Originally published on Quora.com.
Sauron always played the long con. Celebrimbor was just his mark, a useful idiot.
The Lord of Gift’s goal was nothing short of the utter destruction of the Noldor, their kingdoms and heritage in Middle-Earth, and the complete alienation of the Eldar from the Edain, and both the Eldar and Edain from the Valar, even if it took millennia to accomplish.
Celebrimbor’s desire to restore the House of Fëanor to its former engineering glory fashioning quality elven artifacts made him an unwitting mark because alas, he was never destined to be the prodigy his grandfather was. Sauron deduced all this, and much more, about poor Celebrimbor, as soon as he met him in Lindon, around 30 SA.
After the War of Wrath, Sauron was described by some biassed Elf-loving annalist (who may have also written Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age) as “dismayed” and “ashamed” and “humiliated” by the defeat of Melkor, Lord of Arda:
[Then] Sauron … did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds… some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented…
This repentance most likely occurred in the first years of the SA in Lindon, that shiny new Elven harbor city, the sole bastion of civilization in ME in the wake of the ongoing apocalyptic Valar-sanctioned continent-busting police-action in unhappy Beleriand.
How long would it be before reformed Sauron could be seen walking the streets of Lindon, generously proffering his Aüle-inspired engineering toolbelt on behalf of the new city’s construction and design?
The Exodus
Then, some of the aforementioned Noldor audaciously decided to remain and establish new realms, flouting General Eönwë’s orders. This must have galvanized the otherwise penitent Sauron, who would have been astonished to learn the underlying reasons why they rebelled… incredible new information surfacing in Lindon in the late 20s SA that must have nudged Sauron toward full-blown recidivism…
A new land had been raised up amidst the Belegaer by Ossë (Sauron’s former co-worker): the Isle of Gift, Elenna-nórë, an unprecedented grant by the Valar to the Three Houses of the Edain as a reward for their fealty and deeds in the WoW.
While ME roiled in cataclysm, climate change, geopolitical collapse, and white supremacy (just throwing that in), those lesser mortals who dared take up arms against Melkor Lord of Arda, a hallowed member of the holiest Valar, would thrive in perpetual bliss, extended lifespans, extra hit points, and ascend to the greatest civilization Arda would ever know.
The Edain set sail in 32 SA. The exodus would wrap up in 82 SA. Fifty years the Noldor would sit by and watch Men depart to their new paradise while rank and file Noldor waited on lembas bread lines.
Picture Sauron dallying on the myriad quays and lofty promenades of Lindon, waving as Celeborn strolls by holding hands with Galadriel (is that a Celebrían baby bump?), sipping miruvor martinis with Celebrimbor… suddenly looking up as yet more swan ships sail by, full of sanctimonious Edain bound for the newly minted Elenna, led to sea by the virtue-signaling Ossë.
In just the right light, one might catch the knowing little wink Ossë might have cast Sauron’s direction…
- Aranruth, the sword of Thingol
- The Ring of Barahir
- The Axe of Tuor
- The Bow of Bregor
- Seeds from the gardens of Yavanna
- A seed from the White Tree
(BTW, it’s also no coincidence that the nationalist Dwarven survivors of Belegost and Nogrod also decided to depart Lindon to swell the population of their own paradise in Khazad-dûm around 40 SA. Gee, I wonder where they got the idea for that…)
A(nnatar) Star is Born
No surprise: there was no great immediate friendship between Lindon and Númenor. It would take five centuries for relations to be re-established between Gil-galad and Númenor, via Vëantur’s Entulessë journeys.
Embarrassing as it would be for anybody to admit, Sauron, the Dwarves and the Noldor had more in common than not in that first millennium of the SA than any of them had with Númenor. They shared the same motivations to remain permanently in ME: to remain in the world of phenomena and linear temporality, not mere memory. Deeds and greatness, power, freedom, immortal glory, and redemption for all that was suffered, all this could be achieved if they remained and preserved unchanged forever the immortal cultural heritage of the Elder Days.
Sauron’s alter ego Annatar was born amidst that cultural stew of resentment and heartache and exodus and Eönwë’s failures in Lindon, the visceral need among the survivors of Beleriand to Make the Eldar Great Again (MEGA), even while they watched every ounce of their former glory and heritage squeezed out of ME toward Númenor.
Rising in the East
Between Elros’ death in 442 SA to Galadriel’s takeover of Eregion in 750 SA, Sauron’s specific Ring plan was locked in. When Elros was crowned King in SA 32 he was already 88 (incidentally, Aragorn’s age in LotR). When he died, he was 500 years old. To people observing, though, throughout the 2nd-5th centuries SA, Elros must have appeared as regal and preserved and unaged as the greatest of the Eldar ever did. Ditto his kids and grandkids.
Think Sauron didn’t notice? Think the Eldar didn’t? Think anybody in Eriador didn’t foresee Númenor would rise in maritime military might and extreme arrogance and eventually return to ME?
