Tolkien: By the end of the Third Age, Sauron’s physical power is so diminished that his presence is confined to the tower of Barad-Dur. However, he is still immensely powerful in his ability to watch and predict the movements of his enemies, and his understanding extends so far that he could metaphorically be referred to as a Great Eye, constantly watching and planning his next move. And because his gaze is so piercing, it is sometimes likened to fire.
Peter Jackson: Okay but…hear me out…what if Sauron was literally….a Great Eye.
Tolkien: What.
Peter Jackson: What if he was literally a giant eyeball on the top of Barad-Dur.
Tolkien: That’s not quite what I inten-
Peter Jackson: Made of FIRE. A LITERAL GIANT FIERY EYEBALL.
So Sauron was just chillin in Barad-Dur?
I think it means Sauron was more or less like a spirit or “an aura”. Kind of like Acererak in DnD who loses his body to fuse with a wave of magic, existing as a consciousness instead of flesh and soul
Could that wave of magic look like a flaming eyeball?
I think that the canon was also that he’d spent centuries imprisoned until just a bit before the events of The Hobbit, and finally escaped around then to return to Mordor to attempt to regain power. So he did have a body at that point at least.
after his defeat, he was a non-corporeal spirit for like some 1000 years, after which he had gathered enough strengths to recreate a body. he took over Dol Guldur - the Hill of Sorcery as “the Necromancer” and then more or less chilled there for the next 1950 years - running away every time gandalf came by to check. meanwhile the ringwraiths kept murderhobboing everyone around and then stuff happened.
I like the detail you see in the Hobbit, where he’s not so much a giant flaming eyeball, as he is just seen as a silhouette surrounded by a flaming aura, giving the appearance of a slit pupiled eye.
I hate myers briggs and it’s pretentious but I’m right
you think that the infinite spectrum of human personality and behavior can be narrowed down into 16 categories? bitch….. 16?
huh so evidently isabel briggs myers was also a racist (wrote a book abt a southern family who kills themselves after learning they have black heritage, this is framed as the right decision by the story for eugenics reasons) and her mother catherine who contributed heavily 2 the test was also a eugenicist so maybe their test to determine what societal role you should conform to and raise a child in accordance with wasn’t made with the best intentions
So I just need to talk about something I just realized rewatching Pirates of the Caribbean
So you know the beginning of the series when we first meet the Swann household and Will Turner as Will delivers the sword Governor Swann had comissioned for Norrington?
Well as we are clearly told, Will made that sword and not his master. Norrington’s sword was made by William Turner. Then in the second film, we meet Cutler Beckett and as he is arresting Elizabeth and Will on their wedding day, he mentions Norrington is no longer around and reveals that he himself is the new owner of Norrington’s sword. Okay, yeah, still not THAT hard to miss, right?
So the films go on and we eventually get to the third film, when Norrington has now returned to the East India Trading Company and is Admiral on the Dutchman. He then sets Elizabeth and her crew free, where he is promptly caught by Bootstrap and murdered by Davy Jones. Davy Jones then picks up Norrington’s sword and mutters “nice sword!” before taking it and leaving Norrington’s body behind.
So now the sword Will Turner made passed from Norrington > Cutler Beckett > Norrington > Davy Jones
Well…
Davy Jones then murders Will Turner by stabbing him through the heart with his sword. A sword Will Turner knows very well.
Because Will Turner made it.
Will Turner made the sword that would kill him and eventually bind him to The Flying Dutchman.
