What if Sauron won?

[The Nth Doctor]

I had this really weird dream last night that played on this idea. Sauron manages to recapture the One Ring and kills both Frodo and Gollum, while Aragorn and company flee Pelennor Fields (to where, I don't know). The focus of the dream then turned to Sauron attacking the east and seeing Alatar and Pallando (the remaining two Istari who went to the east and lost their way) fighting Sauron.

I don't remember much more about the dream but it got me thinking: What would have happen if Sauron reclaimed the One Ring?

 

[Lt. Trull]

your joking right....

 

[Shurik]

The Middle Earth would fall to his rule, he would try to free his lord and master Morgoth and then the Valar would kick his ass once and for all in a final battle between the good and the evil.

 

[The Comedian]

The Middle Earth would fall to his rule, he would try to free his lord and master Morgoth and then the Valar would kick his ass once and for all in a final battle between the good and the evil.

I doubt Sauron could free Morgoth...Morgoth was one of those powerful of the Valar, and Sauron just a flunky...if Morgoth couldn't free himself, Sauron sure couldn't do it.

The second part, though, is true...

 

[Mistral]

I'm seeing Orc-built nuclear cruise missles before this one is done playing out.

 

[The Fatman]

That always did make me think of one point: if Sauron has no physical form, he's just a giant floating eye... what finger is he going to put the ring on? how can he wield the ring without a body?

silly questions aside, with the oppostion from Men and Elves defeated, Sauron would have full control of all Middle Earth soon. From the appendicees, I always understood it that the lands east were pretty much all aligned with or sympathetic to Sauron already. The remaining Elves would have departed ASAP,and the Dwarves would remain holed up in their mountains until they died out. The only question is would Sauron have been content with just ruling all middle earth, where he would probably rule uncontested for many ages? Or, would he attempt to attack the undying lands again (as he previously tricked the Numenoreans into doing). If Sauron got that uppity, Illuvatar himself would step in and probably drop him wholesale into Mt. Doom, and then sink all Middle-Earth in retribution.

I personally tend to lean towards the latter scenario, as dictators are never content with what they have...they always need to conquer.

 

[The Comedian]

Sauron was just a servant to the Valar at one time.

Sauron going after the Undying Lands would be like a Somali pirate in a sailboat taking on a carrier battle group.

 

[Thrall]

The Elf Chick and The Horse Chick in lots of slave/bondage games.

 

[Kolrad]

That's actually a very reasonable question, Foley0402, and the answer is that the idea that Sauron had no physical form and was just a floating eyeball was a creation of the Peter Jackson movies.

In the books, Sauron's power was held back by the fact that it was tied to the Ring and he no longer had it. I don't know if he was confined to his tower because of it, or if that was merely the way he went about his plan. But I don't recall the books ever saying that he no longer had a physical form.

Sauron was often represented by a giant flaming eye, but that's not the same thing as saying he literally was one. That's something I really wish the movies hadn't misunderstood.

 

[The Comedian]

The Elf Chick and The Horse Chick in lots of slave/bondage games.

Go Sauron!!!!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The focus of the dream then turned to Sauron attacking the east and seeing Alatar and Pallando (the remaining two Istari who went to the east and lost their way) fighting Sauron.

Unlikely. Sauron already had the east and the south. He had the Easterlings and the Haradrim on his side. He wouldn't need to conquer them.

As for the Blue Wizards, we don't know what became of them. Tolkien's writings suggest that they became founders of mystery cults; they could have been the progenitors of Mithraism, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, or Christianity, which all drew upon similar themes and ideas.

I don't remember much more about the dream but it got me thinking: What would have happen if Sauron reclaimed the One Ring?

The Elves bugger off. The Dwarves go deeper in their mountain halls. Humanity withers, what part of it doesn't fall under Sauron's sway.

The Middle Earth would fall to his rule, he would try to free his lord and master Morgoth and then the Valar would kick his ass once and for all in a final battle between the good and the evil.

A second War of Wrath? I doubt it.

Sauron had manipulated Numenor into attacking the Undying Lands, and for his trouble Numenor sank and the world was made round. Sauron had no way of reaching the Undying Lands any longer, and the Valar may have been content to leave Sauron be.

