Sauron's battle strategy

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Imperica

When did Sauron believe that Aragorn had The Ring? If this was so then the Nazgul wouldn't of been searching for Baggins, the Shire, and Hobbits... And I highly doubt that Sauron thought that a mere Man such as Aragorn, despite his lineage, would be able to appropriately wield The Ring and even if this was so The Ring would of betrayed him, as it did Isildur.

Like WCH (sorry, I won't even pretend to spell that one correctly otherwise) said, it was an explicit part of their strategy in the later parts of RoTK. Furthermore, I never said that Sauron thought Aragorn had it all along, but couldn't Aragorn have gotten it from Baggins? Not only Gollums are willing to kill, maim or steal for a chance at owning the Ring.

And Aragorn was not a "mere man" by any means or meassure we can think of, as it was proven repeatedly in the books, and even more so when one reads about his exploits before the time of LoTR. So why wouldn't Sauron fear him? Aragorn may not have needed to control the full weight of the Ring, he had plenty of natural skill. If that was to be enhaced by Sauron's ring then who knows what might've happened?

But of course, this is all mere speculation as we know that Aragorn would have never used it. A knowledge Sauron did not have, as it is said often in the books that Sauron is very shrewd, but he assumes other people share his values and that no-one would willingly reject the Ring.