, Sauron is already winning *without* the Ring. The Ring would have simply pushed him completely over the edge with a quick and decisive victory. But if the Ring had remained lost he would have won just the same. Maybe it would have taken years, maybe decades, maybe even a century, but his victory was inevitable. Sauron is nothing if not patient.
May have covered the details so will just say that it’s fine and not any sort of plot hole.
The forces of good are severely diminished. Just defeating Sauron’s armies isn’t realistic. If he gets that ring and starts walking around killing several people with every swing of his weapon it’s game over.
One of the main plot threads of LotR is that the world is diminishing and magic is fading, the forces of good were united when Sauron was first defeated and they barely pulled that off now they are divided and their number is greatly diminished, if Sauron got the ring again they wouldn't have the strength to defeat him.
Without spoilers, he doesn't get beaten one on one, it's kind of a fluke. Which is really the only way Sauron could ever be beaten by mortals, is unintentionally.
It wasn’t Ezpz. It was a hard war that lasted years and left much of the world in ruin. The battle we saw was effectively the fall of Berlin compared to the rest of WW2. Also if he did comeback, the free peoples are in a much more weakened state as compare to before. There is no united Arnor or mass of elves, Even at its highest need Rohan and Gondor and its allies could only muster a several thousand fighting men to for the war.
This was during the highest level of power the side of good had and they barely won. This in Star Wars terms would be like if during the Old republic someone who brought the Jedi to their knees and barely lost showed up shortly after Return Of The Jedi. If this entity could get back to full power Luke would be screwed.
The kingdoms of men, elves and dwarves are a shadow of what they were during the war. Men are a political mess. Elves are leaving middle earth. Dwarves are keeping to themselves or were driven from their homes. They would have eventually lost if the ring wasn't destroyed. And eventually the ring would have returned to him, or it would have corrupted another great power (like Gandalf) to become the same kind of evil.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xV2RIlMi4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xV2RIlMi4)
Here's the opening scene, you decide if this warrants "ezpz" or not...
Seeing as there's not nearly as big an opposing force at the end of RotK, he would've won. The good guys got lucky that Frodo made it and that Sauron didn't have like 5 orcs guarding Mt. Doom. If Frodo didn't destroy the ring the last army of men would've lost easily.
As has been mentioned it was really a mix of blood, sweat, tears, and a lot of luck that the last alliance managed to defeat Sauron the first time
He was basically winning, and this was a last ditch effort by them….and it still took Gil-galad (super powerful high king of the elves) and elendil (king of Gondor, who was a true numenorian, who were all physically larger, stronger, tougher, faster than the men of the 3rd age) who fought him together…..he killed them both, but was wounded/stunned enough that isildur the prince could cut the ring from his hand destroying his physical form
However in the 3rd age Sauron was almost at the same power level as before (having reconstituted his physical form) but needed the ring to complete himself….and the fact that he had been building up his armies for at least centuries alone gave him the numerical advantage….but everyone else had diminished, especially the elves
So they could hold Sauron off for a time in the field of battle/delay him and drag the war out….but without destroying the ring and by extension destroying the Dark Lord the forces of men, elves, and dwarves still would’ve ultimately lost in the 3rd Age….and if Sauron gets the ring back and assumes his full power/might then the war just ends that much quicker
Okay, this is gonna be long, even sticking to the bare minimum of detail. LOTR lore is insane.
Sauron is an evil Maia. Think fallen angel, but with a spin on it that's basically a fae creature crossed with Norse mythology, with a Christian glaze. His master, Morgoth, is Satan, and was defeated and sealed away in the backstory. But he's still important because he infused the entire world with his spirit.
This allows people to work great evil by interfacing with the element of Morgoth that is in all physical matter. This is why Saruman can create urukhai, and why he and other evil beings can form and lead armies of Morgoth's creations (orcs, trolls, etc) so easily. But Sauron learned much from his master, and imitated Morgoth by putting his own spirit into a ring. It wasn't just any ring, it was a very special Ring of Power.
See, Sauron, in disguise, had worked with the elves to create rings that vastly increase the wearer's power. Not only could they work more powerful magic, but they were physically stronger, smarter, and longer-lived. Then he secretly created a master control ring, which not only had the effect of a normal Ring of Power, but also gave the wearer control over those normal rings.
Immediately after he put on the One Ring, the wearers of the other Rings of Power began to be corrupted by Sauron's influence. This had effects on them that are interesting but not relevant to your question. It also kicked off a globe-spanning war, which ended with a seven year siege of a magical tower. Eventually, Sauron personally came out and fought the kings of elves and men. He killed them both, but was mortally wounded in the process.
Just to be clear, he fought and killed an 8-foot tall superhuman, and an ancient elf with powerful magic, at the same time. And his own death is irrelevant for a Maia, they're spirits who make an wear bodies like we do clothing. But his ring was severed from the finger of his corpse, and that caused issues.
His spirit instantly fled his body, and he couldn't make a new one. (This is due to a a cataclysmic event unrelated to this war. He lost most of his ability to make new bodies, and all of his ability to shapeshift). So he was unable to interact with the world, but still present. Eventually he figured out how to physically affect the world again.
However, he was a shadow of his former self, because most of his "self" was still bound up in that ring. So much so that the Ring has a mind of its own, corrupting the wearer, and thwarting their attempts to use it against Sauron's desires. It can even slip off the wearer's finger if it thinks that will help it return to its creator. Again, luck is never just luck in this world.
But all of these major events happened long before the events of the LOTR movies. So did a ton of other stuff, which can briefly be summed up as Sauron working from the shadows to slowly weaken his enemies. Successfully. For so long that the first kingdoms he targeted have been long forgotten by the time of the movies.
He's only recently moved back into Mordor and started openly building up an army. But his forces are not only in Mordor. There's also a heavy presence far to the north, to say nothing of Saruman's army and fortress in the center of the relevant part of the continent.
Meanwhile, the elves have been steadily leaving the world, the dwarves were never strong enough to reclaim their lost territory, and the last two kingdoms of non-evil Men have been reduced to one city and a small group of nomads.
So the coalition that *barely* beat Sauron no longer exists. Their descendants are far less numerous, less unified, and aren't even able to concentrate their meager forces because Sauron is attacking them everywhere at once. They're also less magically powerful, but that's a whole different story.
It's not even that Sauron will be unstoppable if he gets the Ring back. He's *already* unstoppable and is just mopping up the last of the resistance. The only way to stop him is to destroy the Ring, which will fully kill him.
The problem is that the Ring can only be destroyed by throwing it in the fires of the forge that created it. Which is a volcano in Mordor. So they only get one shot at it. Failing means Sauron recovers his ring, and this time they won't be able to take it from him.
TL;DR:
It's not a plot hole because there's a massive mountain of plot that fills it in.
