I think Jackson’s films capture Sauron perfectly, Sauron is a Maia, which is an Angel in Tolkien’s Legendarium, he is arguably one of the most powerful of the Maiar, second to Eonwe, the herald of Manwë. Sauron is a Fallen Maia, a Fallen Angel or Demon, he was the right hand man of Morgoth, who is the Devil, so if Morgoth is Satan/Lucifer/Samael then Sauron is Beelzebub. Jackson captures Sauron’s presence perfectly, an absolutely imposing figure in demonic armour capable of decimating entire lines of infantry with a single strike of his Mace, while the scene from the book where he wrestles Gil-Galad and Elendil was cut from the films, I think Sauron simply swatting Elendil away and then snapping Narsil is more effective at conveying how much more Sauron is than them. Then throughout the rest of the films we don’t physically see him, only as the Eye atop Barad-Dur, and while in the Books Sauron is not actually an eye, it’s also the case in the films, Sauron is simply projecting his will through his Palantir and the spires of Barad-Dur is a projector or conduit, for him to channel his will through the Palantir, because he isn’t limited like the Wizards are, despite being fellow Maiar, cannot exert as much as he can. The Eye is a perfect representation of his demonic presence, that he does literally see everything from his tower and is still far more powerful than everyone else, and he is still the most powerful being in Middle Earth without the Ring, he manages to corrupt Saruman completely and he used to scare Gandalf and Elrond even though he is vastly weakened without the One Ring. But by far the best adaptation and portrayal of Sauron comes from the Hobbit films, he takes on a physical yet spectral form, and it really emphasises the demonic and evil presence he has, to the point that it’s practically an extreme exorcism to send him out of Dol-Guldur, Benedict Cumberbatch even insisted on recording his Black Speech in reverse, they then reversed the recording to what it should be and the result is terrifying. While the Hobbit isn’t the best adaptation it did do Sauron the best, even though he is just mentioned on a few pages in both the Hobbit book and the Appendices of Return of the King when the Hobbit takes place. Rings of Power tries to capture how Sauron’s original motives prior to his corruption by Morgoth, and then after Morgoth’s defeat, were to turn Middle Earth into the beautiful paradise it once was during the years of the Lamps when the Valar once lived there. But his need of control and basically OCD on steroids drive back into his evil he had been corrupted into by Morgoth. Rings of Power wastes time with the whole Halbrand plot, when none exists in the books, and only establishes Annatar later, but Sauron did not die nor lose his body after the War of Wrath, he was himself up until he took on the form of Annatar, and he did this to achieve his desires to make Middle Earth beautiful and preserve it through the Rings, but he succumbs to Morgoth’s influence when he forged the One Ring, as he sought to achieve the goal through domination and began to desire to enslave all life to his will. When he puts on his Ring, the Elves are terrified and take them off, Sauron then fully becomes the Dark Lord we know and marches to Eregion, leading the hordes of Orcs, Trolls and Werewolves he had amassed, while Adar is an interesting character, he’s better off in an adaptation of the Silmarillion to show how Orcs came from Elves, not leading the Orcs against Sauron, as the Orcs willingly followed Sauron because they had little purpose and struggled amongst themselves following Morgoth’s defeat. While Sauron did dominate the Orcs initially, he was actually revered and adored by his Orcs as he treated his Orcs better than Morgoth had. Rings of Power is trying too hard to convey him as the master manipulator he is, but the whole Galadriel romance, Halbrand and the mish mashing of the timeline of events strips the presence he has in the Jackson films and Tolkien’s Legendarium. While Rings of Power does get his original motive correct, and that he does go to Eregion, does take on the form of Annatar and co forges the rings with Celebrimbor, he doesn’t take on the form of Halbrand, he doesn’t go after Galadriel and only focuses on the Rings, Galadriel in fact was suspicious of him and stayed away from Annatar. Rings of Power will always be the worst adaptation of Tolkien’s Legendarium, because it’s what Amazon wants, poor writing, inserting world breaking garbage and pushing the mainstream media messages that do not exist there, it’s not like something they can insert their own message into, this is where Jackson’s films succeed and Amazon fails, Jackson made sure to keep as faithful to the source material as he could whilst adapting it for film, I even argue Jackson made a lot of the characters much better. But he always tried to keep true to source material, even with additions like Lurtz, Tauriel, Azog and Bolg being present throughout all of the Hobbit etc. Amazon doesn’t care about Tolkien at all.
