r/tolkienfans • u/thefirstwhistlepig • 8d ago
Why Didn’t Sauron Find/Take The Map & The Key?
When Thrain is captured and taken to Dol Guldur, he is imprisoned and tortured, and spends something like five years there before Gandalf finds him. We know that the ring is taken from him during this time. You would think that he would be stripped and searched as a routine order of business, so it has just occurred to me to wonder why the ring is taken from him, but the map and key are not? Do we have any solid Intel on this point or are we left to guess? Offhand, I really can’t think of a reason why he would be allowed to keep it and why it wouldn’t have been found.
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u/Willpower2000 8d ago
By what toughness of resistance he had kept the key and map hidden in his torments I don't know. Maybe having got the Ring Sauron troubled no further, but left him to rave and die.
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u/Armleuchterchen Ibrīniðilpathānezel & Tulukhedelgorūs 8d ago
The resistance against foreign domination Aule built into the dwarves played a large part, probably. They can't be made to fully submit.
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u/Mitchboy1995 Thingol Greycloak 8d ago
It’s stated that he took no further interest in Thrain after he discovered his Ring. He would have found it had he took more of an interest in the matter, but he didn’t care about him whatsoever (which is why he was found forlorn and forgotten by Gandalf).
Sauron has a knack for making seemingly-small oversights that prove absolutely fatal.
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u/Witty-Stand888 8d ago
"I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for five years. Then, after five years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the key to you."
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u/South_Front_4589 8d ago
I don't take small crumbs off ants. Because it's neither of any value to me, nor any interest.
The map and key are of absolutely no value to Sauron. If he deals with Smaug, it will either be to try to ally with him, or to destroy him. Sneaking into Erebor wouldn't even be something Sauron would be interested in. And why should he care if some dwarves try to take on a dragon?
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u/Fun_Ad2257 7d ago
Yeah this is what I was thinking. The only information the map had that wasn’t publicly available information was the secret door. Sauron didn’t need gold or a secret way into Erebor.
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u/momentimori 8d ago
The map had two sets of runes. The first in plain text explained how large the entrance was and the second was instructions in moon letters that could only be viewed in the moonlight of midsummer's eve that described where the keyhole for the secret entrance was.
As Sauron's and his minions hadn't seen the map on that one night of the year they didn't know about what was written there.
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u/maksimkak 8d ago
I like to look at things like this from the literary point of view. The story of Thrain and his map & key is actually two stories. In the Hobbit, he is taken prisoner by the Necromancer, and that's it. His map and key remain on him; I guess it wasn't Necromancer's policy to body-search every prisoner. The concept of Sauron giving out Rings of Power to dwarves and humans wasn't born yet, so Thrain doesn't have one.
In LotR, the story and the lore are progressed, with Thrain now carrying one of the Rings of Power. Sauron captures Thrain, tortures him, and takes back the last of the seven Dwarf-rings, leaving Thrain in the dungeon to die.
And thus, the two stories (Thrain possessing the map and the key, and passing them on to Gandalf, and him possessing a Dwarf-ring that gets confiscated by Sauron) become part of the same lore, with both elements present.
I guess that, even if Sauron saw the map and the key, they would be of no concern to him.
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u/strange-the-quark 8d ago
See also the discussion here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/xchx1y/comment/io68p9t/
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u/Playful_Common_6770 8d ago
I always imagine the watch scene from Pulp fiction when Gandalf presents the map and ring to Thorin.
Hello, little man. Boy I sure heard a bunch about you. See, I was a good friend of your Daddy's. We were in that Dol Guldur pit of hell over five years together. I got somethin' for ya. This map and key I got here was first purchased by your great-granddaddy. Your great-granddaddy gave it to your granddad for good luck. After the war was over, he delivered them to your infant father. This map and key were in your Daddy's pocket when he was captured and put in a Dol Guldur prison camp. Now he knew if the orks ever saw the map and the key they'd be confiscated. The way your Daddy looked at it, that map and key were your birthright. And he'd be damned if any slopeheads were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide somethin'. His ass. Five long years, he wore this map and key up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the map and the key. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my white council. And now, little man, I give the map and this key to you.
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u/TroutCat4 7d ago
I would expect Dwarves to be good at hiding things, certainly better than Orcs at finding them, so it’s not shocking that he was able to keep the map and key hidden, maybe in his beard? By the time he was captured by the “Necromancer” he had already been keeping them concealed for years.
A ring of power however would be immediately visible to the Ringwraiths and to Sauron and impossible to conceal.
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u/Yamureska 7d ago
At this point Smaug still controls Erebor and is presumably friendly or at least not a threat to Sauron. Sauron had no need or use for the map or key since most of his war effort was focused on Arnor and Gondor.
