Who is The Mouth of Sauron?

Unlike many of the servants of Middle-earth's Dark Lord, The Mouth of Sauron was a mortal man who rose through the ranks to become the general and communicator of the great flaming eye. On The Tolkien Podcast, we read from select passages and discuss the person destined to help rule Middle-earth — if Sauron had won the War of the Ring. 

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Transcript

J.R.R. Tolkien is perhaps the preeminent creator of high heroic moments in fantasy literature. These moments are ripe with sacrifice and beauty and nobility, and they set the bar for giving the reader the feeling that she is witnessing something epic and heroic. Sometimes it's a tragedy or a loss or a redemption, and it often it's done with little hope.

Sometimes it is wise words or keen insights. But even those victories include losses. Less celebrated, but perhaps even more remarkably, he's also the master at the creation of dark creatures that so often capture our imaginations. Or they've been so effective in creating a feeling of looming doom that they've sneaked out of Middle-earth. They've kind of burrowed their way into other fantasy literature or other mediums, and they've even clawed their way into the mainstream consciousness.

These are monsters and individuals that make our hearts wither. They turn our blood cold. The most obvious example of these is Sauron in the Lord Of The Rings. In fantasy literature, he is the ultimate evil. He's the ultimate opposition, the enemy, the antagonist. Much of the fantasy. If you go to the bookstore and you you take a good look at much of the fantasy sitting on those shelves.

t's full of creators trying in their own works to replicate or exceed the threat or the darkness of the dark Lord in Middle-earth. But he is far from all of the evil that Tolkien has created. For example, there's Melkor, who is Sauron's daddy, who's renamed Morgoth. He's so bad they have to give him a new name. He is both greater and more terrible than his better known disciple.

We have Ungoliant, who is somewhat unexplained. She is in great spider form, and in that form, she threatened even the aforementioned Melkor with her insatiable hunger. Consider the Borrow-weight with its bony fingers and its icy touch, and it would have ended every hope we had with Frodo in Lord Of The Rings, in that dark tomb, if not for the enigmatic Tom Bombadil and his powerful songs.

Now, Tolkien didn't invent the borrow wights. He borrowed that from some works that had come before, some writing, some legends, but he sure, popularized it. There are dragons, widely popularized now, but there's Smaug, who was intelligent and talking and had a personality and did other things. He popularized dragons in a whole new way, but he isn't even Tolkien's most terrible dragon.

We could probably turn to and click on the black, just to name two of the ancient creatures. There's a handful of others, all terrible in their own way. One creature that most film and book people, find abhorrent creepy, disgusting. Is she Lobb, a daughter of the previous mentioned ungodly. And she's much reduced, actually, from her ancient progenitor, but she still horrifies us at the deepest of level, and Sauron, the armored dark Lord who we, we read about in the Second Age.

In the Third Age takes shape as a great flaming eye, which could sound and be ridiculous, but Tolkien still manages to make him menacing and terrifying. We can't even have this discussion without talking about Balrog, one who fought the great elf Lord Garfinkel and another called Durance Bane, who we meet in fellowship of the ring. That one required everything Gandalf had, literally everything Gandalf had to defeat him and these two are just a remnant of an ancient terror group, the lurking, watery thing that should not be also in fellowship of the ring, called the Watcher in the water, terrorizes even the greatest figures in all of the Third Age of Middle-earth.

Now, that's not a complete list, but it's a it's a good enough list to make the point that Tolkien is great at creating dark and evil things as well as heroic moments, but focusing on the dark and evil things among all of these. Among that list, and among all that we haven't listed, there is a human, a man who shared a lineage with Aragorn.

He was a sorcerer and was more cruel than any orc. And had Sauron won the War of the ring, he would have been the Dark Lord's lieutenant in the West. Now, we haven't even mentioned. I haven't mentioned the Nazgul, the nine. We haven't talked about the witch king who could face down Gandalf. We haven't talked about those guys at all.

But even among them, I guess we just did mention them. But even among those, this person, this creature, this man would have been Sauron's choice to be his lieutenant to rule the West. He would have lived in or think the recently vacated Tower of Saruman, and he would have ruled over those who remained in the West as a slave master over slave.

