Morgoth was the first dark lord, a corrupted Valar, Sauron, a maia was corrupted by him and was his fist leiutenant.

The volcano was not guarded because Sauron could not conceive that anyone would destroy the ring, its corrupting influence would be too great.

As I recall, that's not exactly correct.

While Sauron had the One Ring (During the Second Age) the Elves knew the only way to hid their rings from him was to not use them... so they didn't wear them. Once Sauron was defeated (beginning of the Third Age), the Elves started using thier rings (they belived... somewhat hopefully... that the One Ring was lost forever). What freaked them out is that now that they'd used the rings, if Sauron DID get his ring back he would be able to detect them and everything the Elves had done with them... VERY bad for Elveses. </font>[/QUOTE]When I said defeated I meant the defeat in which he lost his ring, which would be the end of the second age. They did use the rings only when Sauron did not have his.

Yes it's true. He took his boss's place once he got defeated I think. </font>[/QUOTE]Short tale of Sauron:

Morgoth was one of the Valar, but he turned to evil and tried to take the world over. Long story cut short Sauron was one of his greatest servants and after Morgoth was defeated by the other Valar they offered him to be pardoned if he went to see Manwë (lord of the Valar). Sauron did not have a problem with changing his allegiance, but he was not able to humiliate himself and go to Manwë. He stayed in Middle Earth and slowly gathered Morgoth's remaining servants around himself. Then when Numenor rose he envied his power and went there and incited them against the Valar. The Numenoreans did eventually set sail to fight the Valar, but they lost and Numenor was destroyed. Sauron lost his human shape at this time. He then returned to Middle Earth and declared himself openly in Mordor, but was defeated by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. He could not be vanquished while the ring still existed so you get the whole story of LotR.

right... too many Sauron defeats out there. [img]smile.gif[/img]

The equivilant of putting a Safe in a home.

If Sauron spent so much time and resources investing in constructing the Black Gate and all the outer walls, than why couldn't he just, on a whim, construct a smaller wall surrounding, supposedly, the only way in which to destroy him. JUST IN CASE.

Hell, a 10 foot brick wall would have been enough to keep Frodo and Senor Samwise from the volcano, come to think of it, any reasonable Hobbit sized lifeform. :D

Many castles throughout the world construct an inner wall surrounding important parts of the castle, why couldn't the same apply here? Albeit on a much larger scale.

[ 01-13-2005, 03:13 AM: Message edited by: Sigmar ]

Shelob and the orcish tower were defending that way and it was supposed to be enough. I guess Sauron did not think that Shelob could be passed. And also the orcs should have caught anyone not having the one ring. Sam did not get caught, because he wore the ring. And it never entered Sauron's imagination that someone was trying to bring the ring closer to him and not further away.

Were they? Shelob's lair and the Orcish tower seemed to be a fair way away from Mount Doom itself, both in the movie and especially the book. I'm talking about a more immediate line of defense.

It should have crossed his mind, considering he knew that the only way a do-gooder could hope to rid the world of his uber-ring would be to chuck it in Mt Doom.

It did not enter Sauron's mind that the ring would be destroyed. His greatest fear was that it was going to be used against him. He could not conceive someone willing to destroy it.

The equivilant of putting a Safe in a home.

If Sauron spent so much time and resources investing in constructing the Black Gate and all the outer walls, than why couldn't he just, on a whim, construct a smaller wall surrounding, supposedly, the only way in which to destroy him. JUST IN CASE.

Hell, a 10 foot brick wall would have been enough to keep Frodo and Senor Samwise from the volcano, come to think of it, any reasonable Hobbit sized lifeform. :D

Many castles throughout the world construct an inner wall surrounding important parts of the castle, why couldn't the same apply here? Albeit on a much larger scale. </font>[/QUOTE]What you're proposing is more akin to putting a safe inside of a safe, As far as he was concerned there was no need.

Exactly, the Ring and it's influece corrupted those who even thought about possessing it, Saruman, Boromir, and plenty of other examples. Gandalf would not permit himself to entertain thoughts of owning the ring, as he had enough foresight to know the inevitable result.

However the ring could be used against Sauron, and the influence of the ring would naturally lead one to think of it as a possession to be treasured and held close, Hobbits with their lack of ambition was their greatest attribute, they had no desire for power, or lust for battle prowess, merely a feeling of duty and a desire to protect those who could not stand against the ring's power.

As Galadriel told Frodo, if he had put the ring on, and tried to spy out the other rings, he could have with no difficulty, but since he'd never tried it, he didn't know he could, I suspect there are a great many other pwoers of the ring which are unknown simply because in the scope of the stories, very few are actually mentioned, in fact the invisibility seems to be the only benefit most users focused on


As for why the Eye couldn't see the rings of the elves, that power was tied into the One Ring (as mentioned above), Without the Ring, Sauron couldn't spy them out, He could corrupt the users of the rings of power that he had a hand in making, ie the rings for dwarves, men, and the One Ring, the elves however were immune as their rings were forged before Sauron got involved.