Could anyone see the 👁️Eye of Sauron?

[Vorondil]

Was the eye of sauron only visible to someone wearing a ring of power.

 

[Jimbo Baggins]

I saw Ron and he said it was visible to the clothed eye.

 

[Ent]

Ent is looking into this @Aethelwulf ... there are differences of opinion about the Eye... but it is clear in the text.
Just need a little time to research.

Have one reference at hand, but need to get it into context to be sure if it clarifies or confuses... more later.

 

[Radaghast]

The Eye is a symbolic thing. Frodo only seems to see it in visions. I don't think there is a literal Eye, unless it's the one in Sauron's insignia. The huge flaming Eye in the movies affixed atop a tower does not exist in the book.

 

[Ent]

We read in Book Six, Chapter III, "Mt. Doom, about Sauron's Road, a path from Barad-Dur to the Sammath Naur, the Chambers of Fire.
...."Thence, turning and encircling all its wide girth from south to north, it climbed at last, high in the upper cone, but still far from the reeking summit, to a dark entrence that gazed back straight east to the Window of the Eye in Sauron's shadow-mantled fortress."

We read this a few paragraphs later:
....""Far off the shadows of Sauron hung; but torn by some gust of wind out of the world, or else moved by some great disquiet within, the mantling clouds swirled, and for a moment drew aside; and then he saw, rising black, blacker and darker than the vast shades amid which it stood, the cruel pinnacles and iron crown of the topmost tower of Barad-dûr. One moment only it stared out, but as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye; and then the shadows were furled again and the terrible vision was removed.""

The Eye is said to be mostly a "symbol"... but it is definitely located in a windowed place in Sauron's fortress and seems able to manifest itself as a stabbing flame of red, a flicker of a piercing eye in some way.

Ent doesn't have all the details yet... but we can't just dismiss the Eye as something that doesn't exist. It's a definite something. Whether just the symbol, and it is Sauron's own piercing 'mind' searching, seen as the great eye... and whether it's only able to be 'seen' by those wearing a ring of power... is a little unclear.

I do think there's some place where Gollum cringes in fear due to the searching of the eye... and he no longer wears a ring.... but possibly he sees it because of his ages of possessiong the One.

In any event, it's not a big glowing orb atop the fortress as the movies have misled us to believe... it's in a 'windowed' spot ... and may even there just be a 'symbol' of Sauron's, used as a fear-instilling device.

Ent really needs to get back to his home computer and research tools to bring this to a conclusion.

 

[d4rk3lf]

I think "the Eye" is much more like a terrific, haunting Sauron presence, then visual thing, that Frodo felt.

 

[Ent]

So it seems we're first working on "what was the Eye really"...
Soon hopefully we'll be able to get to "so who actually sees (or can see) it" for you @Aethelwulf.

 

[Olorgando]

Book Two in volume 1 "Fellowship", last chapter X "The Breaking of the Fellowship", Frodo is seated in the Seat of Seeing upon Amon Hen:

"Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of Iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron. All hope left him.
And suddenly he felt the Eye. There was an eye in the Dark Tower that did not sleep. He knew that it had become aware of his gaze."

 

[Elbereth Vala Varda]

It does seem to indicate that it is more of an image used for the text and that the Eye itself was more of a presence, dark and terrible, than a physical being. After all, it doesn't quite make sense that there would be a literal eye. But, maybe.... I'll have to do some research on this one. And I'll await your research too, @Ent .

 

[AElberethGilthoniel]

Thank you all for this discussion - I have been thinking on this a lot lately, why the Eye is represented differently in the movies. When I read the books for the first time, I felt very confused because I felt there was nothing in there that described the Eye as anything close to what it is in the movies. I kept thinking I was missing something or that I didn't understand the text. Does anyone have any thoughts on why Jackson would depict the Eye so differently? I think it makes the story make less sense to choose to depict the Eye of Sauron as a literal Eye fixed on a tower, physically present at all times. (sorry to reply on an old-ish thread, it is just something that I have been thinking about so much)

 

[Deimos]

From all the [book] passages cited I tend to think of The Eye as Sauron's almost irresistible mental force or energy (the "almost" is important) ,
Weaker minds (Gollum, the orcs, maybe already enslaved men) could be quelled by it, held in thrall, even compelled to act against their own wills.
And by using this mental energy himself perhaps he gave it a vague quasi-material appearance to further awe and terrify his subjects and slaves.
Word would be spread far and wide of the "all seeing eye" of Sauron. Maybe it was that image that both Pippin and Aragorn saw in the Palantir.

 

[AElberethGilthoniel]

Ah I see, this idea of a mental energy seems more accurate. With that interpretation, my question is, can the Eye still literally see far? Can it only do so using the palantír or the Ring?

 

[Deimos]

Ah I see, this idea of a mental energy seems more accurate. With that interpretation, my question is, can the Eye still literally see far? Can it only do so using the palantír or the Ring?

Well, it doesn't really see, because it's not actually an eye that is formed from mental energy.
It's more like Sauron's mind focuses energy so a very hazy vague "something" which maybe (to a man or orc) reminds them of, or suggests an eye.
Think of a magician using "Smoke and mirrors"... but with a Maia's power, there's something there but with Sauron's mental "power of suggestion" everyone gets an impression of an "eye-like thing".