We will discuss the man, the creature, the figure of the dark Lord who knew his will and spoke his voice, the very Mouth of Sauron. You are listening to the Tolkien podcast.

There are a number of ways to read Tolkien. By far the most common, or really the most talked about is by book. You'll hear people say, I've read the Lord Of The Rings 50 times, 20 times, ten times, five times. I read it every year, or I read The Hobbit every year and their Christmas time. To my kids.

It's a family tradition, but there is another way and that's to read select passages. Sometimes this can really highlight the beauty of a given passage that we miss, or that we quickly pass over when we're reading because we're compelled forward by, you know, thoughts of plots, what's going to happen, or peril to a character to be transparent, the whole episode was going to be based on a few favorite passages from Tolkien's works.

And as I polled people, as I questioned them, what they loved, there were a few common passages that appeared over and over. But my favorite passage, or one of my favorites didn't appear ever, which is the Mouth of Sauron page, which I find captivating and horrifying and cinematic. It's a big moment, and the character of Mouth of Sauron, I always thought, was fascinating and interesting, as you might have gathered, but the cinematic past passage didn't make it to screen in any, hallway.

It was drastically changed. Now, Pete Jackson loves monsters and I love Pete Jackson for loving monsters. Maybe he loves them as much as anyone, that I've ever met. Guillermo del Toro would be the other guy who really loves his creatures. But the Mouth of Sauron is not a creature. He is a man, as we shall read. Although he rode a creature, he rides a monster to meet with the captains of the West.

And I'm going to read that passage as part of this discussion. Well, what we really need to know about the Mouth of Sauron, but I did want to also read one of the other favorite passages, because it helps illustrate Tolkien's gift for writing about the darkness and the light, and maybe because it will help the listener and the reader me get in a better rhythm for listening or reading Tolkiens prose.

Now, I certainly don't consider myself an actor, but I do plan to try some performance with reading these passages. I hope that you'll be a little bit forgiving. I think to read them flat and with no emotion would be much worse than to read them with some emotion that maybe isn't quite up to the level of, say, an Andy Serkis reading passages.

This first bit that I'm going to read doesn't need an introduction. We'll see if you can figure out where it is talking place.

“The Lord of the Nazgul, a great black shape against the fires beyond. He loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair in road. The Lord of the Nazgul under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed.

“And all fled before his face.

“All save one.

There waiting silence, and still in the space before the gate set Gandalf upon Shadowfax. Shadowfax, who alone among the free horses of the earth, endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image and wrath. Deneen I'm going to close that quote and explain the graven image and wrath. Deneen wrath Deneen is a street in menace to earth, and on that street are in graven images of past stewards and kings.

There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.

So Tolkien is saying here. Well I think you know what he's saying. He's simply saying that Shadowfax is just as unmoved or as unmoving as a graven image, which is pretty cool. But that word can be confusing, especially out of context. Tolkien writes, “You cannot enter here,” said Gandalf, unless huge shadow halted. Go back to the abyss prepared for you. Go back. Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master. Go!”

Black rider flung back his hood, and behold, he had a kingly crown. And yet upon no head visible was it set close.

To illustrate Tolkien’s gift of dark and light. I'm going to read one more highlighted passage, this from The Silmarillion. These this elf made it in and the plot is an important the prose is so Linda sympathetic year Tolkien writes,

“The song of Luthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall ever hear.

“Unchained imperishable. It is still sung in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world and the listening Valar grieved for Luthien with two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of men and the two kindreds that were made by Illuvatar to dwell in Arda, the kingdom of Earth, amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him, her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon stones and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.”

Close quote.

In the 10th chapter of The Return of the King, the host of the West has marched for days from Minas Tirith to the Black Gate. Allow me to try to set the scene. It is chilly. It is cold, is desolate. There is no one, visible, no enemy visible on the ramparts. The Black Gate is two vast doors with an arch above it.

Interesting to me is that in some previous versions there were. There was also a small door. Not just the two big ones, but a small one. The Nazgul are circling above on their fellow beasts. They've watched the host of the West since it left ministerial and the Lords of the West. They are going principally as king, as Eleazar.

In fact, he uses that name Elessar to try to provoke Sauron. At this point they feel that they have no choice but to continue to just play out their part. To the end, Aragorn arranges his host; there's some hills, some debris that the orcs have left with construction so they arrange themselves in the best defensive positions they can.