What a captivating and fresh way of sharing your thoughts. I was hooked throughout the entire video, waiting for what you would discuss, and write, next. Well done!
In order to understand why Sauron is depicted the way he is in the movie you need to understand Sauron's history. Sauron, like Gandalf, is a Maiar. He is an immortal being and as one of the Ainur (Valar and Maiar) that sang Arda (the world) into existance, they have the ability to take any physical form they desire. Sauron in the Silmarillion changes his appearance several times. It was also Sauron under the fair guise of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, during the Second Age when he taught the Elves how to make the Rings of Power, which is how he got the title of Deceiver. Everything changed for Sauron during the downfall of Númenor in the year 3,261 of the Second Age, because he was there and it destroyed his physical form. After that he was no longer able to take a "fair form." When Sauron was separated from his One Ring by Isildur he became incorporeal again and his spirit fled east for 1,000 years. He was able to regain physical form once again when he took up residence as the Necromancer in Dol Guldur in the year 1,000 of the Third Age. He would have appeared taller than men, but not grotesquely large, maybe 7 to 8 feet tall. He would not have had a fair appearance, but the books did not go into much detail about Sauron's appearance once he fled Dol Guldur for Mordor. The movie depicts Sauron as a flaming, lidless eye. This is incorrect. That was Sauron's symbol - a lidless eye wreathed in flame. Just like Saruman's symbol was a white hand. It is not how Sauron actually appeared.
7 or 8 feet is hardly worth mentioning. That might even apply to Aragorn or some men (surely to accurate Númenoreans). Keep in mind that the ring had to actually shrink to fit people. There is no need to make everything more pathetic. That's an instinct the showrunners were also running with, and that's the result we get. We are still in a fantasy world. And keep in mind, he would have looked rather grotesque or "terrible" anyway, that part is relatively explicit.
It is how Sauron is described in the book, but it’s not a literal description. It’s more a description of his abilities and influence. I think it was a clever way to adapt Sauron to film, but it’s not accurate to the book.
The eye in the films is rather a manifestation of Sauron’s mastery over the Palantir, has if one looks at the design of Barad-Dur, it resembles a conduit or projector of sorts, I believe the Eye is simply him projecting himself through the Palantir with his greater power, despite being severely weakened without the Ring, he is still the most powerful being in Middle Earth in this state, and in the films he does have a physical form contrary to what Saruman says, as in the extended cut of Return of the King during his confrontation with Aragorn, Sauron is shown in the Palantir holding up his own Palantir, Sauron cannot just simply look through a stone without one of his own, the eye is simply Sauron using his Palantir, funnily enough the Lego set of Barad-Dur confirmed this, as in his throne room, is a Palantir and I believe just as he does in the books, he sits in front of his Palantir every day and night watching everything, directing his plans from the comfort of his home. We know he has a physical body in the movies too because of the Hobbit, he’s is physically present, capable of creating fresh Orcs from the captured Woodland Elves he captured and physically attacking Gandalf with his demonic powers. After he returns to Mordor he fully regains his physical body, puts his armour back on and simply sits in his throne all day looking at his Palantir and projecting the eye atop the tower through it. There’s some evidence to this in the films but it’s true that in the books Sauron never had a physical eye atop Barad-Dur.
Bram Stoker did the same thing in “Dracula”. Dracula is the titular character (just like Sauron!), but rarely appears physically in the book, and when he does, is often shapeshifted.
Truth. He appears in the intro at his castle, then is glimpsed on the Demeter(but often is seen as mist), then is seen briefly in the mist by Mina when he lands in England and bites Lucy. Then he becomes a wolf and attacks Lucy after having Renfield drug the household, then we don't see him again until he starts turning Mina, then a brief glimpse when they start tracking him, then when he finally is caught, staked and beheaded.