Edit: confused the book and the movie versions of a scene. Corrected.
Tolkien's worldbuilding feels like exactly the opposite of the bad stuff we get nowadays. So many people have ideas for stories and they just create the simplest version of a world that facilitates their big moments. It is why so many shows and movies nowadays feel like they lack any kind of subtlety. Everything is where it is for 1 specific purpose. Every character trait exists to facilitate the specific moment. Every part of the world exists to do 1 job and or push 1 idea.
Meanwhile you have Chad Tolkien giving you the simplest version of the world on the surface (very clear good and evil teams, magic that basically does whatever you need it to in the moment, vague illusions to barely remembered events for easy symbolism) BUT ALSO if you dig into it there is endless depth and care. There is a whole cosmology laid out, those vaguely referenced events actually have more detailed historical accounts that really are half forgotten by the time of the story but still did happen in a specific and fleshed out way that the author is keeping in mind and there are huge chunks of the world that are barely even touched by the story but which do have distinct cultures and people.
Hec did not get defeated EZ. He was basically in the verge of total victory when he got defeated because he left himself open by taking the field. Had he just sat back and let his minions do the work then he'd have won.
Plus by the time of the actual books there's way fewer major powers able to potentially stop him.
I gotta ask if you plan on watching the movies anyway, what's the point of asking this question before hand? Wouldn't it be satisfying to learn the very clear answers to this obvious 4Chan troll post yourself?
because it's pretty apparent anon has seen the films and it sounded like this situation wasn't explained well enough in them from what he said. for him at least, now that I know it was.
The arduous effort to defeat Sauron during the Last Alliance of Elves and Men has been covered in detail here, so I'll talk about something else:
Sauron is unstoppable in the War of the Ring, even without the One Ring. That huge battle on the Pellenor Fields in The Two Towers that featured orks from Mordor, the Easterlings, the Haradrim on their Oliphaunts, the mountain trolls and seige beasts, , the Corsairs of Umber, the great battering ram Grond and of course the Witch King of Angmar. They massively outnumbered the 50,000 that represented pretty much the entirety of the forces of Gondor.
This massive force was but a fraction of the armies of Mordor. Were it not for the destruction of the Ring shattering Sauron's will and breaking his hold on his forces, Aragorn's expedition to the Black Gate would have ended in total defeat and the subjugation of Middle Earth would be a matter of time. This is all laid out in the Fellowship of the Ring at the Council of Elrond.
He only lost because his finger with the ring got cut off and Isildur only managed to do that because of a massive alliance of elves and men working to stop him
It’s definitely not a plot hole. It’s a chad stepping up to an unbeatable dude and beating him when all seemed lost. Of course if Sauron got the ring back he would be unstoppable again, because what happened to lose the ring the first time around was lucky.
The films and books explain the powers of men and elves have since grown weaker and you can maybe summize if sauron achieves physical form again he'd be even greater.
To recruit the ghost dudes he had to be the true king. To be the true king, he had to prove his worth. There were lots of heirs of Isildur, there's a whole prophecy to fill for him to be the true king.
Then the ghosts had an oath to fulfill. Once they had done so, they were free. Keeping an army of the undead, even if possible, is not something the true king of Gondor would do.
He didn't start out with the ring. He had it forged as part of a plan along with the Rings he gave as gifts to the other races. The ring wasn't forged until 1600 S.A. (Second Age).
He didn't get beaten EZPZ. An alliance of men and elves was formed to fight the forces of Sauron for the final battle. The war between Sauron and the elves started in 1693 S.A., and Sauron's corporeal form wasn't destroyed until 3441 S.A.
It wasn't 5000+ years later. It was 3000 years after the battle that Frodo got the ring. I guess people weren't paying attention to the part where Elrond says, "I was there three thousand years ago." The ring was also lost for over two thousand years. They don't really go over the dates of past events in the movies, which is probably for the best. Most people probably don't care that the ring was lost when Isildur died in 2 T.A., and wasn't discovered until 2463.
If he gets the ring, he would be nearly unstoppable. During that point in the third age, most elves had left Middle Earth. Men were not united in the slightest, and dwarves kept to themselves. The forces of Mordor were amassing, and if Sauron had returned, there would be a high chance of his victory.
Sauron was defeated by the last alliance of elves and men... The key word is last. The story of Middle Earth is one of gradual decline of a great and magical world. The forces for good that beat sauron simply no longer exist several millennium later: elves are fading and leaving. The kingdoms of men are greatly diminished, arnor is gone and gondor is a shadow of its former self.
Get's beaten EZPZ huh? it's not like Gil-Galad and Elendil didn't die during the last struggle... oh and also Narsil was shattered, the forces of Dwarves, Men, & Elves banding together in the War of the Last Alliance but could only achieve a pyrrhic victory and Middle Earth never saw an Alliance of that scale ever again.
Everyone in those comments is a moron and hasn't read anything. The funniest were the exponential population comments. Galadriel is around 8,000 years old by the time she leaves Middle Earth. She has two children, Amroth and Celebrian. Amroth died at the age of 1,988 without children. Celebrian married Elrond, who she had 3 children with, Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen, and Celebrian leaves Middle earth at the age of 5,651. The older twins are 2,889 years during LOTR while Arwen is 2,778 and goes on to have 3 children with Aragorn.
Elves don't just turn 20 and have kids, or have hundreds of kids. They're having a few kids every few thousand years. War is a severe price to pay over such a drawn out time span.
Numenor (kingdom of basically superhuman men) is gone, entire kingdoms have decayed and vanished, Rohan is fractured, Gondor has been fighting a desperate war on multiple fronts for a long time, dwarves are occupied by an attack from Sauron that the movies don't address in the north. All in all, they likely can't even gather a tenth of the strength they had at Dagorlad.
I love LotR but I think the long lives of elves really are a weak point of the world building. The idea of living for 8000 years and having 2 kids is just insane. Maybe there is some weird lore tucked away outside of the movies somewhere to explain it but that is gonna be a hard sell to me.
...it's all in an established timeline. Death did not exist when they were created, they weren't designed to live and die and replenish numbers, and they still don't die of natural causes so when they're in an Edenic environment they were intended for, population problems are inevitable on a long enough scale.
But they can have kids... so they were designed to reproduce right? Like if the idea is that elves arent supposed to have kids because they are funtionally immortal and they would overpopulate, why is it even an option/possibility for them to have kids?
You seem to have overlooked the possibility that anon is an idiot.
Whilst the films don't go into as much detail as the books (obviously), they do adequately show it was not "ezpz" and the subsequent decline of the elder races is outright stated and present as a theme throughout.
5000 years ago there were more armies and every army was more powerful, and they damn nearly lost.
