Saurons Weapon of Choice?

[Dark Lord]

Hello.

I have been doing some digging recently, and since I haven't read the books, I just realized that Sauron's weapon choice was not mentioned properly, if at all. (In the books).

In the movies, his weapon was portrayed as a mace that could 'send entire battalions of soldiers flying in a single hit'.

Is this true in the books? Because if he can do that, with 'one' hit, why was it so hard to send Elendil and Gil - Galad flying away? It would kill them instantly wouldn't it? Or do you think he kept missing while they dodged?

Kind of disappointed that his mace with the 'flying away powers' wasn't mentioned in the book.

Was his weapon just a normal mace like a human would use? If so, seems like he didn't kill many people during his time.

[Mithalwen]

I am not sure if Sauron's weapon choice is ever definitively stated. Maybe the filmmakers just gave him a souped up version of the witch king's weaponry. Frankly if Sauron could wipe out swathes of warriors like that I doubt the siege would have lasted so long. I thing in one of the drafts there is a reference to Gil-galad wrestling Sauron (echoes of Felagund).

[Inziladun]

I would completely discount the movie's take on Sauron's melee abilities.

To touch on what Mith said, The Silmarillion states that during the siege of Barad-dûr,

Sauron himself came forth; and he wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil.

Silm Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

In the Council of Elrond, when telling of those events, Elrond says only that

I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him.

FOTR The Council of Elrond

That would seem to suggest that there was some sort of action involving weapons on Sauron's part, but apparently it wasn't noteworthy enough to specifically mention afterwards.

Sauron mainly relied on minions and servants to do his dirty work, and maybe on those rare occasions where he himself fought, like the battle with Gil-galad and Elendil, his weaponry just wasn't singular enough to warrant any special attention by witnesses.

Alternately, maybe he himself didn't make use of weapons, thinking he could accomplish his victories with his aura of terror, or that failing, with brute strength.

[Alfirin]

A mace would also also fit well with the whole image he was trying to cultivate. Sauron's former boss/leader/master, Melkor used Grond (the original one) which was, if I recall a mace. Since a lot of Sauron's "warrior" look (big guy, armor, burned/burning flesh) seems to be designed to make him look as much like Melkor in form as possible (and hence be seens as Melkor's heir/inheritor) choosing the same weapon would be a logical choice. Maces also have a long history of being symbolic of power and right to rule (think of the Grand Mace that's part of the British royal jewels)

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

A mace would also also fit well with the whole image he was trying to cultivate. Sauron's former boss/leader/master, Melkor used Grond (the original one) which was, if I recall a mace. Since a lot of Sauron's "warrior" look (big guy, armor, burned/burning flesh) seems to be designed to make him look as much like Melkor in form as possible (and hence be seens as Melkor's heir/inheritor) choosing the same weapon would be a logical choice. Maces also have a long history of being symbolic of power and right to rule (think of the Grand Mace that's part of the British royal jewels)

Agreed. I would add that a mace has a two very good qualities above, say, a sword: it's relatively simple to become proficient in its use, and it requires very little maintenance compared to a sword. I can well see its appeal to someone like Sauron: make, enchant, swing, bash.

(I would also submit that the humble spear, in its various forms around the world and through history, saw more service and killed more enemies than the sword did.)

[Dark Lord]

Quite disappointing really. One of my favourite things about Sauron was his mace, now I realise his mace isn't even in the lore.

Morgoth's mace use to smash craters with lava in the ground, wouldn't Sauron's weapon (if he had one) have similar qualities as he is known to 'tap in the earth's fires.

Since people are accustomed to Sauron having a mace, is it wrong to classify that his weapon (in the movies) is part of the lore? I just don't see how, how he would have lost any battles with it.

Also, if his mace was that powerful, wouldn't Tolkien think it is important and write it? If he didn't make a weapon, what is the point of making armour for himself?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Alternately, maybe he himself didn't make use of weapons, thinking he could accomplish his victories with his aura of terror, or that failing, with brute strength.

I personally take this view. I've never imagined Sauron coming out in armour and wielding a weapon, I actually always imagined him unarmed and unarmoured, trying to overwhelm Gil-galad and Elendil through furious raw strength and the sheer awfulness of his presence.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Note also this, from the Scroll of Isildur:

...Sauron's hand, which was black and yet burned like fire, and so Gil-galad was destroyed

This occurred to me too. Sauron could apparently burn with a touch, so perhaps he would not need conventional weapons.
"But at last the siege was so strait that Sauron himself came forth"
This was an act of desperation, not a calculated military manoeuvre. Sauron never expected to have to actually fight his enemies.