In the books we can feel the presence and influence of Sauron even when he's not directly present...though some of his thoughts and perspectives are sort of given to us by proxy, he is more 'present' per se in other works where his direct actions are shown (Silmarillion etc.) the adaptation problem is that they rarely get the true epic and scale and give proper perspective of such a being, a divine entity, a spirit of unimaginable power a lesser god of sorts! Such power and might is rarely ever shown properly on screen, the physical depiction in the show was lacking because they made him quite.....ordinary, instead of having some aura of menace and power, glorious appearance that is awe inspiring etc. Villain whose ,machinations are so overwhelming and on vast scale is hard to pull off, especially with the wriitng that is not very smart! Tolkien is able to do it painting great picture with the words he uses! Even Morgoth is pulled off wonderfully by Tolkien...like his conversation with Hurin...it's glorious scene :) in book. Obviously a touch of mystery is also needed as the villain who is mysterious also adds to the imagination!
I agree with the scale problem. It is definitely hard for any adaptation to capture which is why I think most have either kept Sauton in the background or limited screentime or had issues. Rings of power tackled this head on without taking the necessary steps to prove to the audience that Sauron is more than a really powerful and sneaky dude. Also sounds like I need to reread the Silmarillion as it's been a long time and I don't remember their conversations. Thank you for your insight. Appreciate the comment.
@@geoffcassidy9981 the words of Morgoth and Hurin are actually more in The Unfinished Tales, and Children of Hurin. It's really well written scene. As for the show well one thinks that with all the modern possibilities they could have depicted Sauron in much better way...the actor being given some 'CGI enhancement' or such, special effects that would make him seem greater, more beautiful (elves as well...the casting choices for most of the elves character in amazon show were....questionable). But what was truly needed was Tolkien's vision, the writers of Amazon were really bad at their job when they invent stuff on their own.
According to IMDB, Sauron has less than five minutes of screen time. That doesn't sound right when you think about how his presence is felt throughout the story, and that's because it's not. Whoever counted forgot to include the Ring.
I'd say this is far more of a problem for the films, where Sauron is mostly (except right at the start) portrayed as a dis-embodied eye on top of a tower. In the books, its clear that Sauron is at least humanoid, having nine fingers. He also briefly speaks when Merry looks into the Palantir, but his actual appearance is never described in detail. In ROP, his power is mostly only manifest after the reveal, where he does a number of impressive actions, effortlessly deflecting Galadriel's attack, and plcing her into a dream world. This is even more the case in season 2. I'd say this works pretty well in having a powerful villain who is also personalised. Its the norm in many films for a reason.
I think the other thing that people struggle with and RoP definitely messes up is that Sauron is a being as old as time itself. Sauron helped sing the world into creation and played a role in its ordering. He is countless thousands of years old, assuming “time” can even apply to one like him. He’s not a human with human thought processes. How does such a being be think, view time, view others?
That is something very tricky. I even think it's hard to imagine what and how the elves should think and act. Trying to imagine what a normal human would be like if they were a thousand years old. How they would approach life. It's hard to think through but that's what it takes to capture a world and characters like this. But as I said, it's hard and Sauron is only harder which I why I think most stories in Middle Earth, at least the ones I've seen, have either created a different main villain or kept him in the background.
Honestly if you think about it from the perspective of the neolithic fathers, you start to realize, and I'm speaking from a place of no small experience and report, that the actual angle of influence in this dichotomy where are characters are faced with the impossible, is that you never really know that you love her until you let her go.
I agree and disagree. The way I see it is that the Ring is so much a part of Sauron that you could say it is the antagonist, but that would be stretching the definition for me. I disagree because the Ring by itself while corrupting doesn't play as great a role as Sauron by himself. Even without the Ring Sauron was about to destroy Gondor and Rohan and from there likely send raiding parties north. Thank you for your thoughts! I appreciate the comment and watching my video.
@@geoffcassidy9981 Righto, I'd say if you can imagine having LOTR without Sauron, then sure, you could argue that the ring is the main antagonist. But when I try to imagine the story without Sauron, well, there is no story. While the Ring makes the story much more interesting (and maybe takes it from an "okay" series to a great series), I can still picture a battle for Middle Earth without the Ring.