On top of these hills, there are foul smelling pools nearby, a great mire of mud that smells terrible. But Aragorn gathers the captains and they ride to the Black Gate with horsemen and banners and heralds and trumpeters. And Gandalf is with them, as is Glorfindal all, and the sons of Elrond, and Eomer of Rohan and Legolas and Gimli.

And Tolkien said “so that all the enemies of Mordor gathered there should have a witness, and the heralds cry, let the black Lord come forth, they say, and there's a long silence with no gate, no cry, no sound, no answer. Aragorn thinks about Arwen. And then there is a great beat of drums, like thunder in the mountains. And the horns and the horns, we are told, are so great that they shake the rocks and they stun men's ears and gate opens and out of the gate comes an embassy from the Dark Tower.

And that's where we'll start to read. Speaking of this embassy, Tolkien writes, “At its head the road, a tall and evil shape mounted upon a black horse. If horse, it was, for it was huge and hideous, and in the sockets of his eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame.

“The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm. Yet this was no ringwraiths but a living man.

“The lieutenant of the tower of Barad-dur he was. And his name is not remembered in any tale. For he himself had forgotten it. And he said, ‘I am the Mouth of Sauron.’ With him came only a small company of black harnessed soldiery, and a single banner, black, but bearing on it in red the evil eye. Now halting a few paces before the captains of the west, he looked them up and down and laughed.

“ ‘Is there anyone in this room with authority to treat with me?’ He asked. ‘Or indeed with wit, to understand me. Not thou, at least, he mocked, turning to Aragorn with scorn. It needs more to make a king that a piece of elvish glass, or a rabble such as this. Why, any brigand of the hills can show as good a following.”

Interesting that he spotted and noted that Aragorn wore a piece of, elvish jewelry given him by Arwen. It shows intelligence and awareness on the part of the Mouth of Sauron. It's also something that a sorcerer might say, a Middle-earth sorcerer, or might notice and make note of. Aragorn said. Not an answer, but he took the other's eye and held it, and for a moment they strove thus.

But soon, though Aragorn did not stir nor move hand to weapon the other Quailed, and gave back as if menaced with a blow. I am a herald and ambassador, and may not be assailed, he cried. Where such laws hold, said Gandalf. It is also the custom for ambassadors to use less insolence. But no one has threatened you. You have not to fear from us until your errand is done.

But unless your master has come to new wisdom, then with all his servants, you will be in great peril of note. Gandalf assures the ambassador and follows the ancient custom that ambassadors will not be harmed, that, in a manner of speaking, there under the white flag of the truce flag, to meet and discuss terms. Now of course, days ago there was a wholesale slaughter between the two groups, one to the other, and back to the first.

All manner of siege engines and weapons of war. Axes, arrows, everything that could be mustered to kill was mustered to kill, and shortly that will happen again. But for the moment, while the captains meet the captains of the West and the lieutenant of bear a door while they meet, it would be uncivilized or unthinkable to enact violence. But that's sort of the agreement, the gentlemen's agreement that, was upheld and the Mouth of Sauron calls on it, and Gandalf assures him it's in place.

But we'll soon not be after Gandalf speaks talking rates. So send the messenger, the now spokesman. Old gray beard. I have tokens that I was bidden to show thee to thee. And special if thou shouldst dare to come. He signed to one of the guards, and he came forward, bearing a bundle swathed in black cloths. The messenger put these aside, and there, to the wonder and dismay of all the captains, he held up first the short sword that Sam had carried, and next a great cloak with an elven brooch.

And then came the coat of mithril mail that Frodo had worn wrapped in his tattered garments. Last of all, he flung the black clothes at their feet and out roll the file of crystal that shone dimly before them. A blackness came before their eyes, and it seemed to them in a moment of silence, that the world stood still.

I know them all, said Gandalf. But why do you bring them here? Dwarf cloak. Elf cloak. Blade of the downfall in Western Starlight from a corrupted Silmarils and bearing them all. Spy from the Little Rat. Little rat land of the Shire. Here are the marks of a conspiracy. Now, maybe he that bore these things was a creature that you would not grieve to lose.

