LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 1 - The Tower of Cirith Ungol

[Lalwendë]

He sprang out to meet Shagrat with a shout. He was no longer holding the Ring, but it was there, a hidden power, a cowing menace to the slaves of Mordor; and in his hand was Sting, and its light smote the eyes of the orc like the glitter of cruel stars in the terrible elf-countries, the dream of which was a cold fear to all his kind.

It could be that Sting is in fact charged with Light, in some way similar to how the Phial is filled with Light as opposed to just light. Isn't there a saying about the face of God being so divine that it would hurt or even kill you to look at Him? It could be that this light would hurt anyone from the side of the darkness to look upon it. I wonder what Tolkien meant by saying it 'smote the eyes', as that suggests real physical injury! This must be how Sam gets past the barrier set up by the Watchers, as the Phial's Light would have worked to oppose whatever 'dark' forces the Watchers had.

There's also something odd in these lines. Sam has the Ring, the Phial and Sting and uses them in quick succession. Here is a Hobbit empowered with not only an Elven blade, but also Light and the most dangerous object in Middle-earth. It makes you wonder what he might have been capable of...

[drigel]

Here is a Hobbit empowered with not only an Elven blade, but also Light and the most dangerous object in Middle-earth

Great point Lal! Couldnt have much more mojo on him, could he?

Oh, I suppose if he was wearing Nauglamir and the Helm of Hador...

[Formendacil]

"The Tower of Cirith Ungol" always surprises me when I come to it, because after the epic drama of Book V, my memory always makes Book IV out to have been a little drab by comparison. But this chpater has a little bit of everything: magic, battle, songs, high emotion, danger, villains, history.

My memory could be wrong, but I think that, waaaaaay back when I first read The Lord of the Rings, I had a guess, given what happened in "The Black Gate Opens," that Sam would fail at rescuing Frodo (though I did think Frodo would still live), so it was an unexpected joy to have them reunited.

I still agree with my younger self that there's a great untold story in the history of the tower and its treacherous fall. Could this manning this tower have prevented the loss of Minas Ithil? Interestingly, despite the continuing close connection with Minas Morgul, the tower is not under Morgul's command, but garrisoned by Mordor proper: a tiny way of dividing his underlings against each other by Sauron?