The Lord of the Rings eye of Sauron, explained by cut Middle-earth lore

When you think of The Lord of the rings‘Bad Sauron, a large, flaming eyeball will most likely come to mind. Why would not? The Eye of Sauron is one of the most iconic symbols associated with the JRR Tolkien trilogy; it is even pasted on the cover of various editions of the books. The Great Eye also appears heavily in Peter Jackson’s successful silver screen adaptations, an ever-vigilant flaming orb atop a massive stone obelisk.

So it makes sense that when the average Middle-earth fan thinks of Sauron, they think of him as a great peeper made of fire, but that’s not what Tolkien originally intended. Jackson and his collaborators made some significant changes to Sauron for the Lord of the Rings movies, and they have colored how we all envision the Dark Lord of Mordor ever since.

The eye of Sauron is a metaphor

If Sauron is more than the evil eye to take down all the evil eyes depicted in Jackson’s movies, what the heck is he? Did Tolkien ever describe Sauron’s appearance in the books? And where does the Great Eye come in? Like much of the Middle-earth lore, it is complicated.

Tolkien makes it clear that when Isildur cut the Ring from the Dark Lord’s hand, only his physical body died. His spirit lived on and (according to Middle Earth’s meticulously detailed timeline) he spent the next 1,000 years recovering until he was able to manifest a new form. From now on, Sauron is literally a shadow of his former self but more importantly, he is also decidedly humanoid.

Of course, Tolkien injected a heavy dose of lyricism into Lord of the Rings, and here they are allusions to Sauron appearing as the Great Eye in the books. A particular passage in The return of the King suggests that really it is a flaming eye perched on the Barad-dûr tower, at least temporarily.

However, the fact that Sauron occasionally goes into full “flaming eye” mode does not mean that the Great Eye is the only form of the Dark Lord, and it certainly is not the only one he can take. On The two Towers, Gollum even remembers seeing Sauron’s four-fingered hand, knocking down the whole “one eyeball only” argument.

So how did the “Eye of Sauron” become so important? Think of it as Middle Earth marketing. The Great Eye is the image that the Dark Lord uses to mark himself and his armies, projecting an aura of omniscience. As propaganda, the Eye of Sauron is the most powerful symbol of Middle-earth, and its effectiveness is based on the genuine power of Sauron’s gaze, literal and otherwise. But ultimately, it’s just that: a symbol.

Who needs the symbolism?

The same does not apply in the Lord of the Rings films. Here, Jackson portrays Sauron almost exclusively as a flaming eyeball (save for the bizarre Second Age flashback) and there’s nothing metaphorical about it.

In its Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman proclaims that Sauron flatly cannot take physical form (even a dark one with deficient fingers). This statement alone makes it pretty clear that Jackson believes the best Sauron can do for a body is a quasi-ethereal eyeball, and clears up any remaining doubts in the comment included with the Extended Edition’s home release. Here, Jackson speaks openly about his literal interpretation of the Eye of Sauron, lamenting that Tolkien has labeled him, a filmmaker, a villain. “[who] it’s shaped like a giant eye and can’t really participate in the story very much. “

However, this misunderstanding of Sauron’s true nature does little to damage Jackson’s films. As Weta Digital realized, the Eye of Sauron still radiates exactly the level of threat Tolkien describes. One look at that cruel cat-eye pupil engulfed in fire and sizzling with lightning, and you know you’re dealing with a dangerous, demonic presence. And at the very least, the Great Eye creates a more distinctive and less generic image of the “dark lord” than the shadowy figure Tolkien describes in the books (and that appears in the back of Jackson Hobbit Films), and one that is infinitely more memorable.

It’s true that Jackson’s version of Sauron has its flaws. The most infamous of these is what disgruntled fans call the “Lighthouse Sauron” effect: a handful of shots in The return of the King where the Eye of Sauron casts a beam of light that scans the Plains of Mordor far below, and … it seems ridiculous. Even when the lightning finally lands on Frodo and Sam, they still manage to escape!

Reducing the arch-villain of the entire trilogy to an ineffective spotlight should have been enough to sink the entire Jackson trilogy. However, many movie fans, even fans who know the original books inside out, seem to be fine with Director Kiwi’s imprecise twist on Sauron, the lighthouse, and all.

So how did Jackson get away with such a radical departure from Tolkien’s text?

With Sauron, there is more than meets the eye.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what form Sauron takes The Lord of the rings, as long as the Dark Lord plays his role effectively in the story. Whether Sauron is a dark ghost, a flaming eyeball, or something else entirely, his role remains the same: to provide a general threat to drive the narrative forward. In a sense, it’s as much McGuffin as the One Ring.

As far as the story itself is concerned, Sauron isn’t there for our heroes to face directly (although that almost happened in earlier versions of the film) even if his true form means that they really could. Instead, he is an ominous and perpetual presence in every scene. Your threat, as a villain, lies primarily in the danger that you could pose – that he could regain its power through the One Ring and become unstoppable, and that is something that a fiery eyeball can represent just as easily, perhaps even better, than a sinister shadow.

All we need to make Sauron’s portrayal as Jackson’s eyeball worthwhile is to believe in the threat of Sauron’s relentless search for the Ring. And for most of the trilogy’s runtime, we do; So much so that, for most of us, even the Dark Lord’s embarrassingly half-baked search efforts late in the game are easy to ignore. Flawed or not, Jackson’s unique Sauron aesthetic is too great to resist, and the appearance of his glowing eye atop an ebony pillar in other media, including parodies such as South Park and The Lego Batman Movie – is a testament to how deeply ingrained it is in our collective pop culture consciousness.

Tolkien purists can argue that changes like the ones Jackson made to Sauron make the original story an injustice, no matter how successful the movies have been and still are. But then the beauty of being part of the Middle-earth fandom is that not everyone has to agree.