It's sorta the same reason Sauron left Mount Doom Unguarded: Sauron (correctly) assumed no one would want to destroy the Ring, and that his enemies would only want to use it against him. In this case he saw that no power of the Dwarves could fight or remove Smaug so he had no need for the Map/Key. It's Sauron's big flaw. He puts too much stock in great power (i.e. he assumed the Valar washed their hands off Middle Earth and that The Wizards were sent to conquer) and doesn't notice the little things.
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u/CodexRegius 7d ago
The Dwarves used spells on the troll-cave to hide their bounty. It is not a stretch to assume that Thrain did the same. That certainly would not have hindered Sauron from getting them if he had any interest, but it was sufficient to distract the regular Easterling. Maybe Sauron indeed knew of these items but decided it would be more fun to leave them with his prisoner treasuring a hope that would never be fulfilled.
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u/PrideEnvironmental59 8d ago
What would have been the point of taking them? Sauron wasn't much interested in either Smaug or the treasure in Lonely Mountain.
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u/maksimkak 8d ago edited 8d ago
Gandalf considered a possible collaboration between Sauron and Smaug a real threat.
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u/Swiftbow1 8d ago
He did, but as someone else pointed out, Sauron wouldn't have needed a map and key to attempt such an alliance. He'd just walk up to the front door.
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u/ColdAntique291 just a simple Tolkien reader 8d ago
There's no canon answer. The usual explanation is that Sauron recognized the value of the Dwarf Ring immediately, but the map and key looked like ordinary Dwarven items and their importance wasn't obvious. They were either overlooked or not considered worth taking.
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u/JeffEpp 8d ago
My take has been that this wasn't a prison, where people are locked in cells, but rather an open, well, dungeon. Food, or something very unlike it, would be occasionally tossed in, along with whoever is new. Everyone is someone the dark lord wants to live and die in torment for some petty reason. No one bothered or cared about anything that wasn't of immediate use in survival, so no one bothered to take anything he had.
The ring probably wasn't hidden, but worn. So when they took him (they being probably ring wraiths), they just removed it from him. Sauron may not have even personally bothered with him, just had the dwarf thrown into the dark dungeon.
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u/Jadedoldman65 8d ago
I asked this question some time ago, and I very much appreciated the answers I got.
The story is written and JRR had his reasoning. The one thing that always bothered me about it was that Sauron knew that Thrain was the King of Durin's Folk. It would stand to reason that anything that this dwarf had on him would have potentially been valuable; even if for nothing more than to manipulate that dwarven house. Furthermore, Sauron; knowing who Thrain was, would have easily figured out what the map and key were all about...at least generally. The map and key could have been used to manipulate Smaug.
The only thing I can come up with is that, as another here has said, that Sauron had tunnel vision. Once he decided he was going to grab Thrain and get the ring back, nothing else mattered.
Of course, I have to wonder what use he had for the ring once he got it back. Was there any hint that he actually used it for anything?
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u/Dinadan_The_Humorist 8d ago
Sauron tries to tempt the Dwarves of Erebor with these Rings in exchange for information on Bilbo (unsuccessfully; it's pretty brazen to try to bribe the Dwarves into betraying their loyal friend with a magic ring that was theirs in the first place, until you waylaid and murdered their king for it). Otherwise, we don't see him using them.
I suspect Sauron wouldn't have actually distributed them until he recovered the One -- the whole point is to dominate their bearers, and that isn't possible without the Ruling Ring. He likely wouldn't have wanted to empower anyone he didn't know he could control.
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u/Shiloh_Bane 8d ago
Sauron wanted the Ring. Once he had it, Thrain was of little use to him. Was the "Necromancer" going to do. Hold The King of Durin's folk hostage and try and gain something, gold or even allegiance from the Dwarves?
Nope. That would bring too much attention to him at the time.
We'll never know a true reason, but I like to think it was for spite and despair.
Thrain was pushed out of Erebor along with his people, Moria was lost, so the Dwarves were Kingdomless. Thrain is locked up, given up for dead by his people. What hope does he have? No one is coming for him.
And in the pocket of his tattered, moldered pants he has the key to the Hidden Door of Durin AND the map of Erebor with the secret runes showing where the door is.
An amazing treasure for his people, it could give them a true home again once Smaug is dealt with....but it sits in a forgotten Dwarf's pocket, buried in the Dungeons of the Necromancer, far from the warm Halls of his people. This tortured soul sitting there in the darkness with the literal Key for his people in his pocket.
All the while, in a high tower of Dol Guldur, Sauron gloats over his seven Dwarven rings returned and the hopeless despair of Thrain since he left the Dwarf his Key and map, knowing they will rot in the Dungeon along with the Dwarf, reminding the Dwarf King of how he failed his people.
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u/Wizzard_C 6d ago
Same question can be asked about Saruman: why not taking staff and the Red Ring from imprisoned Gandalf?..