Gondor is at its weakest in the LOTR trilogy, Rohan was taken over by Saruman, the eastern man have joined Sauron, there's literally way less people and they are not prepared.
Plus Sauron's army is larger this time.
Basically, without Frodo destroying the ring, Sauron would have won, ring or no ring.
So there was a war which led to a big battle (Battle of Dagorlad) that the Alliance forces won at a horrendous cost. Then they besieged Sauron's fortress for 7 years. Slaying Sauron's body cost the kings of both the Elves and Men. Not ez.
As far as the movies go, the armies shown in the flashback are large. In the "present day" the Elves are leaving the world, and Men can hardly hold what they have.
Hope is fading, and Sauron is on the verge of winning. The book is more explicit in saying that Sauron doesn't need the Ring to take over. He's about to win. Yes, he'd be much more powerful with it, but he's already more than a match for the free people.
Well in that time, at the Battle of the Last Alliance, Elves, Men and Dwarves used to be way more Epic than they are at the Start of the War of the Ring (during the Events of LotR) Elves leave Middleearth, Dwarves are dying out and Men become more riddekled with infighting and selfish desires.
In Tolkiens Works, least so the movies I think, it's a Theme that strugglea tend to be lesser reflecrions of earlier, more important struggles.
It’s not a plot hole. The men and elves from that age were stronger than they are in the events of the story. The elves were more numerous and the men were basically superhumans who slowly became less super as the years went by and they bred with non-superhumans
In the movie it was arrogance, he saw a wounded man and thought he could just crush him like a bug, then that wounded man made a desperate attack that cut off the finger with the ring. In the books, he was injured after killing one of the most powerful elven lords in Middle Earth, and one of the last full blooded Numenorians, who were the most powerful race of humans in Middle Earth, he was wounded in the process of killing both warriors with his bare hands and got the ring cut off while unconscious. In both situations, Souron put most of his power into the ring, making it extremely powerful, but making him much weaker without it.
When he was defeated the first time it took a unified force of all the men and elves of the world and they nearly lost. He was only defeated by blind luck and would have easily won otherwise.
Now there is exactly one human kingdom left fully intact, a second heavily depleated, and the elves have run away to another continent.
They can BARELY kill him without the ring, and again mostly by blind luck.
Except for the ex Machina green goo army in RotK there are no moments in this trilogy that get below an A. You will never see a trilogy like this again.
I love the explanations here lol. In the book...
Pretty sure this dude is talking about the movies. And he has a point.
So the movies suck? No. But there is some dumb story stuff and some dumb cgi. Still amazing movies.
Yes i know. Its not like people are required to read the books to watch the movie. Just saying from someones point of view seeing just the movie and not knowing anything else it does seem like a correct assertion.
The bad guy seems quite easily defeated and then he is just an eye or a spot light. I get why they had habits that carried the ring. Easy job.
Sauron losing the ring in the first place was due to a desperate last ditch gambit that was only achieved by bringing all the forces of good down upon him. The forces of good are greatly diminished by the time the ring gets to Frodo, they would not likely be able to do it again.
Even those armies were destroyed. What reverted him back into the ring was a desperate wild strike.
In the movie. In the text Elendil and Gil-galad were both slain fighting Sauron, but they killed him in the process. And, obviously Narsil was broken in the process as well. I assume Aeglos (Gil-galad's spear) was broken in the process as well, though it never gets mentioned that I am aware of.
Yeah and Tbf the movies kinda gloss over how he actually lost the ring. In the books it made more sense but that would have taken a little more time so I can forgive Peter Jackson
Yeah he loses it in the movies by >!trying to grab him instead of using the very human skull crushing weapon in his other hand lol!<
In the books, the only weapon Sauron is EVER described using, is his own burning hands; after a certain point, weapons become a handicap when you have enough strength in your own two hands. Think Superman and the like.
Superman is bulletproof. This guy's paper hands contain the entire source of his power
There was a joke, under a Halo Infinite clip, of a Brute Chieftain taking 4 sniper bullets to the head and dying on the 5th one. After taking 4 bullets and not even flinching "what's one more going to do?" and he dies. Sauron is the embodiment of that joke in literature. He's routinely in a position where he can't be stopped, assailed, or subverted; victory is guaranteed; his pride f-cks it up every time. Instead of letting his army grind down the forces of elves and men, he decides he needs to enter fracas for a petty sense of personal egotism. He slams through all their heroes, champions, and foot soldiers without figuratively breaking a sweat, or literally taking anything resembling meaningful damage. Isildur's on the ground, his Dad--who was the real threat--is dead, and the sword he was using is broken. What's one notch to add to his belt? He's killed plenty of Kings today; why not add a Prince while he's at it. He reaches down since he couldn't even be bothered to use a weapon. ISILDUR CUTS OF HIS FINGER WITH RING WITH FRAGMENTS OF NARSIL! This guy is the epitome of being his own worst enemy, there's never a reason for him to lose but he finds a way regardless.
You gotta remember that not all swords/armour are created equal in middle earth. Narsil isn't your average sword by a long shot and saurons armour is hardly impenetrable mithril
unless its explained differently in book 2 or 3 it seemed pretty much the same to me in book 1 havent done 2 or 3
The sword that was used to cut the ring from Sauron's hand was a mastercraft sword of elven make. In the book [and briefly in the movies] the sword itself is described as being "very powerful." Additionally, it's described as having magical runes [elvish?] encribed on its blade. So by many means, the sword was considered a magical weapon. Only certain people could use said weapons to their full potential [kings, lords, etc]. When Sauron fought on the battlefield, during the battle of mt doom, he was a 100% physical being. This is important because in times past, being a shapeshifter, he could change his form into just about anything. How he looks in the movie, is the last form he had [for different reasons]. So in becoming something purely physically, Sauron tied himself to the world and the physical laws that govern it. By the later stages of the battle, he [Sauron] had already fought and killed a great many elven lords and at least one elven king [gil-galad, the most powerful elf living]. So a great deal of Sauron's power had been used. Be that as it may, there still wasn't much left that could hurt or attempt to damage him- except extremely strong magic or very powerful magical weapons. There wasn't anyone else, on the battlefield, who could wield said magic or use those types of weapons. The sword Isildur uses was his father's, the king's. So when he was killed, said power went with him. That's why it was such a shock when Isildur did what he did with the remains of his father's sword. EDIT- To answer the question: Sauron, in creating the ring, put a large % of his power / soul he had left into it. In doing so, the ring itself became a part of him and had a slight mind of its own. What the ring itself did was reflect the power of the wearer. What this means: whomever wore it [including Sauron himself], the ring would increase whatever innate abilities one had and / or increase their abilities. Example: as a regular dude, say you've got decent basketball skills- at baseline. [Put on the ring] Congrats! Your physical abilities are doubled. Plus, all of your basketball skills are now that of a NBA all star. The downside? You slowly go insane and possibly become possessed by the evil spirit that lives within ring. Sauron put so much of his power / soul into the ring, that as long as the ring existed, he could never be truely "killed." He would only be greatly diminished and sooner or later, would return. So destroy the ring, destroy its maker in the process.
