Eye Of Sauron - Tumblr Posts
Just thinking about that time I went to the mall with a couple of friends and found the eye of Sauron in a Cheesecake Factory...
Every year when me and my family prepare easter-eggs I add something from fandoms I like. This time:
Part 1
"The Eye"
2020
The Eye: that horrible 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.
-"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", by J.R.R. Tolkien
One of my favorite concepts or design ideas introduced in the Hobbit Trilogy was having the actual silhouette of Sauron appear as the pupil of the Red Eye.
I tried that idea here but with the original design for the Eye from the LotR Trilogy.
"Tom Bombadil in a Nutshell"
2021
Silly ol' Tom demonstrating the only possible way he could ever outmatch Sauron: by exasperating him to death.
"The Palantír"
2023
'Then he came. He did not speak so that I could hear words. He just looked, and I understood.'
-"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", by J.R.R. Tolkien
It is strange to realize that Pippin, of all people, is among the few main characters to have met or interacted with Sauron himself (albeit indirectly, via the Orthanc-stone). The youngest, most carefree member of the Fellowship, coming face to face (or eye to eye, lol) with evil incarnate; one can't help but feel bad for Pippin when seeing this scene, and then admire him and his hobbit-strength for not breaking, and resisting Sauron for as long as he did.
"Sauron Defeated"
2023
Towers fell and mountains slid; walls crumbled and melted, crashing down; vast spires of smoke and spouting steams went billowing up, up, until they toppled like an overwhelming wave, and its wild crest curled and came foaming down upon the land.
-"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", by J.R.R. Tolkien
The realm of Sauron is ended!
The climax of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy may well be my favorite scene in the whole saga. And that is in part, with apologies to Professor Tolkien and the purists, because it is so much better done in the film than in the book.
The novel gives the impression that the destruction of the Ring happened by mere accident, with Gollum tripping and falling into the fiery chasm; further writings by Tolkien explain that it was actually divine intervention that destroyed it, which, narratively speaking, isn't much better. In the film however, the Ring effectively destroys itself. At the very moment when it looks like the Ring has won, having finally overpowered Frodo and with Sauron within moments of retrieving it, its power turns on itself: it inadvertently makes Frodo and Gollum fight over it (mirroring the very first scene of the film with Sméagol and Déagol), and they both fall off the cliff. And it doesn't stop there. For a few moments the Ring floats in the lava, as if enticing Frodo, hanging over the edge, to follow it in its ruin. Only at the very moment where Frodo reaches out and grabs hold of Sam does the Ring, its final act of malice foiled, melt into the lava.
What follows is the stunning, beautiful, cathartic collapse of Barad-dûr, and the end of Sauron's power in Middle-earth. And here too it's good that the geography is changed somewhat in the films, because our heroes at the Black Gate get to watch the Dark Tower fall with their own eyes. There's nothing quite like the sight of the mighty Dark Lord watching powerlessly as all his works crumble beneath him, even as he himself is reduced to oblivion.
All in all, it's a brilliantly paced, magnificently executed scene, and has become for me an encouraging and comforting reminder that all tyrants, all empires, do indeed fall.
