Tag: avoiding contact with reality until it buries him

simaethae:

Sauron’s a royal hostage, not a captive or a slave! “But Ar-Pharazôn was not yet deceived, and it came into his mind that,
for the better keeping of Sauron and of his oaths of fealty, he should be
brought to Númenor, there to dwell as a hostage for himself and all his
servants in Middle-earth” – Sauron swears to Pharazon as one of his vassals, he agrees “as one constrained” to go to Numenor but Pharazon does get his agreement, he doesn’t drag him there in chains.

Anyway it’s this kind of… parodic mirror of loyalty and service, I like to imagine it as Sauron playing really elaborate headgames with himself. Like, absently maneuvering Pharazon into increasingly bizarre and convoluted levels of lord-vassal roleplay to keep himself amused. Pharazon has the increasing suspicion he’s not actually in control of this situation, but between Sauron’s almost-fond gaslighting and the fact that it’s a bit late to do anything about it even if he isn’t, he manages to successfully avoid contact with reality right up until the point it buries him under a mountain.