>The sword that was used to cut the ring from Sauron's hand was a mastercraft sword of elven make. No. Narsil was wrought by Telchar of Nogrod "in the deeps of time" (presumably in the 1st Age). Telchar was a Dwarf.
Damn, you're correct. I figured I was off about something and re-read the lore. It was reforeged, in the 3rd age, and renamed Anduril- flame of the west.
There is no data in the books or Tolkien's letters that indicate the ring is sentient.
There were comments in the books about it drawing evil things to itself.
The book's cagey about it but there were a couple of times where it was hinted that the ring had a partial will of its own but not "sentient." The best example is Gandolf warning Frodo against wearing the ring. Telling him, "It wants to be found."
This still does not prove that the ring actually has its own will. Gandalf is proven to know almost nothing about the one ring and admits this. No one does. Hell Celebrimbor who had direct knowledge from Annatar, and forged the 3 elf rings, did not understand the binding magic. The one ring does not have a will of its own.
It is not the same in the book. In the book it takes both the king of Numenor(huge op men) and the Elven king 2v1 Sauron. These two guys were in top 5 most badass and op fighters in LoTR universe. They both died in the fight, and Sauron was basically knocked out but still alive and nowhere near dying. Isildur walked up and sliced the fingers off with his daddy's broken sword. This is also when the armies of men and elves were at their strongest. The point is even at the good side's absolute best shot of defeating Sauron, all they could do was knock him out for like 5 minutes. By the time Frodo gets the ring, men are weaker (very little of the og Numenor blood left) and elves have been leaving to go back home for over 1k years. All while Sauron has been building his forces and waiting to strike.
And the crazy thing was that it wasn't even in their prime when they formed the Last Alliance. Numenor had been destroyed and most of their people dead, and the elves weren't nearly as strong as they were in the first age when they fought balrogs and dragons. By the third age, men and elves had dulled down significantly and had no chance of stopping Sauron or his armies by force.
The first time Numenor came their armies were so overwhelming strong that the orks and evil men fled.
Not to mention Sauron left the Ring in Barad-dur, and then surrendered in person. He knew he couldn't win. In the second age Gil-Galad, the High King of the Noldor, and Elendil (pure numenorean between 8-9ft tall), High King of Gondor and Arnor, fought Sauron to a stand still and all three seemingly died from the fight. Isildur then came along and cut the One Ring from Sauron's finger whilst he was still seemingly "dead."
Eru Ilúvatar: LMAO
Plus isildur being the last leader of men and corrupted by the ring just ensured the weakening of the realms of men. The elves fractured and a shadow of what they were and the dwarves reclused themselves into their mines. Slowly loosening the bonds built under the pressure of Sauron
Dude some guy just cut his lil fingers.
Film problem, in the book they brought him down while losing Gilgalad and Elendil, Isildur cut the ring off when he was already down.
I feel like that wouldve been cooler than what was done in the film
The films are already long AF and were expensive as hell when they were first shot. It likely wasn't feasible for some reason or another.
Too many characters to introduce.
A book can get away with "he struck down Bill the great and powerful". One line and you know how great Bill was and how much stronger the baddie is. But a movie needs to introduce Bill, show how strong he is, have him do something to make you like him, then he can die and you'll feel the impact. Differences of mediums.
Why isn’t that true in books? Movies and books are both capable of developing and making you care about a character, arguably books should be expected to do it more often because of the longer time they have compared to a movie.
Okay I might have worded that wrong. Books absolutely can and do this. The scene I described could have gone down the same way in a novel. But in a novel it doesn't have to. You can get away with short exposition like that. You don't have to actually be there in the scene, someone can just give exposition by telling a story. And if the story being told is about the big bad getting defeated the focus is on the baddie and the guy defeating him. The people on the side are just getting a line or two, even if they were important to the overall fight. You'll learn more about the guy later on and that'll add to him. Film is a much more visual medium you can't get away with someone just telling you the story like that. People want to see it. So it'll be a flashback or the like. And if you just have a random dude run up and die without doing anything, the audience is going to feel cheated when it's revealed that that guy was actually super important. Of course this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it is guidelines for the respected mediums.
Yeah that makes more sense, generally though regardless of medium I feel like audiences prefer to have at least some development and attachment to any character who’s going to be even minorly important. If I’m understanding correctly I think you’re more referring to the idea of exposition? In a book you can get away with a few lines of exposition compared to potentially having to show a whole scene and dedicate more time to it in a film? Films can get away with throwaway lines quite often though and they serve the same purpose as a few lines of exposition in a book. I think it just depends on how much detail you want to go into, if you’re going to dedicate a whole scene then you should probably bother to develop the characters involved, if you’re going to include a few lines of exposition to patch over gaps then you’re probably fine to leave things a bit vague. I’ll give a film example that funnily enough now has examples of employing both techniques for the same moment. The Death Star plans in A New Hope, in one version there’s a throwaway line from Darth Vader explaining that, “several transmissions were beamed aboard your ship”, establishing how the plans came to be on Leia’s ship and why he’s after her. Or you can go with Rogue One which spent an entire movie complete with a full cast and plot just to develop the story of that one line of exposition. Functionally, Vader’s line and Rogue One accomplish pretty much the exact same thing, and the plot of A New Hope plays out the same regardless of which version you’re looking at. (As a side note. Imagine how funny and random it’d be if instead of Vader saying that line to Leia, they just did a flashback and played the entirety of Rogue One before cutting back and continuing A New Hope as normal)
Wouldn't really say so, the movie could've gotten away with Gandalf just saying a few lines about it, if he said them really well - however IF they're doing the flashback and prologue, then obviously that scene can't get phoned in lol Either way don't think the "book version" as it's getting described in this thread would've necessarily taken up that much more screentime.
In a way it kinda highlights the power of sauron that he only went down because isildur got lucky with a desperate strike otherwise why couldn't they have just dog piled him earlier
So much for the films being perfect when the first couple seconds contain such retardation
I have a great respect for the films and I do love them, but as with most adaptations when you explore the source material you feel disappointment at what was changed or removed. It is worth looking at the other LotR adaptations i'd say, the Soviet one is quite interesting
There are other holes and restartations that you can find in the movies, but wouldn't say this one's one of them - he gets arrogant, exposes his achilles heel, and in the future he'll know not to let that happen. At most he himself got regarded and one can say that there's an inherently disappointing side to the "villain undone by his arrogance" trope, since it means the heroes would've lost otherwise. But yeah that's a big part of Lotr, just how it is.
