[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I said he wasn't the military commander type...meaning he wasn't the type to be at the front and lead armies.

I am afraid you are restricting the meaning of military commander to those who are ahead of the armies – and in your next paragraph you seem to agree with me that this is wrong.

I would like proof that Sauron had gone 'ballistic.'

I believe I already gave it; he “became infected with lust for destruction”; – now that is just the opposite of order and organisation in terms of purposes, wouldn’t you say? Sure, this didn’t reach Melkor’s level, but Melkor is cathegory of his own. As it stands, Sauron is the most destructive force in Middle Earth – by purpose and alignment (hehe, RPG games) of inner power and of his armies. He may keep order and coordination, but that is something that is necessary for attaining a goal, which is destructive and evil in its nature; whatever kind of order evil will achieve, it is something so corrupt, that it wouldn’t fit the term anymore – because, as Tolkien states in the continuation of that quote, that that lust for destruction must end in nihilism.

Actually the parley was false.

I am quite certain that Sauron would have been happy to accept the surrender of his enemies in the terms decided by him. Anyway, anyone at war prepares for an unsuccessful parley, that doesn’t mean the parley itself was false.

I gave 3 reasonable examples (Gollum, The Nazgul, and The Mouth of Sauron) that show the importance of names. Your name is your identity (example the Ents, their names are the stories of their life as Treebeard explains)...Names are extremely important, they identify who you are. The Nazgul were not named, as their wills were completely bound to Sauron's will...just as the Mouth of Sauron had forgotten his name, he doesn't have an identity, only except that he is under Sauron's dominion. Just like when Gollum's hope of redemption was in the fact that he had been able to remember his name...Smeagol. If one loses their name, they lose their identity, it's a sign that they don't know who they are and are completely under the dominion of someone else. (In this case Sauron).

I am afraid you misunderstood my question; I was reffering to your supposition that the nazgul don’t remembe their past life; perhaps you could clarify that idea.

Tolkien also compares him to a Ringwraith

Yes, phisically.

and just because somebody is a man doesn't mean they are automatically corrupted and tempted by the Ring

Why? Concerning the temptation, Men were the easiest to corrupt even with the Nine rings, let alone with the one ring. Concerning corruption, although I didn’t originally argue along that line, he is already open to the corruption of Sauron’s power, which is, in fact, of the same nature with the ring’s power .

Again all this is, is inferring, where I have shown a quote showing that The Mouth of Sauron was going to rule over Orthanc.

I thought you dismissed the parley as being “for real”. In a certain sense, I agree with that, since it is stated in The Black Gate opens “Sauron had already laid his plans, and he had a mind first to play these mice cruelly before he struck to kill”. I believe we can view all of the mouth’s statement in that light: he was playing with their minds.

Why not? Because he fled from Gandalf?

Well, he had the hobbit items snatched from under his nose; he soiled his cloth out of fear of Aragorn when he invoked embassador protection. All in all, I fail to see how these admirable deeds surpass the 42 _centuries_ of service of the witch king.

I would like to say why you think it is simply speculation?

Well, because we have no proof in that direction. If anything, in wartime, people with military duties have a higher standing than those with administrative (more in the realm of "civil") duties.