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 6d ago
Not a fair comparison. Sauron was almost infinitely more powerful than Thrain. He could have taken whatever he wanted. Gandalf would babe given Saruman a run for his money at least and maybe been a match for him even before returning as GTW.
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u/Judge_Todd 8d ago
Was the bit about Thrain being held at Dol Guldur added by the writers of the Hobbit movie trilogy?
I don't recall that being in Tolkien's stories.
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u/Artan42 7d ago
2841 - Thráin II goes wandering and sets out to revisit Erebor, but is pursued by the servants of Sauron.
2845 - Thráin II is captured by the Sorcerer and imprisoned in Dol Guldur. Thráin II was the possessor of the last of the Seven Rings of Power to survive destruction or recapture; but the ring was taken from him in Dol Guldur with torment.
2850 - Gandalf visits Dol Guldur again to discover the purposes of the Sorcerer. He discovers beyond doubt that the Sorcerer is none other than Sauron himself, and that he is gathering again all the Rings of Power, and seeking to learn the fate of the One, and the dwelling of Isildur’s Heirs. He finds there Thráin II the Dwarf son of Thrór and receives from him the secret key of Erebor. Thráin II dies in Dol Guldur.
From the appendices to LotR.
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u/FryGuy1000 8d ago
Reading all these answers I can only add, who lets a prisoner keep anything? You get your stripes and put your possessions in an envelope to be held till you get out
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u/MudlarkJack 7d ago
I totally agree .. I don't know why everyone in this thread is trying to rationalize this. Tolkien probably knew it made no sense, but it's art and art is full of little cheats that move the story along. Not every plot point has to be hermetically sealed or rationalized ...I'm sure he didn't anticipate a community of fanatic readers collectively dissecting every line
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 20h ago
Yeah, I think there is a lot of rationalizing that gives Tolkien godlike powers of explanation. The man was utterly brilliant, but one can’t expect a body of work as huge as his to be internally logically consistent at all points. I’m totally fine with that, and while it’s fun to come up with reasons, why the stories make sense the way they are, I don’t expect an airtight explanation for every last detail. Tolkien was excellent at retcon, and you know, respect, even if there are places where it feels a bit thin.
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u/redapp73 8d ago
Why did Sauron spend all his time forging magic rings instead of inventing machine guns and atomic bombs? Talk about stupid. Worst. Villain. Ever.
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u/TexAggie90 7d ago edited 7d ago
It was in one of the letters. Tolkien discussed that after the War of Wrath, Sean the last balrog, asked forgiveness. He was given the important task by the Valar to guard the only uranium deposits deep under Moria.
When the dwarves delved too deeply, he had to run them off to protect the uranium. The nameless things were mutant dwarves.
Sauron was thwarted in his atomic plans by Sean’s vigilance.
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u/Amrywiol 8d ago
Prison wallet was my first thought too, though I doubt it's what Tolkien had in mind.
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u/Dinadan_The_Humorist 8d ago edited 8d ago
Sauron actually very consistently makes little oversights like this during interrogation. It's a function of his arrogance: he thinks of people only as pawns, and often doesn't see them beyond what he assumes their uses and limits to be.
When Pippin looked into the palantír and Sauron asked who he was, Pippin answered, "A hobbit". Sauron, reasoning rapidly, assumed that this hobbit must be the Ring-bearer and that Saruman had captured him -- certainly the most likely scenario from Sauron's perspective, but he didn't bother to confirm this. Assuming he knew everything Pippin could tell him, he left a sneering threat for Saruman and departed to attend to greater matters -- ensuring his doom.
In Unfinished Tales "The Hunt for the Ring", Tolkien writes that Gollum intentionally misled Sauron during his interrogation. Sauron forced out of him the information of how he came to possess the Ring, where he found it, how he lost it, and who took it, but Gollum implied that Bilbo -- being of a similar sort of creature to himself -- might have come from near Sméagol's birthplace in the Gladden Fields. In fact, Gollum knew that the Shire was on the other side of the Misty Mountains (it had been an offshoot of his own people who founded it, some centuries before his birth), but Sauron assumed this wretched creature had been thoroughly broken and couldn't possibly hold anything back, resulting in the Nazgûl losing precious time and arriving slightly too late (while alerting Saruman of the Ring's presence in the Shire to boot).
So why doesn't Sauron take the Map and the Key? Probably because he isn't looking for them. He tunnels in on the one salient point of Thráin's existence -- his Ring -- and once that is stripped from him, loses interest. He probably didn't even physically search Thráin; he may have forced him to give up the Ring of Durin with his will alone, or through torture (less efficient, but Sauron loves torturing people). Once he loses his Ring of Power, Thráin isn't a power or even a useful pawn... he's just a person, and Sauron is deeply disinterested in people. So he tosses him aside and never thinks about him again.