Perhaps. If so, take swift counsel with what little wit is left to you. For Sauron does not love spies. And what his fate shall be depends now on your choice. No one answered him, but he saw their faces gray with fear and the horror in their eyes. And he laughed again, for it seemed to him that his sport went well.

Good, good. You said he was dear to you, I see. And now he shall endure the slow torment of years, as long and slow as our arts in the great Tower can contrive, and never be released, unless maybe when he is changed and broken, so that he may come to you, and you shall see what you have done.

This shall surely be, unless you accept my Lord's terms. These we will take, said Gandalf. He cast aside his cloak, and a white light shone forth like a sword in that black place before his upraised hand. The foul messenger recoiled, and Gandalf, coming, coming, eased and took from him the tokens coat, cloak, file, and sword. These we take in memory of our friend, he cried.

But as for terms we reject them utterly. Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near you. We did not come here to waste words. Then the Messenger of Mordor left no more. His face was twisted with amazement and anger to the likeness of some wild beast that, as it crouches on its prey, is smitten on the muzzle with a stinging rod.

He turned, leaped upon his steed, and with his company, galloped madly back to Keyleth Gorga. But as they went, his soldiers blew their horns and signal long range, and even before they came to the gate, Sauron sprang his trap. And that's the last we ever hear of the Mouth of Sauron, the very last. We know that the man well, we all know to be the ruler of the West.

Not much could have stopped that, in fact, and certainly nothing from his point of view. But he wasn't aware that in just a short time the One Ring would be destroyed. So that section of the return of the King is what we know about the Mouth of Sauron, and then just a few of Tolkien's other writings to fill in a few of the blanks.

Some of those in Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth series. We know that the Mouth I like to call him Ralph the Mouth. Like anyone remember Ralph Mouth from Happy Days? The Mouth had his own powers. It says that he was a sorcerer, and Tolkien never explains what that means much. In fact, he isn't much for magic at all.

But he did leave that intact with this man. And that sure sets the imagination aflame, doesn't it? Does mine. At least I'd like to know, like about the dark arts of Middle-Earth. I don't know why. It just is fascinating and interesting. Curious. And rather than these great beings that are, you know, shaking the earth these sorcerers might be doing, I don't know, the dark arts.

We know that the black woman numenoreans in their religious fervor. At least I think I remember this, sacrificed actual people like pretty dark Grimm kind of stuff to and esteemed he was as a lieutenant. He wasn't the literal mouth, and he didn't have vocal powers like Saruman had. But he was close to the dark Lord and so close that he knew Sauron's mind.

And then he could speak his will aloud, both to his servants and his foes. As we see in the passage that we just read, perhaps part of the Mouth's greatness was due to his ancestry. The Mouth of stone was what was called a black numenoreans. In simple terms, the Numenoreans were descendants of the highest level or forms that humans achieved.

For those who were not aware, which could be lots of people. Numenor was an island that was utterly destroyed in a divine punishment. When the humans there thought so much of themselves that they convinced well, they were convinced by Sauron to launch an assault against the Undying Lands, where Frodo was invited because he was a ring bearer to heal, he would never heal otherwise.

Because of the actions of these numenoreans that with they had the gall, the daring, the nurses schism, the the, misunderstanding of the of the universe and their role in it, they decided to sail to the Undying Lands and assault the Valar. Think of Numenor as Tolkien's tale of Atlantis. It was a great civilization, and they also established kings and kingdoms in Middle-earth as an island with boats and sailing power.

They sailed Middle-earth. They couldn't sell the other way to, so they went to Middle-earth and established kingdoms. When Numenor was destroyed, those loyal to the Valar escaped with things like Palantir and the Sword Castle, which would be handed down to Aragorn eventually. But others were corrupted by Sauron to worship Melkor, and those who survived were oppressors and overlords, and Middle-earth often associated with, the southern lands and the kind of the off the map lands that are connected to the continent of Middle-earth.

The Mouth of Sauron rose in the ranks of, Sauron's forces. So when we meet him, he is a tall man dressed in black like is heading to a Sundance Film Festival party. In my mind, in the mind of Larry Curtis, he was presented as something of a counterpoint to Eleazar, to Aragorn, a man with a career of great renown.

