Não há razão para acreditar que Sauron possa detectar o Anel ou quando alguém estava usando o Anel, exceto em circunstâncias excepcionais:
Uma vez quase , no Hill of Seeing, que era um lugar especial - considerando que Frodo foi capaz de ver uma quantidade incrível de lugares e acontecimentos:
Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron. All hope left him.
And suddenly he felt the Eye. There was an eye in the Dark Tower that did not sleep. He knew that it had become aware of his gaze. A fierce eager will was there. It leaped towards him; almost like a finger he felt it, searching for him. Very soon it would nail him down, know just exactly where he was. Amon Lhaw it touched. It glanced upon Tol Brandir - he threw himself from the seat, crouching, covering his head with his grey hood.
Barad-dur estava a alguma distância *, para não mencionar atrás de uma cadeia montanhosa. Frodo tinha algum grau de visão sobrenatural na Colina da Visão. Faz sentido "mágico" que, para ver tudo, Frodo deva, em algum grau, tornar-se visível, particularmente para os detentores de Palantir como Sauron.
O único outro exemplo foi este:
And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dûr was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.
Frodo não apenas colocou o Anel, ele reivindicou-o como seu próprio com pleno conhecimento do poder do Anel e o que era, e das conseqüências, no "coração de seu reino". , onde o Anel foi forjado. Este é claramente um evento magicamente significativo em um lugar magicamente significativo.
Não há razão para acreditar que em outro lugar e sob circunstâncias normais, Sauron possa detectar pessoas usando o Anel. De fato, se isso fosse possível, a finta de Gandalf e Aragorn teria sido um tremendo fracasso, porque dependia de Sauron acreditar que Aragorn tinha e estava empunhando o Um Anel.
Sam certamente não é um especialista, mas ele acredita que está apenas em perigo usando o Anel em Mordor.‘As Aragorn has begun, so we must go on. We must push Sauron to his last throw. We must call out his hidden strength, so that he shall empty his land. We must march out to meet him at once. We must make ourselves the bait, though his jaws should close on us. He will take that bait, in hope and in greed, for he will think that in such rashness he sees the pride of the new Ringlord: and he will say: “So! he pushes out his neck too soon and too far. Let him come on, and behold I will have him in a trap from which he cannot escape. There I will crush him, and what he has taken in his insolence shall be mine again for ever.”
‘And anyway all these notions are only a trick,’ he said to himself. ‘He'd spot me and cow me, before I could so much as shout out. He'd spot me, pretty quick, if I put the Ring on now, in Mordor.
É claro que Sauron era totalmente ignorante do uso do Anel de Sam nos arredores de Mordor:
O perigo de usar o Anel antes de sua chegada em Mordor não era que Sauron os detectasse (ele eventualmente detectaria um uso evidente, se dissesse que uma pessoa apareceu de repente liderando todos os outros em uma frente unida com exércitos absolutamente subservientes) , mas que tentar usar o poder real do Anel quebraria Frodo.Now the flicker of approaching torches and the clink of steel ahead was very near. In a minute they would reach the top and be on him. He had taken too long in making up his mind, and now it was no good. How could he escape, or save himself, or save the Ring? The Ring. He was not aware of any thought or decision. He simply found himself drawing out the chain and taking the Ring in his hand. The head of the ore-company appeared in the Cleft right before him. Then he put it on.
The world changed, and a single moment of time was filled with an hour of thought. At once he was aware that hearing was sharpened while sight was dimmed, but otherwise than in Shelob's lair. All things about him now were not dark but vague; while he himself was there in a grey hazy world, alone, like a small black solid rock, and the Ring, weighing down his left hand, was like an orb of hot gold. He did not feel invisible at all, but horribly and uniquely visible; and he knew that somewhere an Eye was searching for him.
'Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do no try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you the rings give power according to the measure of their possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and train your will to the domination of others.'
Note, porém, que no final, Frodo estava possivelmente usando o poder do Anel para dominar a vontade dos outros - ou seja, Gollum.
Sauron se colocou no Anel - verdade. Mas ao fazê-lo, ele externalizou esse poder. Estava ligado a ele, mas não uma parte dele como um membro que ele sabia onde estava em todos os momentos. Esse foi o preço que Sauron pagou para criar o Anel.
(todas as citações do SdA)
(* Parece que Sam e Frodo viajaram mais uns 800 quilômetros de Amon Hen até Sammath Naur, mas não sei qual é a distância enquanto o corvo voa.)