Sauron couldn't have freed Morgoth; the second prophecy of Mandos said that it would be Morgoth himself who would free him from his captivity and bringing about Dagor Dagorath, the final battle between good and evil.

 

[Middle Earther]

In some ways, I wonder if he would say, "Well, that's what we're living."

Maybe not, but he did refer to WWII in a letter to Christopher:

"We are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side."

(from his Letters, p. 78)

 

[CaptainStoner]

I have to wonder at one point of LOTR: that Sauron would be unstoppable once regaining the Ring. He had it cut from his hand once before. Although the intro to the Peter Jackson Fellowship really illustrates the kind of juggernaut Sauron might become, it would essentially be another situation like Smaug and Bard the Archer, and I think the Tolkien mythology and overall "message" would hold some scenario in which Sauron loses the ring again, at what would then be Cataclysmic loss, almost certainly losing Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, Gimli and Legolas, and pulverizing the Cities of Men, burning every forest, etc.
But I'd put my money on a Took in the 9th.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The focus of the dream then turned to Sauron attacking the east and seeing Alatar and Pallando (the remaining two Istari who went to the east and lost their way) fighting Sauron.

Unlikely. Sauron already had the east and the south. He had the Easterlings and the Haradrim on his side. He wouldn't need to conquer them.

Hm, good point. I had forgotten about that. Who said dreams had to make sense?

As for the Blue Wizards, we don't know what became of them. Tolkien's writings suggest that they became founders of mystery cults; they could have been the progenitors of Mithraism, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, or Christianity, which all drew upon similar themes and ideas.

Yeah, I knew there wasn't much on them and they founded cults and such. Like I said, they lost their way, i.e. the original mission of fighting Sauron. Hell, come to think of it, all of the Istari lost their way except Gandalf.

I don't remember much more about the dream but it got me thinking: What would have happen if Sauron reclaimed the One Ring?

The Elves bugger off. The Dwarves go deeper in their mountain halls. Humanity withers, what part of it doesn't fall under Sauron's sway.

True, but how mundane. I guess not all "What ifs" are all that exciting.

 

[Klaus]

Agreed that Elves flee and Dwarves tunnel deeper... but I think that humans would do just fine, actually. The odd Numenorean throwback aside, we corrupt waaaay too easily in the long run.

As noted above, one can make a powerful argument that in our world, Sauron DID win.

Want to know what would happen if Sauron won? Watch the news!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I guess not all "What ifs" are all that exciting.

A few years ago, I started writing something I entitled "Minas Tirith in the Sea of Time." On soc.history.what-if, for a while there was a fad of doing what were called "ISOT" alt-histories; something falls through a crack in time, much like in S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time, in which modern Nantucket falls into the Bronze Age.

In my ISOT, I had Rome, as it was about to be sacked by the Goths, and Minas Tirith, as it was under siege in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, switch places. Suffice it to say, Rome gets completely overwhelmed by Mordor's armies, but Aragorn's Black Fleet still turns the tide. So, in general, the War of the Ring turns out the same, but Minas Tirith is gone.

Minas Tirith, on the other hand, does a Lest Darkness Fall number on the fifth century CE. And Christianity fractures earlier; Roman Christianity and Augustine's theology never become ascendant. Celtic Christianity remains viable and strongly Pelagian in its theology.

I didn't get very far with it.

 

[Skywalker]

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!

 

[Hound of UIster]

In some ways, I wonder if he would say, "Well, that's what we're living."

Maybe not, but he did refer to WWII in a letter to Christopher:

"We are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side."

(from his Letters, p. 78)

He wasn't a big fan of the atom bomb either or apparently the alliance with Stalin. He wrote in the FOTR forward that if the War of the Ring had taken shape like WW2, the Ring would have been used against Sauron in battle, that Saruman would have been turned against him and eventually found the secrets of forging his own ring of power and then there would have been two dark lords in place.

 

[Aragorn]

There would only be one ending?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Tolkien's world is cyclical. Sauron would rule the world for a thousand years, and then, coming from nowhere, an unlikely hero would destroy him.