: :Any initial efforts he might have made to determine if the
: : Ring still existed apparently failed, since he didn't start
: : searching for it until late in the third millennium.

: This presumes, yet again, that we know what Sauron was doing
: from 1050 - 2939 T.A. But we don't. None of us have any
: evidence that Sauron was not pondering where the ring may have
: ended up all the while, and even searching for it
: unsuccessfully. We know only that by the 2800s Gandalf
: discovered that he was searching. We have no record whatsoever
: of when he started searching -- it was sometime _before_
: Gandalf's arrival. We have no idea when.

We do have a pretty good of idea of when he would have started searching for the Ring: after 2463, the year Deagol found it. This was only 3 years after Sauron's return to Dol Guldur, and there is no indication that Sauron was looking for the Ring at this time.

: :Hence, Sauron was simply too weak for most of the Third Age to
: :know that the Ring existed, but he probably began to suspect
: :something was not quite right as he continued to get
: :stronger.

: I don't follow. Once he became stronger and asserted himself,
: the ring apparently attempted (successfully) to make itself
: found. That shows in no way that he didn't strongly suspect all
: along that the ring still existed.

It shows that the Ring couldn't react to his existence. Tolkien indicates that Sauron started looking for the Ring relatively late in the Third Age. Until that time, the only reasoable guesses for why he didn't look sooner are that he didn't have the means to look for it (lacking knowledge, resources, or access to the lands where it should be sought) or else he didn't feel it still existed.

He MIGHT have believed for a time that the Ring had in fact rolled down the Anduin (as Saruman suggested to the White Council).

: : Sauron, according to Gandalf, didn't think anyone would
: : consider destroying the Ring. Sauron's objective was to
: : recapture the Ring before it could be used against him (which
: : is what he expected). People are often blinded by their own
: : expectations and reasoning to the reasoning of others.

: I think everyone agrees with this. It's the other assumption,
: that the ring must have been destroyed at the end of the second
: age, that's problematic. That one seems out of character.

It would be out of character for Sauron to expect anyone to want to destroy the Ring, but he probably never expected to be overcome in the Second Age. His opinions of what happened after the final combat on Orodruin could have been influenced by the fact that there was no new master of the Ring in the Third Age. It had simply vanished from all knowledge.

[snip]

: Well, Michael, you are a learned lore-master -- I've enjoyed
: looking at your Suite 101 articles. I especially liked the bit
: on Tharbad. I respect your views, and I will think this over.
:
: But you seem deeply opposed, for no reason I can figure, to
: even considering my suggestion, namely that Aragorn appears to
: Sauron in the guise of the heir of Isildur, as he does at least
: two or three other times in the trilogy. It's remarked upon
: each time -- the hobbits notice what a change has come over
: Aragorn, how different he appears: No longer a dirty ranger in
: the wilderness, but a noble lord of men. Does that not satisfy
: all your requirements?

"in the guise of the heir of Isildur" means nothing to me. I know that Aragorn reveald himself as the Heir of Isildur (showing the Sword Reforged would help in that respect), but what does an Heir of Isildur look like? Aragorn states specifically he did not reveal himself as he appeared at the time he looked into the Palantir, and the essay on the Palantiri strongly suggests Sauron would have been able to look for Aragorn in that guise if he knew about it.

: But in any case, that's a side issue as far as Sauron's view of
: the ring is concerned.

: Let me propose what Gandalf should have said to Frodo:

: "He thought it forever lost, or perhaps even destroyed. But now
: he knows beyond all doubt that it still exists, and has been
: found."

: That would have cleared up everything, as far as I can tell.

: Gandalf had insufficient evidence to make the judgment he made.
: And, in fact, I think his conclusion paints a very improbable
: picture of what the dark lord could have been expected to
: think. The more likely conclusion is what I've stated here.

Unless Sauron's questions to Gollum revealed something of his own thoughts. Gandalf spent a lot of time with Gollum, and basically terrorized him into confessing as much as he would tell (Gollum does hold back on some information). I believe there is reason to accept what Gandalf says, without requiring the author to reword the passage.
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