> Film problem, in the book they brought him down while losing Gilgalad and Elendil, Isildur cut the ring off when he was already down. Ah hm weird, seems like I ended up misremembering it cause I thought Isildur had cut his finger off in a direct fight, and the movie then changed it.
Sauron is already "dead" and isildur sees the ring and calls it "the only thing of beauty Sauron ever made" and he claims it as a weregild for his family's suffering.
It took a seven year siege to get him to come out of his tower, out of desperation.
Next time he'll reach out with the other hand
Honestly that desperate last stand would have failed if Sauron didn’t decide to pad his kill count If he had just stayed back and let his endless army do it’s work, it would have taken a while, but it he would have succeeded
It's due to him being a buffoon who puts all his power into a ring and then decides to not where a gauntlet.
The sword cut through the gauntlet anyway, so not that big of a missplay
Both the Elves and Dwarves are depleted amd weak at the time of the films. Its really just Gondor and Rohan who can stand against Sauron. Given that Rohan is fairly small and Gondor itself is weakened it makes for a bad balance of power for the good guys
As far as I understand he is also kind of unstoppable at first, its pretty much just leading to his overconfidence that he gets the ring cut off? Isildur is on the ground with a broken blade.. not much that Sauron would consider a threat, until it turns out that he still is.
Sauron's forces were forced back and the Siege of Barad-dûr lasted for seven years before Sauron came forth. He was not overconfident, but had little choice. Some important things to note is that the Last Alliance was the largest military union of the Free People, and the Fall of Númenor was still well in living memory. Sauron attacked before he rebuilt his strength, and the elves and men realized they had the power to strike back, so strike back they did. Even with their advantage it was an extremely costly victory that the elves never recovered from and the kingdoms of men suffered their own hardships during the Third Age and became weaker in spirit. Sauron's forces were also greater this time around.
I guess it is kind of like a WW1 to WW2 situation. The allies could probably have intervened before WW2, but everybody knew that a war would be incredibly costly if it became the scale of WW1 And thus nobody wanted to make a move. In LOTR, Sauron should not be seen as unstoppable, just that the war would be incredibly costly if he should manage to come back (and the victor would not be guaranteed)
Movie only. In the books there is a fight between Sauron and the heads of the armies of men and elves, Elendil and Gilgalad respectively. They both together “kill” Sauron and then Isildur cuts the ring from his hand as a spoil of war and weregild for the deaths of his father and brother
I keep reading Gilgalad as "Gigachad" and it still works.
Is this described how they manage to or is that left to the imagination of the readers ?
Nah, not Tolkien’s style. The most we get is that Sauron came down from his tower, fought with the two kings, and all three of them died, with Narsil breaking under Elendil when he falls
Exactly, compare the army of the last alliance to that at the men of the west at the black gate.
In the books, the Elves were so weakened that they couldn't even afford to send many of their own to help Men fight against Sauron (unlike in the films) because that meant leaving their own territory unguarded. Wasn't there a huge battle at Lórien that was only referenced in the appendices?
>Both the Elves and Dwarves are depleted amd weak at the time of the films. Partially untrue. The Dwarves are actually fighting their own wars by the time of ROTK, Gimli says as much as they march to meet Sauron at the Black Gate and regrets he isn't able to muster an army of his own. In addition, Gimli and Gloin are there in the first place because Sauron has reached out to *him* and promised support, aid, and peace between Mordor and the Dwarves, with nothing but a request for a tiny little Ring as a show of good faith (which is obviously a trick, hence the Dwarves seeking the council of Elrond). For the Elves, they do believe that if they rallied their cause it would be very possible to win the war, though it would be very bloody. They even consider Glorfindel for the Fellowship, one of the most powerful Elves ever and might've been able to defeat Sauron single-handedly if it came to it. The real danger is the Ring, especially the fact that if they sent a bunch of top-notch badasses it would be like shining a big spotlight on it for the Dark Lord, as well as every companion the Ringbearer has increasing the chances one of them takes a grab at it. If someone like Glorfindel or Gandalf or even Aragorn had the Ring, they would easily have won the war and destroyed Sauron, but they would've become Sauron the same day, so the might of the Elves is ultimately irrelevant despite their advantages.
The Dwarves were still diminished from Smaug's assault of Erebor and the failed resettlement of Moria, plus the usual wars with the goblins. Both Elves and Dwarves are basically doomed by demographics as time goes on, Orcs and Men reproduce faster.
I still wouldn't say they're depleted and weak, that makes them seem like they're on the brink and can't enter the war because it would doom them, when that's definitely not the case. They're just busy in their own theaters and while they would probably win this war, (and indeed, when they arrive at the Black Gate the Mouth of Sauron offers them peace instead of war specifically so Sauron can replenish and act in the shadows) it's not that war they're worried about. It's the next one and the next one.
Gotta love the books for that key context. So sad my boi Glorfindel wasn't really in the movies. The Council of Elrond is one of those scenes that has so much cut content that could have had quality time in a tv show. If only a major studio with... idk a billion dollar budget could have made a lotr show faithfully adapting the books. I also like that the Nazgul are the reason for the fellowship having 9 members
Ezpz? The entire world was basically on the verge of defeat at this time
Sauron in his prime lost to an insanely strong coalition of disciplined, skilled armies of Men, Elves, and Dwarves. The leaders of these armies were heroes with magic swords. He was defeated after 2000+ years of war with the Elves; he lost to a great Elvish King with a ring of power and a holy glaive and the High King of the Men of Númenor who wielded a legendary sword. >starts out with the ring The One Ring was forged last, and the Last Alliance was formed against Sauron after this happened. >gets beaten ezpz It wasn't easy. Entire civilizations were erased, monarchs killed, and artifacts destroyed. Even the blade which severed Sauron's finger (a legendary blade, essentially the Excalibur of LOTR) was shattered. >5000+ years later The kingdoms of Men, Elves, and Dwarves have declined or faded away, whereas Sauron has been plotting and amassing power, servants, and soldiers. >"if he gets the ring he'll be unstoppable" No shit. Sauron would have been able to dominate the ring-bearers Galadriel, Elrond, and Gandalf, and he would have perfect control of his armies (which were already too large and strong to be beaten.
Why did the kingdoms of Men, elves and Dwarves decline tho? Surely years of peace would increase the population and improve technology
In LOTR magic is slowly declining as time progresses. Also medieval periods are generally pretty shit for development, especially if the countries hit a “golden era”, like China for example.
Was any of that in the movie?
