Eye of Sauron, X-Rays from the Cat's Eye (APOD 04 Aug 2008)
Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:20 pm
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080804.html
Eye of Sauron
---------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron
<<Sauron (Quenya: "Abhorred") is the title character and the primary antagonist of the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" (the Red Eye, the Evil Eye) is the image most often associated with Sauron. Sauron's Orcs bore the symbol of the Eye on their helmets and shields, and referred to him as the "Eye" because he did not allow his name to be written or spoken, according to Aragorn. Also, the Lord of the Nazgûl threatened Éowyn with torture before the "Lidless Eye" at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
In the Mirror of Galadriel, Frodo had an actual vision of this Eye:
"The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing."
On a later occasion, Tolkien writes as if Frodo and Sam really glimpse the Eye directly, not in any kind of vision. The mists surrounding Barad-dûr are briefly withdrawn, and:
"one moment only it stared out...as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye... The Eye was not turned on them, it was gazing north...but Frodo at that dreadful glimpse fell as one stricken mortally."
There are many other instances where Sauron is referred to as the "Eye". Some readers take this to mean the Eye was Sauron's physical form in the Third Age. This interpretation appears in film adaptations (see below) and in David Day's Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (1996).
Another interpretation questions the physical existence of the Eye, but sees it as a metaphysical reflection of Sauron's piercing will. In The Two Towers, Tolkien writes:
"The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."
From various quotes it is clear that Tolkien cannot have intended the Eye as such to be Sauron's complete or sole manifestation; the Dark Lord's spirit did inhabit some kind of body.
Gollum (who has previously been tortured by Sauron in person) tells Frodo that Sauron has, at least, a "Black Hand" with four fingers. The missing finger is a sustained injury from when Isildur cut off the Ring; apparently Sauron then lost part of his basic template for a humanoid form, so that the finger was still missing when he materialized a new body centuries later. (Another instance of Sauron's injuries being sustained from one form to another is found in the tale of his battle with Lúthien and Huan, in which an injury to his throat is maintained even after transformation.)
In the third volume, The Return of the King, the heralds of the Army of the West call Sauron out before the Battle of the Morannon, telling him to "come forth", which would seem redundant if he did not have a body.
In one of his letters Tolkien does state that Sauron had a physical form in the Third Age:
"...in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. ... Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic."[72]
Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion that "the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure" even before his body was lost in the War of the Last Alliance.
J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator includes a drawing of Sauron by Tolkien himself. Tolkien depicted Sauron as a literally black humanoid.[74]
The sum of the textual evidence allows for different interpretations: the Eye is part of the physical body, or the Eye is a mental or psychic manifestation (of Sauron's will, thought, power or presence) coexisting with the physical body. The Eye cannot be purely metaphorical, as Frodo's encounter with it in the Mirror shows.
Those who favor the mental/psychic interpretation have appealed to a similar comment about the first Dark Lord Morgoth, Sauron's mentor:
"...Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did its pressure upon them... if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his 'eye' wherever they might be."[75]
Here "eye" (in quotes) represents Morgoth's attention. Plainly Sauron's Eye can likewise stand for Sauron's attention, whether or not there is also a physical reality to the Eye. Thus, when Sauron ponders what to do after Aragorn showed himself to him in the palantír, it is said that "the Dark Power was deep in thought, and the Eye turned inward."[76] In other words, Sauron was introspective.
Arguments in favour of the physical reality of the Eye (regardless of a physical body) would primarily focus on the fact that Frodo and Sam had a "dreadful glimpse" of it with their own physical eyes (though this may only mean the Eye exists in their senses and minds). Also, the same chapter of the novel[68] refers to "the Window of the Eye" in Barad-dûr, facing Mount Doom. When Sauron finally perceived Frodo on that mountain, "his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain" towards Mount Doom (though Tolkien may here be using "the Eye" to refer to Sauron himself, as in other passages).
In the draft text of the climatic moments of The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" stands for Sauron's very person, with emotions and thoughts:
"The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him [Frodo], the Eye piercing all shadows... Its wrath blazed like a sudden flame and its fear was like a great black smoke, for it knew its deadly peril, the thread upon which hung its doom... ts thought was now bent with all its overwhelming force upon the Mountain..."
Christopher Tolkien comments: "The passage is notable in showing the degree to which my father had come to identify the Eye of Barad-dûr with the mind and will of Sauron, so that he could speak of 'its wrath, its fear, its thought'. In the second text...he shifted from 'its' to 'his' as he wrote out the passage anew."
The exact nature of the Eye, and its relationship to the never-seen body used by Sauron, remains a matter of debate among Tolkienists.[78][79] Tolkien never elaborated further on these matters. Indeed he may intentionally have left many aspects of the Sauron character vague and mysterious.
