Looking inside the Sauron Project - Page 2
© Michael Martinez
It seems the bad guys just couldn't find any decent help at the end of the Third Age. Look what they had to work with. Bill Ferny and the spy from Isengard (who had originally been serving Saruman but had been shown the error of his ways by the Nazgul) tried to kidnap Frodo in the dark of night but they ended up knifing pillows in the wrong room. Why didn't the Nazgul just storm the inn, people ask. Because they had a problem with light, and Aragorn's eyes were really shiny.
So, failing to catch the Hobbits in the Shire, the Old Forest, the Barrow Downs, and Bree, the Nazgul regrouped and headed across country for Weathertop. They figured any Ranger worth his salt would head straight for the hill to have a look around at the empty countryside he'd spent half his long life wandering through. So, score one for the bad guys.
But then, instead of grabbing Frodo and making off with him, the Lord of the Nazgul just tries to stab him with a Morgul blade as Aragorn is hopping about with two torches AND his bright eyes. So he barely nicks the little hobbit and pulls back into the darkness to wait for the magic to work on its victim. And he waits. And waits. And waits.
Something like two weeks later the Nazgul get one last shot at Frodo and the Ring, but they only barely overtake Frodo and company as they are about to reach Rivendell. Naturally since the Elves have mostly left Middle-earth the Nazgul have nothing to fear from them any more. Sadly, they didn't bother to send any spies into Rivendell to see if Elrond still had some power. It turned out Gandalf was sitting with Elrond and he helped raise the river to wash away the Nazgul.
Imagine the tongue-lashing Sauron should have given to his nine bad boys when their uncloaked, shapeless, horseless wraiths came slithering back to Barad-Dur. "All right, that tears it! No more Morgul-blades until you bring me that Ring!" What was he going to do to frighten these guys, threaten to kill them? Rip off their heads? Subject them to endless torment? List their home telephone numbers on the Internet?
So, what's my point?
Well, let's stop and think about Sauron for a moment from the perspective of, say, a game master running a role-playing game. Or a game designer creating a Lord of the Rings computer game (such as a massively multi player online game, like the one Sierra On-Line, a division of Havas Interactive, is said to have lost the license for. Well, if they lost the license (or are about to), they are yesterday's news. So what about the perspective of, say, the writers for a three-movie project based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings"?
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