I was listening to an episode of "Exploring Lord of the Rings" (the one above) the other day and it got me thinking. If you go by the published works, Sauron has the One Ring before he is taken to Númenor as a prisoner, however the Ring doesn't get dropped to the bottom of the sea when the island is destroyed. This means that Sauron had to leave it behind on purpose. Why would he do that?
It turns out, for a really simple reason. You see, Sauron's armies deserted him when the Númenoreans invaded, so he was forced to surrender. Well, if you're surrendering do you take all your best stuff with you and have it confiscated? Not if you have a choice. Yes, Sauron was planning on using his charm and power to take over, but he'd still have lost this stuff initially. And you don't want your chief weapon to be in anyone's hands, especially if they can possibly use it against you.
So Sauron goes out and surrenders to Ar-Pharazôn knowing full well that he'd be coming back to Mordor at some point. It is possible the Tolkien would have come up with a better way to explain this if he had the chance, but I think this works perfectly well. The Ring remains safe in Barad-dûr while Sauron uses his wiles on Westernesse, meaning that this isn't a "plot hole" just someone who has known defeat before ensuring that he doesn't lose his chief advantage for later.
Of course, I could be completely off base. What do you think? (I mean beyond "You really get into the minutia, don't you?")