While ROP Sauron has a ton of things wrong, I do like the *concept* of portraying him in a sympathetic light and exploring him as a character. He makes a great one, better than Melkor. The desire for power, order, and status is something we all have and Sauron as a cautionary tale when you go too far is something touching to the core. Although even Melkor has his sympathetic points. Your point about a vague conceptual force getting weaker as it takes shape really plays through in LOTR. FOTR is full of mystery, intrigue, and dread. So many ancient enemies, but by far the coolest are the intelligent zombies that can never truly die that will always hunt you, that are by far the scariest force in the film. FOTR is my favorite of the trilogy. Sort of the Alien to Two Towers and ROTK's Aliens. By the time you get to ROTK everything is defined and there's nothing new to discover besides playing out the script. And it doesn't feel like any of the main characters are truly in danger, and becomes a superhero story. With that said, I do think the film should've had physical Sauron and kept their original idea in the final battle, appearing in fair form for a few seconds like the deleted scene before solidifying as his normal armored self. While the concept can be stronger than the form, ROTK Sauron is a completely known entity as a big immobile eye and the intrigue of everything else about the villains has broken down significantly.
Peter Jackson daid it was a big problem with having the villian as a flaming eye. Basically he said was they had commanders for him so they wouldn't have a physical representation of them.
Yeah I can see that. I think his name was Gorbag but the guy who leads the assault on Osgiliath and the Witch King do a good job of filling the physical role of a villain while allowing Sauron to remain a force and presence.
He is not completely without representation. E.g. in his "normal" form, even without the ring, he was larger than normal (I guess 1.5 times - the ring was larger too). Apparently his skin or at least hands were also as hot as fire at least when fighting or for longer periods of time, at least before he was defeated by a bunch of big shots (who mostly died) with special weapons etc. and his ring cut from his hand. Already before that, after the downfall of Númenor, for which he was largely responsible, he apparently lost his ability to give himself a "fair" appearance, meaning, like Morgoth or most evil things, he was very ugly thereafter. His eyes are both metaphorical and literal. In the even more mythical times, before the downfall of Beleriand (which was like the first Middle-Earth, next to the familiar one), he could turn into a giant werewolf and a giant vampire bat, and probably other times appeared like a larger than normal menacing, intimidating elf, at least in the situation of sitting on a throne talking to prisoners... (I'm not sure about the latter part, or what descriptions were then, but it seems quite possible that this was sort of the image.)
So would that mean there’s no right way to adapt the parts of the Middle Earth history where Sauron is active in person? Is Rings of Power a misfire because of the failures in choices it makes, or is telling the story where Annatar manipulates Celebrimbor and distributed the rings… or taking it back further doing Beren and Lúthien where Sauron is an on stage opponent to be fought, inherently not an option that can be done successfully at all?
Absolutely not. I'm saying it would be hard to do so because of how Sauron is in the book trilogy and movies. It can be done. But would require a very talented writer and one who understood the lore and history. Rings of Power is a misfire for a number of reasons and not because it portrayed Sauron as a person. The problem with the show is the writing and world building as a whole for me and I wanted to highlight how and why Sauron''s character is very tricky to deal with for any adaptation.
Sauron does hold a grudge though. It literally caused his downfall. His grudge is with the line of isildur and it caused him to be blind to frodo and focus on aragorn instead. Thus his grudge caused his downfall. This guy knows nothing of sauron and his history yet whines and moans about rings of power.
Hey! This guy here. I believe there were a few factors that went into Sauron focusing on Aragorn. The two main ones that come to mind is the army he had with him along with Gandalf. This idea though goes to the point of the video. Drawing Sauron's focus is the goal of the main characters but we don't know how it was interpreted by Sauron because of how we don't get his POV. We can get a pretty good idea, because the plan works. But the logic and reasoning on Sauron's end is unknown. I am interested because you seem to appreciate the Rings of Power more than I did, can you tell me what you like about it?
Stopped watching upon hearing "So-ron". You don't need to do the ridiculous rolled r of horrible rings of power lady, but if you're going to have the pretense of talking about these things, then c'mon...
