In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord Sauron was hardly a diplomat. He primarily utilized fear and violence to get his way, and he attempted to use his massive army of Orcs, Easterlings, and Haradrim to conquer Middle-earth by force. Even when the Mouth of Sauron nominally negotiated with the heroes before the Battle of the Black Gate, his true purpose was to dishearten them by describing the torture that Sauron's minions had inflicted upon Frodo Baggins. However, the Dark Lord did not always take such a straightforward approach. In the Second Age of Middle-earth, Sauron was a subtle, scheming manipulator. Employing his masterful shapeshifting abilities, he assumed the fair guise of Annatar and pretended to be an emissary of the godlike Valar. He distributed the Rings of Power as gifts to Middle-earth's most important individuals, secretly planning to dominate their minds with the One Ring and turn them into his loyal puppets. It was only when this plot failed that Sauron resorted to open conflict in the War of the Elves and Sauron.

Though the Dark Lord's shapeshifting days were over by the time of The Lord of the Rings, he occasionally acted like his old self, utilizing bribery and deceit rather than intimidation. In the novel version of The Lord of the Rings, one such example of this was described by Gimli's father, Glóin, at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell. This scene was absent from Peter Jackson's excellent film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. Its exclusion was a smart choice, as the circumstances surrounding the Council of Elrond were substantially different in Jackson's version of the story, but the passage from the novel remains a fascinating insight into both Sauron and the Dwarves. .

In the chapter "The Council of Elrond" from The Fellowship of the Ring, Glóin explained why he and his son had made the long journey from Erebor to Rivendell. Unlike in Jackson's film, Elrond had not summoned representatives of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth to decide the fate of the One Ring. Rather, it was fate that brought together those who would eventually form the Fellowship. The Dwarves had a few reasons for coming to Rivendell. Firstly, they had lost contact with Balin's Dwarven colony in Moria. Since Rivendell was closer to Moria than Erebor was, they hoped that Elrond had heard something from their kin in the Misty Mountains, but he unfortunately had not. Secondly, they wanted Elrond's advice regarding what to do about the growing threat of Sauron's forces. An army of Easterlings was encroaching upon Erebor's neighboring kingdom of Dale, and the Dwarves feared -- correctly so -- that war was imminent.

Yet the Dwarves' most intriguing reason for coming to Rivendell had nothing to do with Elrond. in hopes of living out the rest of his days in peace. According to Glóin, "a horseman in the night" had visited Erebor about a year before the Council of Elrond. He was a messenger from Mordor who wished to speak on Sauron's behalf to Dáin II Ironfoot, the King of Durin's Folk. Tolkien did not name or describe this messenger aside from likening his voice to "the hiss of snakes." Most fans assume that he was either the Mouth of Sauron or one of the nine Nazgûl. The latter is more likely, as the Nazgûl were said to hiss at multiple points in the novel. Whoever this messenger was, he had surprisingly come in peace; he claimed that his master "wished for [the Dwarves'] friendship."

Glóin said that Sauron's messenger "asked urgently concerning hobbits, of what kind they were, and where they dwelt." The Dark Lord knew that Thorin's Company of Dwarves had traveled with a hobbit, so he guessed that the Dwarves of Erebor would know where to find them. Indeed, the former members of Thorin's Company had visited the Shire several times since the events of The Hobbit, even helping Bilbo move out of Bag End. The messenger also asked the Dwarves to help locate the ring that Bilbo had stolen from Sauron. However, he tried to downplay its importance, not wanting the Dwarves to guess that it was the One Ring. He called it "a little ring, the least of rings," and he said that it was "but a trifle that Sauron fancies." The Dark Lord did not expect the Dwarves to help him for free. , which the messenger claimed would give them the strength they needed to reclaim Moria and maintain control of it for the rest of time.

These Rings of Power were the very same that had once been distributed among the Dwarf-lords. There were originally seven Dwarven Rings of Power, but as of The Lord of the Rings, four of them had been consumed by dragons. Sauron recovered the remaining three -- including one that he took from Thráin in Dol Guldur -- so that he could use them as bargaining chips. Sauron was not known for keeping his promises, but this might have been a genuine offer. After all, the Rings of Power would most likely work to his advantage by fostering the Dwarves' avarice, leading them to make disastrous choices. The messenger was not entirely peaceful. At the end of his conversation with Dáin, he cryptically threatened, "Refuse, and things will not seem so well."

Dáin and the other Dwarves present knew that Sauron's offer would spell ruin. When recounting this at the Council of Elrond, Glóin declared, "We needed not the fell voice of the messenger to warn us that his words held both menace and deceit; for we knew already that the power that has re-entered Mordor has not changed, and ever it betrayed us of old." Despite this, the Dwarves took a surprisingly non-combative approach. Dáin did not want to make an enemy of the Dark Lord any sooner than necessary, so he did not outright reject the messenger's offer. Instead, he claimed that he needed some time to "consider this message and what it means under its fair cloak." The messenger returned twice more after that, and Dáin continued to stall. The messenger grew impatient, and he stated that the next time he visited, he would demand a definitive answer. Glóin was one of the former members of Thorin's Company, so he was concerned for Bilbo's safety. Thus, he set out for Rivendell to warn Bilbo that the Dark Lord's forces were searching for him and his ring.

Tolkien did not have the story of The Lord of the Rings in mind when writing The Hobbit. As such, despite some obvious connections between the two novels, Bilbo's adventure does not always seem particularly relevant to Frodo's. However, plotlines like the messenger arriving in Erebor show just how much of an impact the events of The Hobbit had on the later history of Middle-earth. The Dwarves of Tolkien's legendarium were notoriously greedy, and the Rings of Power were highly valuable artifacts, so despite Glóin's comment about the Dwarves never trusting Sauron again, Dáin might have accepted the offer under different circumstances. . Glóin and the other Dwarves who had adventured with Bilbo considered him a good friend, so they never would have revealed his location to a minion of the Dark Lord. Likewise, though Dáin did not know Bilbo well, he held the hobbit in high regard for the part that he played in reclaiming Erebor from the great dragon Smaug. The Dwarves' alliance with Bilbo was so strong that they were willing to risk Sauron's ire by rejecting his messenger and traveling to Rivendell to warn Bilbo of the danger. That friendship was also indirectly responsible for Gimli joining the Fellowship and becoming a hero to Middle-earth in his own right.

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  The Lord of the Rings