But on the other side, who was going to lead the troops and crush the forces of the men and elves in the West. It was telling, I think, that he wouldn't speak to Eleazar at all, and instead just addressed Gandalf. If you recall your Middle-Earth history, or even if you don't, because I'm about to tell you, there was an emissary from Sauron who went to the dwarves to King Dane Iron Foot and tried to bargain, make a bargain for rings.

And anyway, that happened. There are those who speculate that this was the Mouth of Sauron, but it is simply speculation, and it doesn't make sense to me. Only the Ringwraiths were ever entrusted with the search for the rings. And if it was the Mouth of Sauron, a man, and he went and acquired rings or, got the clue that he needed to find the One Ring, it seems as though it would corrupt him, or that he would use it for himself.

It seems a much better fit that that servant was a ring ring named not only because they had rings, but they were so under the control, in the thrall of Sauron, that they could be used to search for the ring. The mouth was definitely not a wraith. He was a man, meaning that he was not thousands of years old, and he was likely approximately the same age as Aragorn, but he was more like, a or or Satan than a ring wraith.

There are those who think that, calling him a black numenoreans means that he's from the Second Age and that he's thousands of years old. And that doesn't make any sense either, because in that case, he would have to be a man who somehow cracked the code of long life, which is the whole problem with the new Numenoreans.

Anyway, they were resentful that they didn't have the long life of the elves, and that they couldn't go to the Undying Lands, so it doesn't make any sense to me that he would somehow figure that out with his sorcery and solve the problem. And then all the numenoreans would solve the problem. And there is no indication from Tolkien at all whatsoever that this was the case.

Not only that, but Tolkien scholar Michael Martinez, who I discovered of his answer in my research, who also happens to be a friend, writes that he believes that the Mouth of Sorin is likely less than 100 years old, and quite possibly a few years younger than Aragorn. Mr. Martinez would make a great guest for the podcast. So, now I've spoken it aloud.

We'll have to look into that and see if we can't make that happen. He was a long time programing director of the talking track at DragonCon in Atlanta, DragonCon in Atlanta, which I didn't mean to speak their name aloud, but I guess for history sake, I have to. The convention got rid of the Tolkien track or combined it with other things.

So I have never been back since they did that, nor would I ever go back. I don't know if Michael continues there or not, but we used to, I was also the program director there, and we used to do a segment where we would simply have Michael come in and Tolkienites would be able to ask him any question that they could think of lore or, anything.

And in fact, they had this is on the program. So they had time to prepare these questions ahead of time in an attempt to stump Michael Martinez. And, I can't say he never was stumped, but I don't remember. I think perhaps once in a while he would say, “I don't know. I'm gonna have to research that,” but I but almost every time people would whip out these questions he really thought would stump him, and then he would have the answer at his fingertips.

Pretty impressive. Anyway, he'd be fun to talk to. A couple of final notes on the Mouth of Sauron. There was a Lord Of The Rings radio series in the ‘80s. I want to say ’81. Don't hold me to that. But in that series, it expanded the role of the Mouth a little bit to make him the Questioner, a figure, he was mentioned by an orc, I think, to Merry and Pippin, as somebody they didn't want to meet.

Well, in the radio series, they made that the same person, and that certainly seems possible. But I don't think there's a shortage of bad people on Sauron side. And I think it seems to me the questioner would be specific, like there would be a guy who was specifically, equipped to torture, and I don't think it would be the Mouth.

It seems like the Mouth would be busy communicating. A final note kind of fun in Pete's films and Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy cinema trilogy. He has Elvish writing on The Mask of the Mouth of Sauron. Their design team created the Mouth with no eyes visible. That's, not a terrible design. It looked really cool, but it doesn't.

There's nothing to nothing based in talking to say that should be the case. He was a dude. He was a guy and a big scary horse. Anyway, that elvish riding on his mask says, basically that he's the voice of the abominable, which is kind of cool. But again, the radio series, feature films, neither of those are canon.

They're not sourced in Tolkien. Just kind of fun to know. The Mouth of Sauron has also been featured in Tolkien video games, but, I'm not even actually going to discuss those here. Do me a favor. If you found this episode or any of the episodes of The Talking podcast worthwhile, my only request is that you please just tell one other person about it that you recommend it.


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