The timeline of the SA casually states ca. 500: “Sauron arises again in the East”. In 600 SA, Númenoreans started sailing ships to ME to kick off their completely benevolent ME settlements policies, something prophesized by that reactionary seer, Agaldor (the Sean Hannity of his day). Hmm, where did Agaldor came up with such xenophobic ideas…
Galadriel’s sudden abandonment of her rustic colony by Lake Evendim c400 is correlated with how things were proceeding in Númenor vis a vis Elros & kids. When she shows up in lovely Hollin in 750 SA, we have a full-blown Noldor industrial hub Ost-in-Edhil, Celebrimbor’s major neo-fëanorian magical artifacts factory/guild in the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, and an unprecedented strategic Elven-Dwarven alliance between Eregion and Khazad-dûm. Within 500 years, there would be a separately potent Noldor exclave in Lórien, ruled by… oh, yeah: Galadriel!
Think Sauron wasn’t aware of these developments when he yawned, stretched, and “arose in the East”?
The political realities in Eriador 442–750 SA are tightly correlated with the timing of this “rise” in 500 SA and Barad-dûr’s subsequent happy cornerstone laying ceremony in 1000 SA. Again, Sauron: great long-term planner. Not merely an accomplished sorcerer, Sauron was able to harness the massive geothermal/magical energy of nearby Orodruin…
“[Sauron] used the fire that welled there from the heart of the earth in his sorceries and his forging…”
…which in my mind was the sole original purpose of Barad-dûr: protect Sauron’s immediate security interests while he accomplished the Ring plan via controlling Orodruin–i.e., not to project military power, nor in any way directly contest Númenorean or Eregion militarily, as he knew it would take six centuries of orc union contract haggling to actually scope Barad-dûr into the necessary Angband-esque proportions to invade Eriador.
… precisely when he would simultaneously invade Eregion!
Think that was a coincidence?
The specific Ring plan was already greenlit 442–500 SA. Logically, Sauron would have had to have known he’d need the particular eldritch virtues of Orodruin for forging the One Ring only after he’d already come up with the idea of the One Ring itself. And, by extension, the broader concept of the suite of magical rings that would be ruled by a master ring.
I’d even argue Celebrimbor had already been compromised before he ever set foot outside Lindon, and specific ideas incepted into him about rings long before Ost-in-Edhil was established.
Think about this: Elros had the cheek to take unto himself the Ring of Barahir on his trek to Númenor, despite it being the most overt extant representation of the House of Finrod Felagund remaining in Arda, and with multiple surviving members of the Houses of Fingolfin, Finrod and Fëanor standing around in Lindon. Recall, Beren strategically leveraged the Barahir Ring to establish his familial connection to Thingol when embarking on the Quest to recover Fëanor’s Silmarils. There’s no doubt that, when framed a certain way by Sauron, this would have struck a nationalistic chord with the mediocre yet ambitious Celebrimbor… let alone Gil-galad, Galadriel, Celebrimbor, Cirdan… Hey, even Elrond!
WTF, Elros???
In 1200 SA, the Númenoreans really began flexing their maritime might, permanently colonizing ME, building on their extensive plans to deforest Eriador begun under Tar-Aldarian the Imperialist… er, Mariner. Accelerated fëanorification of the Noldor diaspora would have seemed completely justified from a purely political vantage in the council chambers of Lindon and Ost.
And oh yeah! 1200 SA just coincidentally happens to be the time Annatar (aka Sauron), honey-tongued Emissary of the Valar demurely shows up at Ost’s new triumphal arch, volunteering to help solidify the Noldor political aims in ME, immediately promoted to a 33rd degree Gwaith master. Annatar makes such a galant impression upon the Eregionians that Celebrimbor and Galadriel make the necessary formal introductions to the court of cousin High King Gil-galad and is inserted into Lindon’s summer debutante season as an eligible bachelor.
Galadriel and Celeborn remain in Eregion for 150 years, side by side with Annatar Lord of Gifts, with the Gwaith, living out Celebrimbor’s neo-fëanorian fantasy before they’d finally exclave to Lórien: not because they suspected Annatar, but because they wanted to extend the geopolitical footprint of the Noldor-Longbeard alliance in response to the return of the Edain to ME.
150 tantalizing years, during which Rings of Power were discussed, ideated, planned, debugged, QA’ed, and assayed…
Think Sauron and Galadriel never collaborated?
The only explicit thing we know for sure happened as a result of that interaction is not the expulsion of Annatar, not the forging of the Elven Rings, but that the Noldor basically took action to double the size of their territory on either side of the Misty Mountains, bringing the Sindar back into the fold.
Around 1500 SA, 150 years after Galadriel emigrates, the Great Rings of Power were finally forged. Warning flags finally went off in Celebrimbor’s thick skull, and the Gwaith spawn off a skunkworks to secretly create the Three Elven Rings. Annatar gets “kicked out” of Eregion, but really that was the culmination of his thousand-year con.
Celebrimbor was just Sauron’s way to get at the Edain, to subtly engineer the complete demise of the Three Houses, who were logistically and geographically inaccessible in Númenor until their inevitable arrogance would bring them back into the ME fold, falling right into Sauron’s clutches.
If the weak and irrelevant Noldor got in the way, so much the better…