I think Jackson’s films capture Sauron perfectly, Sauron is a Maia, which is an Angel in Tolkien’s Legendarium, he is arguably one of the most powerful of the Maiar, second to Eonwe, the herald of Manwë. Sauron is a Fallen Maia, a Fallen Angel or Demon, he was the right hand man of Morgoth, who is the Devil, so if Morgoth is Satan/Lucifer/Samael then Sauron is Beelzebub. Jackson captures Sauron’s presence perfectly, an absolutely imposing figure in demonic armour capable of decimating entire lines of infantry with a single strike of his Mace, while the scene from the book where he wrestles Gil-Galad and Elendil was cut from the films, I think Sauron simply swatting Elendil away and then snapping Narsil is more effective at conveying how much more Sauron is than them. Then throughout the rest of the films we don’t physically see him, only as the Eye atop Barad-Dur, and while in the Books Sauron is not actually an eye, it’s also the case in the films, Sauron is simply projecting his will through his Palantir and the spires of Barad-Dur is a projector or conduit, for him to channel his will through the Palantir, because he isn’t limited like the Wizards are, despite being fellow Maiar, cannot exert as much as he can. The Eye is a perfect representation of his demonic presence, that he does literally see everything from his tower and is still far more powerful than everyone else, and he is still the most powerful being in Middle Earth without the Ring, he manages to corrupt Saruman completely and he used to scare Gandalf and Elrond even though he is vastly weakened without the One Ring. But by far the best adaptation and portrayal of Sauron comes from the Hobbit films, he takes on a physical yet spectral form, and it really emphasises the demonic and evil presence he has, to the point that it’s practically an extreme exorcism to send him out of Dol-Guldur, Benedict Cumberbatch even insisted on recording his Black Speech in reverse, they then reversed the recording to what it should be and the result is terrifying. While the Hobbit isn’t the best adaptation it did do Sauron the best, even though he is just mentioned on a few pages in both the Hobbit book and the Appendices of Return of the King when the Hobbit takes place. Rings of Power tries to capture how Sauron’s original motives prior to his corruption by Morgoth, and then after Morgoth’s defeat, were to turn Middle Earth into the beautiful paradise it once was during the years of the Lamps when the Valar once lived there. But his need of control and basically OCD on steroids drive back into his evil he had been corrupted into by Morgoth. Rings of Power wastes time with the whole Halbrand plot, when none exists in the books, and only establishes Annatar later, but Sauron did not die nor lose his body after the War of Wrath, he was himself up until he took on the form of Annatar, and he did this to achieve his desires to make Middle Earth beautiful and preserve it through the Rings, but he succumbs to Morgoth’s influence when he forged the One Ring, as he sought to achieve the goal through domination and began to desire to enslave all life to his will. When he puts on his Ring, the Elves are terrified and take them off, Sauron then fully becomes the Dark Lord we know and marches to Eregion, leading the hordes of Orcs, Trolls and Werewolves he had amassed, while Adar is an interesting character, he’s better off in an adaptation of the Silmarillion to show how Orcs came from Elves, not leading the Orcs against Sauron, as the Orcs willingly followed Sauron because they had little purpose and struggled amongst themselves following Morgoth’s defeat. While Sauron did dominate the Orcs initially, he was actually revered and adored by his Orcs as he treated his Orcs better than Morgoth had. Rings of Power is trying too hard to convey him as the master manipulator he is, but the whole Galadriel romance, Halbrand and the mish mashing of the timeline of events strips the presence he has in the Jackson films and Tolkien’s Legendarium. While Rings of Power does get his original motive correct, and that he does go to Eregion, does take on the form of Annatar and co forges the rings with Celebrimbor, he doesn’t take on the form of Halbrand, he doesn’t go after Galadriel and only focuses on the Rings, Galadriel in fact was suspicious of him and stayed away from Annatar. Rings of Power will always be the worst adaptation of Tolkien’s Legendarium, because it’s what Amazon wants, poor writing, inserting world breaking garbage and pushing the mainstream media messages that do not exist there, it’s not like something they can insert their own message into, this is where Jackson’s films succeed and Amazon fails, Jackson made sure to keep as faithful to the source material as he could whilst adapting it for film, I even argue Jackson made a lot of the characters much better. But he always tried to keep true to source material, even with additions like Lurtz, Tauriel, Azog and Bolg being present throughout all of the Hobbit etc. Amazon doesn’t care about Tolkien at all.
What a captivating and fresh way of sharing your thoughts. I was hooked throughout the entire video, waiting for what you would discuss, and write, next. Well done!
Thank you! Appreciate the kind words.
In order to understand why Sauron is depicted the way he is in the movie you need to understand Sauron's history. Sauron, like Gandalf, is a Maiar. He is an immortal being and as one of the Ainur (Valar and Maiar) that sang Arda (the world) into existance, they have the ability to take any physical form they desire. Sauron in the Silmarillion changes his appearance several times. It was also Sauron under the fair guise of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, during the Second Age when he taught the Elves how to make the Rings of Power, which is how he got the title of Deceiver.