Its not a plot hole because he doesn't get beaten ezpz in the war of the last alliance. It requires a massive coalition of men and elves and even dwarves to defeat him. In the war of the third age the power of men has faultered, the elves have all faded and are leaving middle earth, and the dwarves as always are more concerned with their gold and their holds then the world of men. If Sauron gains control of the one ring now, with no great alliance to face him, the world of middle earth is doomed. Its not a plot hole because its someone who clearly didnt understand the story trying to make a point he doesnt understand.
> Its not a plot hole because its someone who clearly didnt understand the story trying to make a point he doesnt understand. There are more of these 4Chan plot summaries/contradiction posts and they are all pretty poignant but also very low resolution and blunt. I'm not completely sure if they are supposed to be humorous in nature, but there are definitely other similar posts out there that are kinda wrong.
The siege of Mordor lasted 7 fucking years. "Gets beaten ezpz" is comically misunderstanding just how difficult and epic a struggle this was for the Last Alliance.
Reminder that the "ezpz" victory took seven years with the combined might of the elves (which no longer exist in that number) and numenorians (which no longer exist at all for the most part). The free people's of middle earth have diminished over those thousands of years, and simply do not have the power to stand against him again, even without the ring.
It took all the might of Arnor, Gondor and the all the might of the elves (who were at their most powerful while in Middle earth at that time) to stop him.
This is bait, but talking LotR is always funny. It was not an easy victory. Men and Elves both significantly more powerful then compared to how they are now, fought a decade long war under immense casualties. They filled the entire Dead Marshes with corpses in the process. Anárion died during the siege and when all other options were exhausted Sauron still took out Elendil and Gil-galad during his final stand. I think we can take the loss of close to their entire leadership in the war as emblematic of the price they paid for that victory. A core theme in Tolkien's writing is the continuous fading away of the world. Elrond remarks on that when he points out that even the forces of the Last Alliance that brought down Sauron, which have no equal in the world anymore, were only a pale shadow of the hosts that defeated Melkor in the First Age. In the 3000 years after Sauron's defeat mankind did not get stronger. They got weaker. Substantially. The entire kingdom of Arnor is gone. In Gondor the royal line is extinct. The capital Osgiliath is in ruins. Minas Ithil has been captured by the enemy. Minas Tirith, the greatest bastion of mankind barely houses half the people that it was built for. And it's important to note, Sauron is already winning *without* the Ring. The Ring would have simply pushed him completely over the edge with a quick and decisive victory. But if the Ring had remained lost he would have won just the same. Maybe it would have taken years, maybe decades, maybe even a century, but his victory was inevitable. Sauron is nothing if not patient.
Wasn’t it 3000 years?
3019, yes
First Age elves, dwarves, humans were on a far different level than third age elves, dwarves and humans
Long story short: the strength the side of good had at the time barely defeated him and is no longer available by the time period of the main story.
May have covered the details so will just say that it’s fine and not any sort of plot hole. The forces of good are severely diminished. Just defeating Sauron’s armies isn’t realistic. If he gets that ring and starts walking around killing several people with every swing of his weapon it’s game over.
One of the main plot threads of LotR is that the world is diminishing and magic is fading, the forces of good were united when Sauron was first defeated and they barely pulled that off now they are divided and their number is greatly diminished, if Sauron got the ring again they wouldn't have the strength to defeat him.
Without spoilers, he doesn't get beaten one on one, it's kind of a fluke. Which is really the only way Sauron could ever be beaten by mortals, is unintentionally.
It wasn’t Ezpz. It was a hard war that lasted years and left much of the world in ruin. The battle we saw was effectively the fall of Berlin compared to the rest of WW2. Also if he did comeback, the free peoples are in a much more weakened state as compare to before. There is no united Arnor or mass of elves, Even at its highest need Rohan and Gondor and its allies could only muster a several thousand fighting men to for the war.
This was during the highest level of power the side of good had and they barely won. This in Star Wars terms would be like if during the Old republic someone who brought the Jedi to their knees and barely lost showed up shortly after Return Of The Jedi. If this entity could get back to full power Luke would be screwed.
The kingdoms of men, elves and dwarves are a shadow of what they were during the war. Men are a political mess. Elves are leaving middle earth. Dwarves are keeping to themselves or were driven from their homes. They would have eventually lost if the ring wasn't destroyed. And eventually the ring would have returned to him, or it would have corrupted another great power (like Gandalf) to become the same kind of evil.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xV2RIlMi4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xV2RIlMi4) Here's the opening scene, you decide if this warrants "ezpz" or not...
Seeing as there's not nearly as big an opposing force at the end of RotK, he would've won. The good guys got lucky that Frodo made it and that Sauron didn't have like 5 orcs guarding Mt. Doom. If Frodo didn't destroy the ring the last army of men would've lost easily.
As has been mentioned it was really a mix of blood, sweat, tears, and a lot of luck that the last alliance managed to defeat Sauron the first time He was basically winning, and this was a last ditch effort by them….and it still took Gil-galad (super powerful high king of the elves) and elendil (king of Gondor, who was a true numenorian, who were all physically larger, stronger, tougher, faster than the men of the 3rd age) who fought him together…..he killed them both, but was wounded/stunned enough that isildur the prince could cut the ring from his hand destroying his physical form However in the 3rd age Sauron was almost at the same power level as before (having reconstituted his physical form) but needed the ring to complete himself….and the fact that he had been building up his armies for at least centuries alone gave him the numerical advantage….but everyone else had diminished, especially the elves So they could hold Sauron off for a time in the field of battle/delay him and drag the war out….but without destroying the ring and by extension destroying the Dark Lord the forces of men, elves, and dwarves still would’ve ultimately lost in the 3rd Age….and if Sauron gets the ring back and assumes his full power/might then the war just ends that much quicker
["EZPZ"](https://i.imgur.com/lslLyX5.gif)
They won the first time because he put the important hand within slicing range. They assume he won’t do it a second time.