Originally Posted by Dark Lord

Sauron fought in battles didn't he?

Almost never. The films portray Sauron weighing into the battle on the slopes of Orodruin as some kind of doomsday for the Last Alliance, but really it was Sauron's final gambit and one which didn't really work.

But, when you ask someone 'What was Sauron's weapon and what did it do?', most people would reply with the description of what showed in the movie, not say 'It wasn't stated'. - That's if they know much about LOTR.

Would they? Surely someone who knew "much about LOTR" would know that it's never stated, although "most people" probably don't know "much about LOTR." Unless you mean "know the films well" or "treat the books and the films as interchangeable", which they're not, and which these days is a source of endless confusion. Anyway, just because a lot of people believe something doesn't mean that it's true. Just because the films have coloured people's imaginations doesn't mean that their depictions have the slightest relevance when it comes to discussing what Professor Tolkien himself actually wrote.

While some of the arguments here for why he could have had a mace are quite interesting, at the same time it's all just speculation because Professor Tolkien never wrote what weapon he used, if he even used one at all.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Sauron could apparently burn with a touch, so perhaps he would not need conventional weapons.

That's interesting. Oddly enough, Gollum, who had presumably seen Sauron personally during his captivity in Mordor, told Frodo and Sam:

'He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough.'

TTT The Black Gate Is Closed

Why would Sauron only have had one hand that was black, unless it was intentional? And, tangentially, I wonder if that had anything to do with Saruman's choice of the White Hand as his own symbol.

Originally Posted by Zigûr;687475"

But at last the siege was so strait that Sauron himself came forth"
This was an act of desperation, not a calculated military manoeuvre. Sauron never expected to have to actually fight his enemies.

Almost never. The films portray Sauron weighing into the battle on the slopes of Orodruin as some kind of doomsday for the Last Alliance, but really it was Sauron's final gambit and one which didn't really work.

I see Sauron's coming forth as mainly an act of rage, and revenge. His armies were destroyed, and his ideal of dominion in Middle-earth had been brought to naught by Elves and Men. What better act of vengeance than to kill with his own hands the kings of his enemies?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Why would Sauron only have had one hand that was black, unless it was intentional?

Why assume just one black hand? True, Gollum uses the singular article; but then Tolkien also uses "the Eye of Sauron" when we know he had two.

I'm inclined to think Tolkien's vision of Sauron (in his post-fall of Numenor form) was not unconnected to his essay/note on Sigelhearwan, a word which by late OE was used to translate "Ethiopians, Africans" but which JRRT argued on philological grounds had originally referred to the Giants of Muspellheim, black-skinned with fiery eyes.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

It's fine, learned discourse requires a antithesis along with a thesis in order to try and reach synthesis. you just hit a raw nerve in me; the whole thing reminded me of a period on another literature related forum where a person arrived who had decided that only that which the original author had said was canon (and unlike tolkien this work had mutiple sucessor authors who were generally aknowledged as being canon as well) and that therefore all other works should neither exist nor be discussed and the original authour should not be discussed and explored either, his words should simply be accepted at face value as the literal gospel. That occurance ended nastily with the individual hurling curses (not swear words actual curses of the "may all your family get cancer and may you be flayed alive and burn in hell" type) at everyone else in the discussion, usually before they had actually said anything (he decided that anyone who had stayed out of the whole thing was against him as well). I NEVER want to go through one of those again, so I get edgy when I think another one is coming.

Well, Alfirin, I do think there’s an enormous difference between what I did and the kind of behaviour you describe.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Would they? Surely someone who knew "much about LOTR" would know that it's never stated, although "most people" probably don't know "much about LOTR." Unless you mean "know the films well" or "treat the books and the films as interchangeable", which they're not, and which these days is a source of endless confusion. Anyway, just because a lot of people believe something doesn't mean that it's true.

In my experience “fanon” can become quite as rigid as “canon”– maybe more so, since it won’t permit much in the way of a reality check– it tends to become a matter of, “well, all my friends think so”. And when the entire point is to make a single “official” version of something left open by the original author... well, I think that’s pretty restrictive.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Just because the films have coloured people's imaginations doesn't mean that their depictions have the slightest relevance when it comes to discussing what Professor Tolkien himself actually wrote.