So far, all adaptations of the story in visual media go with the interpretation that the Eye really exists physically. Obviously the Eye of Fire is visually effective, whereas the references to Sauron's never-seen body are so few that even readers of the novel often overlook them.>>
Eye of Sauron
---------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron
<<Sauron (Quenya: "Abhorred") is the title character and the primary antagonist of the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" (the Red Eye, the Evil Eye) is the image most often associated with Sauron. Sauron's Orcs bore the symbol of the Eye on their helmets and shields, and referred to him as the "Eye" because he did not allow his name to be written or spoken, according to Aragorn. Also, the Lord of the Nazgûl threatened Éowyn with torture before the "Lidless Eye" at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
In the Mirror of Galadriel, Frodo had an actual vision of this Eye:
"The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing."
On a later occasion, Tolkien writes as if Frodo and Sam really glimpse the Eye directly, not in any kind of vision. The mists surrounding Barad-dûr are briefly withdrawn, and:
"one moment only it stared out...as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye... The Eye was not turned on them, it was gazing north...but Frodo at that dreadful glimpse fell as one stricken mortally."
There are many other instances where Sauron is referred to as the "Eye". Some readers take this to mean the Eye was Sauron's physical form in the Third Age. This interpretation appears in film adaptations (see below) and in David Day's Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (1996).
Another interpretation questions the physical existence of the Eye, but sees it as a metaphysical reflection of Sauron's piercing will. In The Two Towers, Tolkien writes:
"The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."
From various quotes it is clear that Tolkien cannot have intended the Eye as such to be Sauron's complete or sole manifestation; the Dark Lord's spirit did inhabit some kind of body.
Gollum (who has previously been tortured by Sauron in person) tells Frodo that Sauron has, at least, a "Black Hand" with four fingers. The missing finger is a sustained injury from when Isildur cut off the Ring; apparently Sauron then lost part of his basic template for a humanoid form, so that the finger was still missing when he materialized a new body centuries later. (Another instance of Sauron's injuries being sustained from one form to another is found in the tale of his battle with Lúthien and Huan, in which an injury to his throat is maintained even after transformation.)
In the third volume, The Return of the King, the heralds of the Army of the West call Sauron out before the Battle of the Morannon, telling him to "come forth", which would seem redundant if he did not have a body.
In one of his letters Tolkien does state that Sauron had a physical form in the Third Age:
"...in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. ... Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic."[72]
Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion that "the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure" even before his body was lost in the War of the Last Alliance.
J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator includes a drawing of Sauron by Tolkien himself. Tolkien depicted Sauron as a literally black humanoid.[74]
The sum of the textual evidence allows for different interpretations: the Eye is part of the physical body, or the Eye is a mental or psychic manifestation (of Sauron's will, thought, power or presence) coexisting with the physical body. The Eye cannot be purely metaphorical, as Frodo's encounter with it in the Mirror shows.
Those who favor the mental/psychic interpretation have appealed to a similar comment about the first Dark Lord Morgoth, Sauron's mentor:
"...Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did its pressure upon them... if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his 'eye' wherever they might be."[75]
Here "eye" (in quotes) represents Morgoth's attention. Plainly Sauron's Eye can likewise stand for Sauron's attention, whether or not there is also a physical reality to the Eye. Thus, when Sauron ponders what to do after Aragorn showed himself to him in the palantír, it is said that "the Dark Power was deep in thought, and the Eye turned inward."[76] In other words, Sauron was introspective.
Arguments in favour of the physical reality of the Eye (regardless of a physical body) would primarily focus on the fact that Frodo and Sam had a "dreadful glimpse" of it with their own physical eyes (though this may only mean the Eye exists in their senses and minds). Also, the same chapter of the novel[68] refers to "the Window of the Eye" in Barad-dûr, facing Mount Doom. When Sauron finally perceived Frodo on that mountain, "his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain" towards Mount Doom (though Tolkien may here be using "the Eye" to refer to Sauron himself, as in other passages).
In the draft text of the climatic moments of The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" stands for Sauron's very person, with emotions and thoughts:
"The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him [Frodo], the Eye piercing all shadows... Its wrath blazed like a sudden flame and its fear was like a great black smoke, for it knew its deadly peril, the thread upon which hung its doom... ts thought was now bent with all its overwhelming force upon the Mountain..."
Christopher Tolkien comments: "The passage is notable in showing the degree to which my father had come to identify the Eye of Barad-dûr with the mind and will of Sauron, so that he could speak of 'its wrath, its fear, its thought'. In the second text...he shifted from 'its' to 'his' as he wrote out the passage anew."
The exact nature of the Eye, and its relationship to the never-seen body used by Sauron, remains a matter of debate among Tolkienists.[78][79] Tolkien never elaborated further on these matters. Indeed he may intentionally have left many aspects of the Sauron character vague and mysterious.
So far, all adaptations of the story in visual media go with the interpretation that the Eye really exists physically. Obviously the Eye of Fire is visually effective, whereas the references to Sauron's never-seen body are so few that even readers of the novel often overlook them.>>