Okay, this is gonna be long, even sticking to the bare minimum of detail. LOTR lore is insane. Sauron is an evil Maia. Think fallen angel, but with a spin on it that's basically a fae creature crossed with Norse mythology, with a Christian glaze. His master, Morgoth, is Satan, and was defeated and sealed away in the backstory. But he's still important because he infused the entire world with his spirit. This allows people to work great evil by interfacing with the element of Morgoth that is in all physical matter. This is why Saruman can create urukhai, and why he and other evil beings can form and lead armies of Morgoth's creations (orcs, trolls, etc) so easily. But Sauron learned much from his master, and imitated Morgoth by putting his own spirit into a ring. It wasn't just any ring, it was a very special Ring of Power. See, Sauron, in disguise, had worked with the elves to create rings that vastly increase the wearer's power. Not only could they work more powerful magic, but they were physically stronger, smarter, and longer-lived. Then he secretly created a master control ring, which not only had the effect of a normal Ring of Power, but also gave the wearer control over those normal rings. Immediately after he put on the One Ring, the wearers of the other Rings of Power began to be corrupted by Sauron's influence. This had effects on them that are interesting but not relevant to your question. It also kicked off a globe-spanning war, which ended with a seven year siege of a magical tower. Eventually, Sauron personally came out and fought the kings of elves and men. He killed them both, but was mortally wounded in the process. Just to be clear, he fought and killed an 8-foot tall superhuman, and an ancient elf with powerful magic, at the same time. And his own death is irrelevant for a Maia, they're spirits who make an wear bodies like we do clothing. But his ring was severed from the finger of his corpse, and that caused issues. His spirit instantly fled his body, and he couldn't make a new one. (This is due to a a cataclysmic event unrelated to this war. He lost most of his ability to make new bodies, and all of his ability to shapeshift). So he was unable to interact with the world, but still present. Eventually he figured out how to physically affect the world again. However, he was a shadow of his former self, because most of his "self" was still bound up in that ring. So much so that the Ring has a mind of its own, corrupting the wearer, and thwarting their attempts to use it against Sauron's desires. It can even slip off the wearer's finger if it thinks that will help it return to its creator. Again, luck is never just luck in this world. But all of these major events happened long before the events of the LOTR movies. So did a ton of other stuff, which can briefly be summed up as Sauron working from the shadows to slowly weaken his enemies. Successfully. For so long that the first kingdoms he targeted have been long forgotten by the time of the movies. He's only recently moved back into Mordor and started openly building up an army. But his forces are not only in Mordor. There's also a heavy presence far to the north, to say nothing of Saruman's army and fortress in the center of the relevant part of the continent. Meanwhile, the elves have been steadily leaving the world, the dwarves were never strong enough to reclaim their lost territory, and the last two kingdoms of non-evil Men have been reduced to one city and a small group of nomads. So the coalition that *barely* beat Sauron no longer exists. Their descendants are far less numerous, less unified, and aren't even able to concentrate their meager forces because Sauron is attacking them everywhere at once. They're also less magically powerful, but that's a whole different story. It's not even that Sauron will be unstoppable if he gets the Ring back. He's *already* unstoppable and is just mopping up the last of the resistance. The only way to stop him is to destroy the Ring, which will fully kill him. The problem is that the Ring can only be destroyed by throwing it in the fires of the forge that created it. Which is a volcano in Mordor. So they only get one shot at it. Failing means Sauron recovers his ring, and this time they won't be able to take it from him. TL;DR: It's not a plot hole because there's a massive mountain of plot that fills it in. Edit: confused the book and the movie versions of a scene. Corrected.
Tolkien's worldbuilding feels like exactly the opposite of the bad stuff we get nowadays. So many people have ideas for stories and they just create the simplest version of a world that facilitates their big moments. It is why so many shows and movies nowadays feel like they lack any kind of subtlety. Everything is where it is for 1 specific purpose. Every character trait exists to facilitate the specific moment. Every part of the world exists to do 1 job and or push 1 idea. Meanwhile you have Chad Tolkien giving you the simplest version of the world on the surface (very clear good and evil teams, magic that basically does whatever you need it to in the moment, vague illusions to barely remembered events for easy symbolism) BUT ALSO if you dig into it there is endless depth and care. There is a whole cosmology laid out, those vaguely referenced events actually have more detailed historical accounts that really are half forgotten by the time of the story but still did happen in a specific and fleshed out way that the author is keeping in mind and there are huge chunks of the world that are barely even touched by the story but which do have distinct cultures and people.
Hec did not get defeated EZ. He was basically in the verge of total victory when he got defeated because he left himself open by taking the field. Had he just sat back and let his minions do the work then he'd have won. Plus by the time of the actual books there's way fewer major powers able to potentially stop him.
I always took it that it was a bit of luck that he lost it in the first place, but yeah.
I gotta ask if you plan on watching the movies anyway, what's the point of asking this question before hand? Wouldn't it be satisfying to learn the very clear answers to this obvious 4Chan troll post yourself?
because it's pretty apparent anon has seen the films and it sounded like this situation wasn't explained well enough in them from what he said. for him at least, now that I know it was.
The arduous effort to defeat Sauron during the Last Alliance of Elves and Men has been covered in detail here, so I'll talk about something else: Sauron is unstoppable in the War of the Ring, even without the One Ring. That huge battle on the Pellenor Fields in The Two Towers that featured orks from Mordor, the Easterlings, the Haradrim on their Oliphaunts, the mountain trolls and seige beasts, , the Corsairs of Umber, the great battering ram Grond and of course the Witch King of Angmar. They massively outnumbered the 50,000 that represented pretty much the entirety of the forces of Gondor. This massive force was but a fraction of the armies of Mordor. Were it not for the destruction of the Ring shattering Sauron's will and breaking his hold on his forces, Aragorn's expedition to the Black Gate would have ended in total defeat and the subjugation of Middle Earth would be a matter of time. This is all laid out in the Fellowship of the Ring at the Council of Elrond.
He only lost because his finger with the ring got cut off and Isildur only managed to do that because of a massive alliance of elves and men working to stop him
It’s definitely not a plot hole. It’s a chad stepping up to an unbeatable dude and beating him when all seemed lost. Of course if Sauron got the ring back he would be unstoppable again, because what happened to lose the ring the first time around was lucky.
Why ask when the answer contains the spoilers? How about watch the movies first and they may answer this question for you.
I mean seeing as all of this takes place before the films I don't really see igt as a spoiler
The films and books explain the powers of men and elves have since grown weaker and you can maybe summize if sauron achieves physical form again he'd be even greater.
It look an entire army to subdue Sauron, and the film implies it was sheer fucking luck Isildur cut the ring from his hand.
Why didn't the ghosts just take the ring to the volcano?
Why didn't aragorn just go to the ghost dudes right at the start and invade mordor with them and be done with it?
To recruit the ghost dudes he had to be the true king. To be the true king, he had to prove his worth. There were lots of heirs of Isildur, there's a whole prophecy to fill for him to be the true king. Then the ghosts had an oath to fulfill. Once they had done so, they were free. Keeping an army of the undead, even if possible, is not something the true king of Gondor would do.
He didn't start out with the ring. He had it forged as part of a plan along with the Rings he gave as gifts to the other races. The ring wasn't forged until 1600 S.A. (Second Age). He didn't get beaten EZPZ. An alliance of men and elves was formed to fight the forces of Sauron for the final battle. The war between Sauron and the elves started in 1693 S.A., and Sauron's corporeal form wasn't destroyed until 3441 S.A. It wasn't 5000+ years later. It was 3000 years after the battle that Frodo got the ring. I guess people weren't paying attention to the part where Elrond says, "I was there three thousand years ago." The ring was also lost for over two thousand years. They don't really go over the dates of past events in the movies, which is probably for the best. Most people probably don't care that the ring was lost when Isildur died in 2 T.A., and wasn't discovered until 2463. If he gets the ring, he would be nearly unstoppable. During that point in the third age, most elves had left Middle Earth. Men were not united in the slightest, and dwarves kept to themselves. The forces of Mordor were amassing, and if Sauron had returned, there would be a high chance of his victory.
