Varför vaknade Sauron inte Mount Doom?

Detta var en viktig punkt i Gandalf och Aragorns strategi, och hela anledningen till att de ledde Minas Tiriths armé till Mordors svarta port. Förhoppningen var att dra inte bara Saurons uppmärksamhet, utan också hans arméer, och lämnade Mordor självskyddad.

Bok 5, ch. 9:

[Gandalf]: ‘His doubt will be grow­ing, even as we speak here. His Eye is now strain­ing to­wards us, blind al­most to all else that is mov­ing. So we must keep it. Therein lies all our hope. This, then, is my coun­sel. We have not the Ring. In wis­dom or great folly it has been sent away to be de­stroyed, lest it de­stroy us. With­out it we can­not by force de­feat his force. But we must at all costs keep his Eye from his true peril. We can­not achieve vic­tory by arms, but by arms we can give the Ring-bearer his only chance, frail though it be.

Mordor själv var faktiskt tungt bevakad, med legioner av Orc-trupper ockuperade det, som vi lär oss i Skuggans land :

Frodo and Sam gazed out in mingled loathing and wonder on this hateful land. Between them and the smoking mountain, and about it north and south, all seemed ruinous and dead, a desert burned and choked. They wondered how the Lord of this realm maintained and fed his slaves and his armies. Yet armies he had. As far as their eyes could reach, along the skirts of the Morgai and away southward, there were camps, some of tents, some ordered like small towns.

Across the mouth of the pass, from cliff to cliff, the Dark Lord had built a rampart of stone. In it there was a single gate of iron, and upon its battlement sentinels paced unceasingly. Beneath the hills on either side the rock was bored into a hundred caves and maggot-holes: there a host of orcs lurked, ready at a signal to issue forth like black ants going to war. None could pass the Teeth of Mordor and not feel their bite, unless they were summoned by Sauron, or knew the secret passwords that would open the Morannon, the black gate of his land.

Och även den bakåtkomst som de tog var också välbevakad ( Cirith Ungols torn ):

Since his return to Mordor, Sauron had found it useful; for he had few servants but many slaves of fear, and still its chief purpose as of old was to prevent escape from Mordor. Though if an enemy were so rash as to try to enter that land secretly, then it was also a last unsleeping guard against any that might pass the vigilance of Morgul and of Shelob.

För att faktiskt göra någonting användbart vid Mount Doom måste du självklart komma in i Mordor först, vilket är något som man inte enkelt gör.

Minns att det var anledningen till att värdens män utmanade Sauron i öppen kamp, med vetande att Sauron är för girig att inte vilja begå sina styrkor för att besegra Isildurs arving. Detta ledde Sauron att ta betet genom att tömma sitt land för att bekämpa Aragorn och herrarna.