Why wouldn’t Sauron allow his name to be pronounced?

Why wouldn’t Sauron allow his servants to say his name?

So why doesn’t Sauron allow his followers to call him by name?

The name Sauron itself has a negative meaning, arising from a Quenya word meaning “abomination”, but there are many other names used for him, including some that Sauron used for himself in the First and Second Ages. But at the time of the War of the Ring, Sauron does not appear to use any royal name, nor does he allow his followers to use one. However, some envoys refer to him as “Sauron,” but only when communicating with enemies who already use that name.

Although I don’t think he ever said it explicitly, I think it’s clear that JRR Tolkien’s purpose is to give Sauron’s name an air of mystique among his servants, thus instilling greater fear and reverence. Consider the language used by the Orcs in the service of Sauron to describe the people above them in terms of hierarchy:

Another example:

“Up”, “them”, “the Tower”. By forcing his servants to use this vague language, Sauron positions himself so far above them that challenging him is unthinkable. If they were using his name constantly they would probably think of him as someone who could be challenged, not as a fixed and immutable system.

This is arguably why one is not allowed to say God’s name in various traditions: it would make God seem less divine and more worldly. This is another advantage of prohibiting the use of his name: Sauron positions himself as a god. Only his expressly authorized emissary may use his name. In fact, if we consider Tolkien’s Catholicism, Eru is perhaps literally the Christian God and as such the name Eru is supposed to be treated with respect. By adopting this strategy, Sauron mocks Eru’s power.

In any case, Sauron wanted his name to be feared by the people of Middle-earth. I think he would have liked an evil-sounding name for this reason; In fact, this fits with Tolkien’s view of evil and corruption that someone would start out doing evil for good reasons and end up embracing the bad reputation of it.

But, if that had been the case, Sauron certainly would not have ordered or even allowed his official spokesperson, Mouth of Sauron, to use his name when addressing his enemies:

Surely the Mouth of Sauron could have referred to Sauron indirectly, as “My Lord” or “The Lord of the Rings,” for example, if Sauron had so desired. Furthermore, if Sauron had hated his originally derogatory name, he might have encouraged his servants to use one of his former names, such as Mairon, or his name as Maia; or Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. There is no evidence that he did it.

As a side note, it must be said that Tolkien’s conception of Middle-earth was always evolving. It is possible that at the time he wrote The Lord of the Rings, Sauron had no other name. In The Silmarillion, for example, Mairon is not mentioned; Sauron is used throughout, and Annatar is only mentioned as a pseudonym the Dark Lord used to disguise himself.

Now, not only does Mouth of Sauron refer to his master directly by name, so do other emissaries, although we don’t really know much about them, except for what the Dwarves mention at the Council of Elrond:

My problem with this is twofold: first, we know from The Silmarillion that Sauron’s name was not chosen by him, but is a degrading name given to him by his enemies. The name Sauron originates from the adjective saura, which in Quenya means “disgusting, putrid,” and is usually translated as “the abhorred” or “the abomination.” In Sindarin it is called Gorthaur, “the abhorred dread” or “the dreadful abomination.” Instead, his original name is Mairon, “The Admirable.” And when he chose other names for himself, Sauron always favored laudatory names, such as Annatar, “Lord of Gifts.”

But Aragorn, in The Two Towers, states that Sauron does not use his “true name.” We see confirmation of this when the Orcs refer to him indirectly as “the Eye” or “Lugbúrz” instead. There is some ambiguity here about what his “true name” is, but in the context of Aragorn’s statement this appears to be “Sauron”, as they are discussing an S rune and ultimately decide that it should refer to Saruman instead.

So why would Sauron give some of his subjects permission to use his name, especially a name his enemies used as an insult, and forbid his lower-ranking servants from saying it?

There is possibly a bad translation here. Perhaps the writers of the Red Book only used the name Sauron rather than any other name or epithet that Sauron’s own followers were ordered to use. Perhaps Frodo thought that readers would be confused if Sauron were mentioned by the name he preferred to use, or that it would be incorrect to refer to Sauron by any name that was not an insult. On the other hand, perhaps Sauron simply considered being an abomination in the eyes of his enemies, the Elves, to be something of a compliment. By that logic, being hated or abominable in the eyes of the unpleasant Elves was praise after all.