It's all he really needs... make everyone think it's really an eye (his eye) and hes' got them terrified, thinking they are always being watched.
But we know that it really is (or mostly is) "Smoke and mirrors" because he didn't see Sam and Frodo crossing Gorgoroth; didn't see them until they were at the Sammath Naur.
And he didn't "see" them because his attention (his mind, his mental energy) was 99% occupied elsewhere, at the Morannon.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Sauron possessed -- and used -- a palantir; as we know from the incident with Pippin, it was the means of communication between Barad-dur and Orthanc. Further, it could be used to see things far-off, as hinted several times in LOTR, and explained more thoroughly in the essay published in Unfinished Tales, which I recommend to anyone interested in the Stones.

The only time I recall someone seeing an actual "eye" is in the scene with Galadriel's Mirror, but even here, it's emphasized that what are seen are "visions", whatever that may mean.

Both Pippin and Aragorn saw Sauron, using the Orthanc stone, but neither spoke of an "eye". As said by Deimos and others, that would be more of a feeling; if you felt you were being watched, it would be natural to think of an eye watching you.

But we know that it really is (or mostly is) "Smoke and mirrors" because he didn't see Sam and Frodo crossing Gorgoroth; didn't see them until they were at the Sammath Naur.

I wouldn't go so far as this; my strong impression is that he didn't see them because he was using the palantir to look elsewhere. A main emphasis in the quest (in fact, a main theme in the story) was on stealth and misdirection.

(sorry to reply on an old-ish thread, it is just something that I have been thinking about so much)

Please don't worry about that -- we welcome necroposting here! 🙂 In fact, please don't hesitate to resurrect any threads that interest you.

 

[banakil]

eye-ronic thread, whether an eye is visible

If Sauron could possess all 20 rings, then the power of the one ring would give Sauron the ability to see all. The quote provided by Ent (from Return of the King) indicates the eye was visible to anyone in proximity to Sauron's tower in the third age.

The dark lord originally concealed the one ring he forged, just as he concealed his malice for a time.

The palantir is a good example of eyes searching other eyes. Does one in weakness see the eye, or what in strength the eye sees? The mastery over eyes and wills is what Sauron coveted. It was a fitting end that Sauron's defeat, in the eye of Mt. Doom, was at the hands of the weakest beings, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. In this Sauron was blind, and Sauron's will was brought to nothing.

 

[Olorgando]

If Sauron could possess all 20 rings, then the power of the one ring would give Sauron the ability to see all.

It appears that only the Nine Rings for Men worked as Sauron intended. IIRC he had actually taken all of them back from the Nazgûl and was still able to control them. This is puzzling in one aspect, as of the two Eruhini, Men are supposed to be puzzling, even inscrutable, to all of the Ainur even more so than the Elves were. So how could their Great Rings work best with them?
The Seven Rings for the Dwarves seem to have failed completely in every aspect in which they were successful with men. Sauron didn't recover all of these, some were destroyed by dragons (though JRRT doesn't go into details of how). Why he wanted them back is another puzzle - as well as how Thrain II could have known hat his was the last of The Seven.
With the Three Rings of the Elves, I don't see how his possessing them would have helped him much. His intent with his One Ring was mainly to be able to dominate the wills of their wearers - which the Elves foiled by simply taking them off when he put on the One Ring. To be able to get a hold of them, he would have needed to conquer Lothlórien, Rivendell and the Grey Havens and even then the Elven Ring-bearers might have escaped and sailed off. Later he would have needed to get Narya off Gandalf. Hard to figure how he would have been able to do that. PJ gave it a try in his pathetic take on Sauron's being driven from Dol Guldur by the White Council, here only consisting of Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond and Galadriel.

 

[banakil]

The eye and will are connected symbolically -- when Sauron gains his own will, it means Sauron sees the product of his own mind. When Arda was created by sound, the Ainur were both surprised and desirous of Arda as their wills became sights. To dominate the will of others means to bend their sights to a different will.

The music of the Ainur comes to mind.

Manwe and his Valar friends consistently allow the children of Illuvatar to exercise free will in their own domains. But therein we find the ultimate question: whose domain is whose? What is the standard for ownership? Earliest in time, greatest in beauty, closest in heirship?

When the Ainur choir is singing, who harmonizes and why? Who conflicts, and where? Wave interaction is fundamental to physics, determining the very structure of matter. In Silmarillion, Ainulindale, the music is likened to water motions (i.e., waves). It was said (p. 4) about Melkor's music that it "achieved a unity of it own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern."

If Sauron's lies to Ar-Pharazon be believed, then Melkor's domain is over all (as Melkor is lord of the creative darkness responsible for all creation). See Silmarillion, Akallabeth, p. 279

"Sauron with many arguments gainsaid all that the Valar had taught... [here is Sauron lying] beyond all lay the Ancient Darkness. 'And out of it the world was made. For Darkness alone is worshipful, and the Lord thereof may yet make other worlds to be gifts to those that serve him, so that the increase of their power shall find no end'"

Manwe by contrast respected the contributions of his friends, surely mindful of Iluvatar's words (p. 5),

"Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those thing that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove mind instrument int eh devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."

And so again we come to sight (imagination), inextricably bound with will.

Silmarillion, Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age, p. 297

"Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring; for the power of the Elven-rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency; and Sauron forge it in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow. And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them."

Two additional quotes in support of Sauron's eye being visible to anyone in proximity to Barad-dur in the third age:

Silmarillion, Akallabeth, p 289

"But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrong himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure."

Silmarillion, Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age, p. 303,

"There now [Sauron] brooded in the dark, until he had wrought for himself a new shape; and it was terrible, for his fair semblance had departed for ever when he was cast into the abyss at the drowning of Numenor. He took up again the great Ring and clothed himself in power; and the malice of the Eye of Sauron few even of the great among Elves and Men could endure."