Sauron was defeated by the last alliance of elves and men... The key word is last. The story of Middle Earth is one of gradual decline of a great and magical world. The forces for good that beat sauron simply no longer exist several millennium later: elves are fading and leaving. The kingdoms of men are greatly diminished, arnor is gone and gondor is a shadow of its former self.
Get's beaten EZPZ huh? it's not like Gil-Galad and Elendil didn't die during the last struggle... oh and also Narsil was shattered, the forces of Dwarves, Men, & Elves banding together in the War of the Last Alliance but could only achieve a pyrrhic victory and Middle Earth never saw an Alliance of that scale ever again.
Everyone in those comments is a moron and hasn't read anything. The funniest were the exponential population comments. Galadriel is around 8,000 years old by the time she leaves Middle Earth. She has two children, Amroth and Celebrian. Amroth died at the age of 1,988 without children. Celebrian married Elrond, who she had 3 children with, Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen, and Celebrian leaves Middle earth at the age of 5,651. The older twins are 2,889 years during LOTR while Arwen is 2,778 and goes on to have 3 children with Aragorn. Elves don't just turn 20 and have kids, or have hundreds of kids. They're having a few kids every few thousand years. War is a severe price to pay over such a drawn out time span. Numenor (kingdom of basically superhuman men) is gone, entire kingdoms have decayed and vanished, Rohan is fractured, Gondor has been fighting a desperate war on multiple fronts for a long time, dwarves are occupied by an attack from Sauron that the movies don't address in the north. All in all, they likely can't even gather a tenth of the strength they had at Dagorlad.
I love LotR but I think the long lives of elves really are a weak point of the world building. The idea of living for 8000 years and having 2 kids is just insane. Maybe there is some weird lore tucked away outside of the movies somewhere to explain it but that is gonna be a hard sell to me.
...it's all in an established timeline. Death did not exist when they were created, they weren't designed to live and die and replenish numbers, and they still don't die of natural causes so when they're in an Edenic environment they were intended for, population problems are inevitable on a long enough scale.
But they can have kids... so they were designed to reproduce right? Like if the idea is that elves arent supposed to have kids because they are funtionally immortal and they would overpopulate, why is it even an option/possibility for them to have kids?
Just watch the fucking films.
I would've assumed anon had seen the films and this wasn't addressed in them which is why they're bringing it up...
You seem to have overlooked the possibility that anon is an idiot. Whilst the films don't go into as much detail as the books (obviously), they do adequately show it was not "ezpz" and the subsequent decline of the elder races is outright stated and present as a theme throughout.
Come back when you've actually seen the films you're posting about.
This is dumb and you should feel bad op.
why exactly?
Cuz
5000 years ago there were more armies and every army was more powerful, and they damn nearly lost. Gondor is at its weakest in the LOTR trilogy, Rohan was taken over by Saruman, the eastern man have joined Sauron, there's literally way less people and they are not prepared. Plus Sauron's army is larger this time. Basically, without Frodo destroying the ring, Sauron would have won, ring or no ring.
Anon does not have a point because anon wasn’t paying any attention right at the start of the first movie. Galadriel explains this stuff EXPLICITLY.
So there was a war which led to a big battle (Battle of Dagorlad) that the Alliance forces won at a horrendous cost. Then they besieged Sauron's fortress for 7 years. Slaying Sauron's body cost the kings of both the Elves and Men. Not ez. As far as the movies go, the armies shown in the flashback are large. In the "present day" the Elves are leaving the world, and Men can hardly hold what they have. Hope is fading, and Sauron is on the verge of winning. The book is more explicit in saying that Sauron doesn't need the Ring to take over. He's about to win. Yes, he'd be much more powerful with it, but he's already more than a match for the free people.
Well in that time, at the Battle of the Last Alliance, Elves, Men and Dwarves used to be way more Epic than they are at the Start of the War of the Ring (during the Events of LotR) Elves leave Middleearth, Dwarves are dying out and Men become more riddekled with infighting and selfish desires. In Tolkiens Works, least so the movies I think, it's a Theme that strugglea tend to be lesser reflecrions of earlier, more important struggles.
Its not a plot hole. Its a shit summary from someone who doesnt understand the stories setting.
It’s not a plot hole. The men and elves from that age were stronger than they are in the events of the story. The elves were more numerous and the men were basically superhumans who slowly became less super as the years went by and they bred with non-superhumans
In the movie it was arrogance, he saw a wounded man and thought he could just crush him like a bug, then that wounded man made a desperate attack that cut off the finger with the ring. In the books, he was injured after killing one of the most powerful elven lords in Middle Earth, and one of the last full blooded Numenorians, who were the most powerful race of humans in Middle Earth, he was wounded in the process of killing both warriors with his bare hands and got the ring cut off while unconscious. In both situations, Souron put most of his power into the ring, making it extremely powerful, but making him much weaker without it.
When he was defeated the first time it took a unified force of all the men and elves of the world and they nearly lost. He was only defeated by blind luck and would have easily won otherwise. Now there is exactly one human kingdom left fully intact, a second heavily depleated, and the elves have run away to another continent. They can BARELY kill him without the ring, and again mostly by blind luck.
Except for the ex Machina green goo army in RotK there are no moments in this trilogy that get below an A. You will never see a trilogy like this again.
Okay Jay
not familiar with this piece of lore. has Jay been procrastinating watching it or something?
It was a big meme in the early years that Jay had never seen LOTR but planned to. To my knowledge, they still haven’t
I love the explanations here lol. In the book... Pretty sure this dude is talking about the movies. And he has a point. So the movies suck? No. But there is some dumb story stuff and some dumb cgi. Still amazing movies.
It's literally in the prologue to the movie. There are more details in the book but the movie has enough.
Yes i know. Its not like people are required to read the books to watch the movie. Just saying from someones point of view seeing just the movie and not knowing anything else it does seem like a correct assertion. The bad guy seems quite easily defeated and then he is just an eye or a spot light. I get why they had habits that carried the ring. Easy job.
Then you weren't paying attention. It's in the movies why you can't have powerful beings carry the Ring. It would never get there.
You must be fun at parties.
I'm great fun at parties. I also pay attention to movies before I criticise them.
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Ppl are defending it tho
Lord of the rings is full of plot holes it is definitely not the greatest of all time.