While some of the arguments here for why he could have had a mace are quite interesting, at the same time it's all just speculation because Professor Tolkien never wrote what weapon he used, if he even used one at all.

I think we need to break the issue down a bit–

1. Is there any reason to believe Tolkien intended Sauron to use a mace?

is not the same question as

2. Is it all right for someone to depict the character this way?

So far, I don’t believe we’ve seen anything that would support a “yes” answer to the first question, or a “no” answer to the second.

[Dark Lord]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

So far, I don’t believe we’ve seen anything that would support a “yes” answer to the first question, or a “no” answer to the second.

Maybe it's just left to our own imagination?

I 'personally' like the film adapt-ions of himself rather than what I have read about him from the books.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Well, Alfirin, I do think there’s an enormous difference between what I did and the kind of behaviour you describe.

Maybe so maybe I'm being paranoid. That experiance left me as a living example of that old aphorism that "A burned cat will fear a cold stove" (or, to my preference the Japanese version "A man who has been bitten by a snake will fear a rotted rope.")

[Belegorn]

If he fought bare-fisted, or with his hands wrapped up like the old Greek boxers, think of maybe Jet Li in The One, hands versus bullets.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Belegorn

If he fought bare-fisted, or with his hands wrapped up like the old Greek boxers, think of maybe Jet Li in The One, hands versus bullets.

In pure fisticuffs, Sauron's superior stature and strength would always give him an edge over lesser beings. Being in nature an angelic, embodied spirit, I would think even sword and arrow-wounds wouldn't put him down, unless he received very many of them. Morgoth, though obviously greater in all ways than Sauron, was able to withstand multiple sword-wounds by one of the most powerful of the Noldor. I don't think Sauron would have had much fear of even armed adversaries.

[Belegorn]

True, but many of his enemies were on a whole other level, being Elves and Dúnedain. Sauron himself was not quite on the level of his master. I'm just watching Full-Metal Alchemist and I think the Dúnedain were sort of like King Bradleys, and of course the Elves generally were like them, except of course the exceptional ones. I mean in the end he was put down by two of the elite of their respective kindreds so I do not see him so much out of their league as to just be strolling in among his enemies, at least at this point in history, and expecting to walk away relatively unscathed.

Remember when Isildur and his 200 or so Men were ambushed by over 2000 Orcs and they still almost wiped them out. They were horribly outnumbered. It took about 5-6 together to take out one Dúnedain, but their methods it seemed involved sacrifice because they needed to try and hold them down to get at them, almost a recklessness. I do think perhaps Sauron had something to help him deal with his enemies weapons, to mitigate their impact to some degree. He also had that heat with which he took out Gil-galad.

He was a master of wolves, I'm not sure about this, but did he make much use of them in the 2nd Age? I'm not so sure. I know some of the Orcs under Saruman used Wargs & the like, but I'd think Sauron would keep such powerful creatures around to strengthen his forces. I can certainly see Sauron going at it with just his own physical tools. It seems for the most part that warriors of note, or at least the famous people/beings tend to have their weapons mentioned. Morgoth did, as did the Balrogs, and various Elves and Men. I suppose Sauron sort of went at it like the dragons did.

[Alfirin]

Actually the skills of the Dunedain and Elves would probably almost make armor a requirement if Sauron ever planned to be on the battlefield. After all, how could he be sure that his enemies would be so noble as to keep themselves confined to close combat when he was concerned. Up close and personal, he had is power and his fire. But what would happen if they had decided to take him out from a distance. Both the elves and men possesed in thier armies numerous incredibly crack shots with bow and spear; what's to keep them from simply taking aim and riddling him. I imagine that any fear powers Sauron has won't work on intert objects and using his fire to burn them rather relys on him being able to see all of them. I tend to think his firepower requires conscios effort, that his background heat was not so high that arrows and spears simply spontaneously combusted as they got near him (and even if they did, the heads would still get though which would funtionally be the same as the whole arrow or spear. Plus assuming anyone knew about the fire thing (and they probably did. All they'd need are arrows or spears with iron shafts as well as heads). No armor means no defense against projectiles; Sauron would be a pincusion before he got twenty paces out of the gates. If his finger can be cut off, his body can presumably be peirced.

[Inziladun]

Armor or no, I still think that the lack of any mention of Sauron's engaging in melee action or his possession of any weapon is a good indication he did not carry one.