Everything changed for Sauron during the downfall of Númenor in the year 3,261 of the Second Age, because he was there and it destroyed his physical form. After that he was no longer able to take a "fair form." When Sauron was separated from his One Ring by Isildur he became incorporeal again and his spirit fled east for 1,000 years. He was able to regain physical form once again when he took up residence as the Necromancer in Dol Guldur in the year 1,000 of the Third Age. He would have appeared taller than men, but not grotesquely large, maybe 7 to 8 feet tall. He would not have had a fair appearance, but the books did not go into much detail about Sauron's appearance once he fled Dol Guldur for Mordor.
The movie depicts Sauron as a flaming, lidless eye. This is incorrect. That was Sauron's symbol - a lidless eye wreathed in flame. Just like Saruman's symbol was a white hand. It is not how Sauron actually appeared.
7 or 8 feet is hardly worth mentioning. That might even apply to Aragorn or some men (surely to accurate Númenoreans). Keep in mind that the ring had to actually shrink to fit people. There is no need to make everything more pathetic. That's an instinct the showrunners were also running with, and that's the result we get. We are still in a fantasy world. And keep in mind, he would have looked rather grotesque or "terrible" anyway, that part is relatively explicit.
It is how Sauron is described in the book, but it’s not a literal description. It’s more a description of his abilities and influence. I think it was a clever way to adapt Sauron to film, but it’s not accurate to the book.
The eye in the films is rather a manifestation of Sauron’s mastery over the Palantir, has if one looks at the design of Barad-Dur, it resembles a conduit or projector of sorts, I believe the Eye is simply him projecting himself through the Palantir with his greater power, despite being severely weakened without the Ring, he is still the most powerful being in Middle Earth in this state, and in the films he does have a physical form contrary to what Saruman says, as in the extended cut of Return of the King during his confrontation with Aragorn, Sauron is shown in the Palantir holding up his own Palantir, Sauron cannot just simply look through a stone without one of his own, the eye is simply Sauron using his Palantir, funnily enough the Lego set of Barad-Dur confirmed this, as in his throne room, is a Palantir and I believe just as he does in the books, he sits in front of his Palantir every day and night watching everything, directing his plans from the comfort of his home. We know he has a physical body in the movies too because of the Hobbit, he’s is physically present, capable of creating fresh Orcs from the captured Woodland Elves he captured and physically attacking Gandalf with his demonic powers. After he returns to Mordor he fully regains his physical body, puts his armour back on and simply sits in his throne all day looking at his Palantir and projecting the eye atop the tower through it. There’s some evidence to this in the films but it’s true that in the books Sauron never had a physical eye atop Barad-Dur.
Bram Stoker did the same thing in “Dracula”. Dracula is the titular character (just like Sauron!), but rarely appears physically in the book, and when he does, is often shapeshifted.
Truth. He appears in the intro at his castle, then is glimpsed on the Demeter(but often is seen as mist), then is seen briefly in the mist by Mina when he lands in England and bites Lucy. Then he becomes a wolf and attacks Lucy after having Renfield drug the household, then we don't see him again until he starts turning Mina, then a brief glimpse when they start tracking him, then when he finally is caught, staked and beheaded.
In the books we can feel the presence and influence of Sauron even when he's not directly present...though some of his thoughts and perspectives are sort of given to us by proxy, he is more 'present' per se in other works where his direct actions are shown (Silmarillion etc.) the adaptation problem is that they rarely get the true epic and scale and give proper perspective of such a being, a divine entity, a spirit of unimaginable power a lesser god of sorts! Such power and might is rarely ever shown properly on screen, the physical depiction in the show was lacking because they made him quite.....ordinary, instead of having some aura of menace and power, glorious appearance that is awe inspiring etc. Villain whose ,machinations are so overwhelming and on vast scale is hard to pull off, especially with the wriitng that is not very smart! Tolkien is able to do it painting great picture with the words he uses! Even Morgoth is pulled off wonderfully by Tolkien...like his conversation with Hurin...it's glorious scene :) in book. Obviously a touch of mystery is also needed as the villain who is mysterious also adds to the imagination!