As a strategy, it sounds like something Sauron thought through carefully. By forcing his name not to be spoken, but knowing that his cultists in the south and east would call him something, he bowed to Sauron precisely to show the Elves and the descendants of the Numenoreans that their insult had become a type of worship, and he into a god.

There is another important factor that would explain why Sauron did not allow his name to be pronounced. After all, Sauron was pretending to be dead. At the end of the Second Age, Sauron was dead, his body broken and his spirit scattered. It was more than 1,000 years before he could exercise his will, and another 1,400 before he manifested in Dol Guldur, and there, even, they spent centuries of stealth and silence, lurking under the title of Necromancer.

Had Sauron announced himself during that time, the kingdoms of men might have gathered against him under the oath of Elendil. At this point it would not have taken a great host of Elves and Men to destroy what little Sauron had built, possibly driving him back into the shadows for millennia. Using pseudonyms, or not referring to him directly at all, was not only intended to give him an air of grandeur among his servants, but was a necessary strategy to remain hidden until regaining some of his former power.

By the time he had rebuilt his forces in Mordor enough to resist his enemies, Sauron had already been following this principle for many centuries. There was no reason to change it and many reasons to continue. After all, the concealment of him was quite successful, so much so that not even the Sages were certain that Sauron would be able to return after losing the One Ring.

However, Sauron stopped pretending to be dead long before the events of The Lord of the Rings. At this point he was openly the ruler of Barad-dur for many years. It wouldn’t make sense for him to ban the use of the name just to stay hidden, since he wasn’t hidden.

But perhaps the reason Sauron would not allow his name to be spoken is more basic: perhaps it was too painful for him after all he had lost: his place among the Ainur; his stature as Melkor’s second, the integrity and beauty of his former physical form, all gone.

Being named Mairon now had to cut him like a knife, even if it was pronounced reverently. That would make sense, but the problem is that the conversation between Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli was started by seeing an S rune, which could never represent Mairon. However, it is highly unlikely that someone like Gimli, Legolas, and even Aragorn, knew that Sauron’s “true name” as one of the Ainur was Mairon. In fact, they probably believed his “true name” was Sauron.

Tolkien’s overall depiction of Sauron is more moderate than that of Morgoth. Sauron wants to establish himself as the undisputed power in Middle-earth because he hates disorder. Morgoth wants to destroy Arda because he knows he will never be able to fully control her. He shouldn’t care what anyone thinks of him. However, Sauron seems to have embraced his hated image of himself, while Morgoth still clung to his original self, Melkor.

In this context, and taking into account that Sauron was the name given to him by his enemies in the First Age, whose meaning is precisely complimentary to us, it would make perfect sense to prohibit the use of that name for this reason: he did not want his enemies to call him with the name they gave him.

On the other hand, we know that Sauron continued to refer to himself as Mairon during the First Age and part of the Second Age. However, during the Fall of Númenor, Sauron became weaker and lost the ability to once again wear a, shall we say, pleasant face. Perhaps it would be painful for him to continue using the name he had during his more… charismatic incarnations.

In myths and religions there is this concept of the “true name”: if you know the true name of a person or thing, that knowledge gives you power over what is named. For example, the Egyptian goddess Isis manages to find out Ra’s true name. This allows him to secure the throne of Ra for her son, Horus. In biblical myths, all mentions of God are actually epithets, such as “Adonai,” which means “Lord.” Meaning that not only would it be blasphemous to pronounce God’s true name, but this would also give you power over basically all of creation. The same principle is observed in many fairy tales, where a magical creature, a demon, a fairy, can only be defeated if its name is pronounced correctly. And not to mention the medieval grimoires, where it is explained that the only way to exorcise a demon is by finding out its name.

By the way, there is a very interesting story by Arthur C. Clarke: The Nine Billion Names of God, where a computer is programmed to perform all possible permutations of characters to find the true name of God. God . When the machine manages to decipher that name, the universe is destroyed

I don’t think this is the case with Sauron. That is to say, I do not believe that Sauron feared any kind of magical attack, so to speak, if someone discovered or knew his true name; but this tradition is very present in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. And it’s no wonder: telling someone your real name is a tremendous sign of trust, because that knowledge gives the other person magical power over you. Let us remember, for example, Bilbo doing rhetorical juggling to not let Smaug know his name.

In short: no…