Why hadn't Sauron heard of the Shire?

why had Sauron not heard of the Shire the nasgul spent a long time searching for it but it had existed for Centuries by then was its location really such a big secret hi everyone this is Robert welcome to indeep geek on this channel we cover the best in fantasy books and TV shows the Lord of the Rings A Song of Ice and Fire The Witcher and more welcome it's one of the most nagging questions from The Lord of the Rings how did Sauron not know where the Shire was the nasgul were sent out seeking the Shire but it took them a while to track it down a delay that ultimately proved vital the Black Riders arrived at Bag End just as Frodo was leaving if they had arrived the previous day or even a few hours earlier they would have caught Frodo alone in bag end with the ring and no one to protect him Gandalf was off in Rohan capturing shadowfax and they hadn't met Aragon yet so why didn't Sauron know about the Shire it's nearly 20,000 Square mil big that nearly 50,000 Square kilm yes I know that's bigger than many of us imagin but it's based on token's own Maps maybe I'll cover that in another video someday in any event it's indisputable that saon didn't know where the sh was he sent the nasgul off to find it with only the vaguest of directions so let's start by going way back to the year 1050 of the third age after his defeat it to the end of the second Agee when the ring was cut from his finger Saron lost his ability to take on a physical form when he resurfaced in 1050 under the guise of The Necromancer it was to take up residence in the old Elven Fortress soon renamed DOL gulur in southern merkwood he was biding his time regaining his strength and Powers but obviously his main focus was on finding the one ring that would be the easiest and quickest way for him to regain his strength after all and he didn't want anyone else finding it and using it in this light the choice of DOL galur was not a coincidence the ring was last seen in the gladen fields in the anduin river valley just to the west of merkwood he might not have known exactly where it was but to this was close he was right to think it was there of course that's where deagle and smeel found it much later though smeel becoming Gollum took it westwards into the Misty Mountains rather than eastwards into merkwood and it is Gollum we can later thank for telling saon about Baggins in The Shire sometime after Bilbo had taken the ring from Gollum or if you rather the ring decided to abandon Gollum and attach itself to Bilbo Gollum started trying to track Bilbo down tracing his route through merkwood as far as Dale and the Lonely Mountain and then back again through merkwood he took his time listened spied snuck and eventually learned that at the end of his Adventure Bilbo had set off home again to the Shire however Saron was at that time calling and tugging all dark things drawing them to Mordor and Gollum forever bondage to the ring even when he didn't possess it found himself heading south and east rather than West where the ring actually was he was captured tortured and Sauron eventually learned that the one ring was in the Shire Gollum must have told him still more of the story for saaron sent an emissary to the Lonely Mountain to the dwarves who had been with Bilbo on his Adventure seeking information about a hobbit who was a thief the dwarves obviously didn't say anything and sauron's usual network of spies the West were being disrupted by a combination of the dunad Rangers and sarahan who was secretly working against saaron to find the ring for himself so Sauron sent the Black Riders out to continue the hunt on Horseback and it's clear they had literally no idea where the Shire was other than vaguely north and west of Mordor they searched the anduin valley which is a reasonable place to start but the Shire wasn't there so they went to Eisen guard to ask Saran he told them that only Gandalf knew where the Shire was and that Gandalf had just escaped him so they headed into Rohan to search for Gandalf they instead found GMA wormtongue who begged for his life to be spared and gave them directions to the Shire happily for them they encountered another of sarahan spies on Route and relieved him of his map and description of the Shire so it was that camul one of the nuzul entered hobbon on the 23rd of September 318 in the third age seeking Baggins the very day that that Frodo left it was a very very close-run thing if the dunad Rangers holding the San Ford had not held the nasgul back for the few hours they did or if Saran hadn't lied to them or if they had happened slightly earlier upon GMA when searching for Gandalf or had any one of dozens of other small details been slightly different they would have got to hobbton in time but the biggest difference of course would have been if Saron or any of his advisers knew where the Shire was when he first heard of from Gollum a year or so before so why didn't he know well the first part of the answer is probably the most straight forward it was such a Backwater in Middle Earth life and politics that it wasn't just Sauron who hadn't heard of it almost no one had at least no one east of the Misty Mountains that mountain range really does cut Middle Earth in two there were very few passes and people in information rarely passed either way tree beard for example had never heard of the Shire smow didn't about Hobbits and even much closer to home the trolls that Bilbo encountered didn't know what Hobbits were either and so on the Shire was self-governing didn't engage in geopolitics and Hobbits rarely ventured out beyond their borders it was a rural Backwater so that's the first reason the second is that the Shire had been protected the Rangers of the north the dunad dine had taken seriously their inheritance of protecting the settlements of the former Kingdom of aror even gener ations after the kingdom fell and they did this in secret so no one knew that there was a protective Force around the Shire and Brie and places like that but if any evil or wild creature came close it was dealt with swiftly so although dwarves and Men And even elves and wizards sometimes passed through or nearby none of sauron's allies ever did or lived to return to tell others this protection was only increased over time and was focused ever more around the Shire in particular as Gandalf became more and more concerned about the magic ring that Bilbo had found third there are hints dotted around tolk's writings that the Shire and Hobbits weren't just a random rural Backwater but that there was something more powerful going on there gandal mentions in passing that there is a power in rivendel to withstand the might of Mordor for a while and elsewhere other powers still dwell there is power too of another kind in the Shire Gandalf doesn't elaborate on this but it's hard not to note how Gandalf who sees things and understands things that few others in Middle Earth do has a particular soft spot for the Shire and Hobbits he visits there much more regularly than you might expect for such an obscure part of the world even before the ring is there and it's hard not to notice how the hobbits and their kin Frodo Bilbo Sam and even smeel given the length of time he had the ring have an innate resistance to its power its educated guest work but perhaps Hobbits and the Shire having something of a resistance to The Lure of the Ring were therefore more hidden in a magical sense certainly even when Bilbo had the ring life in the Shire carried on pretty much as it did before there were no clues to anyone that such powerful magical item was there and perhaps there is also something to the fact that their land was bordered by Tom bombadil's domain which definitely did have some impressive and bewildering defenses or maybe that is just Tom being impressive and bewildering I've done a video on him if you're interested so the Shire was protected and hidden by geography the hobbit's lack of Engagement with the outside world the Rangers and perhaps some power of its own as Gandalf hints but ultimately I suspect that there is a very ironic reason why Sauron had never heard of the Shire despite having lived in the grand scheme of things not too far from it for such a long time the Shire only existed because saon was looking for the ring let me explain way back when saon first started looking for the ring and he set up Bas in dulur he sent his minions out into the veil of anduin and the shadow started to grow in the area the residents of the anduin valley at this point were a short homely race of people who later became known as Hobbits fearful of this new threat and always wanting a safe easy life they slowly immigrated on mass westwards and after a few centuries in the year 1601 of the third age they settled in the area that became known as the sh if Saron had never set up camp in Southern merkwood and if the shadow had not fallen over the region the hobbits would probably never have traveled West and settled in what they named The Shire so it really was sauron's own remorseless searching for the ring that led to it ending in the one place he didn't know to look or even know where it was but for saon the Shire would never have even existed if you'd like to see more Lord of the Rings videos please click on the link on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this channel thank you there's a link to my patreon page on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching I'll see you again soon