I agree with the scale problem. It is definitely hard for any adaptation to capture which is why I think most have either kept Sauton in the background or limited screentime or had issues. Rings of power tackled this head on without taking the necessary steps to prove to the audience that Sauron is more than a really powerful and sneaky dude.
Also sounds like I need to reread the Silmarillion as it's been a long time and I don't remember their conversations.
Thank you for your insight. Appreciate the comment.
@@geoffcassidy9981 the words of Morgoth and Hurin are actually more in The Unfinished Tales, and Children of Hurin. It's really well written scene. As for the show well one thinks that with all the modern possibilities they could have depicted Sauron in much better way...the actor being given some 'CGI enhancement' or such, special effects that would make him seem greater, more beautiful (elves as well...the casting choices for most of the elves character in amazon show were....questionable). But what was truly needed was Tolkien's vision, the writers of Amazon were really bad at their job when they invent stuff on their own.
According to IMDB, Sauron has less than five minutes of screen time. That doesn't sound right when you think about how his presence is felt throughout the story, and that's because it's not. Whoever counted forgot to include the Ring.
Interesting. I always saw them as separate but also that Sauron poured himself into the ring to where they were linked.
I see it as an extension of his being. Every time a character interacts with the Ring, it speaks in Sauron's voice.
I really enjoyed this!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'd say this is far more of a problem for the films, where Sauron is mostly (except right at the start) portrayed as a dis-embodied eye on top of a tower. In the books, its clear that Sauron is at least humanoid, having nine fingers. He also briefly speaks when Merry looks into the Palantir, but his actual appearance is never described in detail.
In ROP, his power is mostly only manifest after the reveal, where he does a number of impressive actions, effortlessly deflecting Galadriel's attack, and plcing her into a dream world. This is even more the case in season 2. I'd say this works pretty well in having a powerful villain who is also personalised. Its the norm in many films for a reason.
I like to think that Sauron does have a humanoid form in the movies, he just uses the eye to keep watch over Mordor from inside his tower.
I think the other thing that people struggle with and RoP definitely messes up is that Sauron is a being as old as time itself. Sauron helped sing the world into creation and played a role in its ordering. He is countless thousands of years old, assuming “time” can even apply to one like him. He’s not a human with human thought processes.
How does such a being be think, view time, view others?
That is something very tricky. I even think it's hard to imagine what and how the elves should think and act. Trying to imagine what a normal human would be like if they were a thousand years old. How they would approach life. It's hard to think through but that's what it takes to capture a world and characters like this. But as I said, it's hard and Sauron is only harder which I why I think most stories in Middle Earth, at least the ones I've seen, have either created a different main villain or kept him in the background.
The Lord of the Rings risk game is quite awesome actually lol, as long as you take out all the timed ring mechancis
Yeah we never played with the ring. Just turtled until we almost used all the pieces in the game then attacked each other. We had no idea of strategy.
@@geoffcassidy9981 lol same. I just wore the ring on a chain around my neck until I lost it one day.
Honestly if you think about it from the perspective of the neolithic fathers, you start to realize, and I'm speaking from a place of no small experience and report, that the actual angle of influence in this dichotomy where are characters are faced with the impossible, is that you never really know that you love her until you let her go.
Well said!
Sauron isn't the main antagonist of Lord of the Rings, the ring is.
I agree and disagree. The way I see it is that the Ring is so much a part of Sauron that you could say it is the antagonist, but that would be stretching the definition for me. I disagree because the Ring by itself while corrupting doesn't play as great a role as Sauron by himself. Even without the Ring Sauron was about to destroy Gondor and Rohan and from there likely send raiding parties north. Thank you for your thoughts! I appreciate the comment and watching my video.
@@geoffcassidy9981 Righto, I'd say if you can imagine having LOTR without Sauron, then sure, you could argue that the ring is the main antagonist. But when I try to imagine the story without Sauron, well, there is no story.
While the Ring makes the story much more interesting (and maybe takes it from an "okay" series to a great series), I can still picture a battle for Middle Earth without the Ring.
“They are one: the ring and the dark lord.” -Gandalf
Sauron lives in a tower over in Muuhahhaaa
While ROP Sauron has a ton of things wrong, I do like the *concept* of portraying him in a sympathetic light and exploring him as a character. He makes a great one, better than Melkor. The desire for power, order, and status is something we all have and Sauron as a cautionary tale when you go too far is something touching to the core. Although even Melkor has his sympathetic points.
Your point about a vague conceptual force getting weaker as it takes shape really plays through in LOTR. FOTR is full of mystery, intrigue, and dread. So many ancient enemies, but by far the coolest are the intelligent zombies that can never truly die that will always hunt you, that are by far the scariest force in the film. FOTR is my favorite of the trilogy. Sort of the Alien to Two Towers and ROTK's Aliens. By the time you get to ROTK everything is defined and there's nothing new to discover besides playing out the script. And it doesn't feel like any of the main characters are truly in danger, and becomes a superhero story.
With that said, I do think the film should've had physical Sauron and kept their original idea in the final battle, appearing in fair form for a few seconds like the deleted scene before solidifying as his normal armored self. While the concept can be stronger than the form, ROTK Sauron is a completely known entity as a big immobile eye and the intrigue of everything else about the villains has broken down significantly.
Peter Jackson daid it was a big problem with having the villian as a flaming eye. Basically he said was they had commanders for him so they wouldn't have a physical representation of them.
Yeah I can see that. I think his name was Gorbag but the guy who leads the assault on Osgiliath and the Witch King do a good job of filling the physical role of a villain while allowing Sauron to remain a force and presence.
He is not completely without representation. E.g. in his "normal" form, even without the ring, he was larger than normal (I guess 1.5 times - the ring was larger too). Apparently his skin or at least hands were also as hot as fire at least when fighting or for longer periods of time, at least before he was defeated by a bunch of big shots (who mostly died) with special weapons etc. and his ring cut from his hand. Already before that, after the downfall of Númenor, for which he was largely responsible, he apparently lost his ability to give himself a "fair" appearance, meaning, like Morgoth or most evil things, he was very ugly thereafter. His eyes are both metaphorical and literal.
In the even more mythical times, before the downfall of Beleriand (which was like the first Middle-Earth, next to the familiar one), he could turn into a giant werewolf and a giant vampire bat, and probably other times appeared like a larger than normal menacing, intimidating elf, at least in the situation of sitting on a throne talking to prisoners... (I'm not sure about the latter part, or what descriptions were then, but it seems quite possible that this was sort of the image.)
So would that mean there’s no right way to adapt the parts of the Middle Earth history where Sauron is active in person?
Is Rings of Power a misfire because of the failures in choices it makes, or is telling the story where Annatar manipulates Celebrimbor and distributed the rings… or taking it back further doing Beren and Lúthien where Sauron is an on stage opponent to be fought, inherently not an option that can be done successfully at all?
Absolutely not. I'm saying it would be hard to do so because of how Sauron is in the book trilogy and movies. It can be done. But would require a very talented writer and one who understood the lore and history.
Rings of Power is a misfire for a number of reasons and not because it portrayed Sauron as a person. The problem with the show is the writing and world building as a whole for me and I wanted to highlight how and why Sauron''s character is very tricky to deal with for any adaptation.
hello!
Hello to you!
Sauron does hold a grudge though. It literally caused his downfall. His grudge is with the line of isildur and it caused him to be blind to frodo and focus on aragorn instead. Thus his grudge caused his downfall. This guy knows nothing of sauron and his history yet whines and moans about rings of power.
Hey! This guy here. I believe there were a few factors that went into Sauron focusing on Aragorn. The two main ones that come to mind is the army he had with him along with Gandalf.
This idea though goes to the point of the video. Drawing Sauron's focus is the goal of the main characters but we don't know how it was interpreted by Sauron because of how we don't get his POV. We can get a pretty good idea, because the plan works. But the logic and reasoning on Sauron's end is unknown.
I am interested because you seem to appreciate the Rings of Power more than I did, can you tell me what you like about it?
Cuz he wasn't a humanoid
I don’t know why, but I adore your videos sir. Please make more.🥹
Thank you! It's been a long week and I appreciate the kind words.
Stopped watching upon hearing "So-ron". You don't need to do the ridiculous rolled r of horrible rings of power lady, but if you're going to have the pretense of talking about these things, then c'mon...
I can safely say my videos are not for you. Thanks for stopping by.