In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s trilogy of film adaptations, the Dark Lord Sauron desperately wanted to find the One Ring. If he could obtain it, he would return to his full strength and gain the power he needed to conquer Middle-earth once and for all, in addition to keeping his greatest weakness out of the hands of his enemies. Sauron mainly left the job of finding the One Ring to the nine Nazgûl, or Ringwraiths. He had removed their free wills, so they were entirely loyal to him. If the Nazgûl had found the One Ring, they would not have been tempted by its corrupting aura; they would have immediately brought it to Mordor and given it to their master without hesitation. But what of Sauron’s other minions, the Orcs?

Orcs mainly served as footsoldiers in the Dark Lord’s war against the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, but he occasionally tasked them with missions that would advance his search, such as trying to capture the Ring-bearer. Promotional material for the animated film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim showed a pair of Orcs — voiced by Merry and Pippin actors Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd — looting corpses for their rings on the off chance that one of them was a Ring of Power. Sauron dominated the Orcs’ minds, but they still possessed a level of autonomy that the Nazgûl lacked. In The Lord of the Rings, they expressed a hatred of their cruel master and the Nazgûl who served him — they even entertained ideas of rebellion and desertion, but the fear that the Dark Lord instilled in them prevented them from doing so. So, if an Orc had found the object of Sauron’s desire and gained access to the strength that it provided, he may not have parted with it so easily.

Sauron and Saruman Kept the One Ring Secret From the Orcs

Neither Sauron nor Saruman told their Orcs about the existence of the One Ring. Even when Saruman sent a band of Uruk-hai to capture the hobbits, he kept the terms of their mission vague. In Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King film, Saruman told Lurtz, “One of the halflings carries something of great value. Bring him to me, alive and unspoiled.” Lurtz was Saruman’s highest-ranking and most loyal Uruk-hai, but even he was not trusted with much information. Likewise, in the aforementioned scene from The War of the Rohirrim, the Orcs were completely unaware of Sauron’s goal. Wrot asked, “What does Mordor want with rings, anyway?” Shank replied, “Hey, the less I know, the better.” This level of secrecy implied that Sauron and Saruman were worried about their Orcs finding the One Ring and trying to take it for themselves. Otherwise, there would have been no harm in telling them about it. It would have been beneficial; if the Orcs knew what their masters were searching for, they could have simply killed the hobbits and searched their bodies for the One Ring instead of dragging uncooperative captives across the land. They believed that the risk of the Orcs learning about the One Ring outweighed the risk of the Orcs failing their mission.

In the films, the Orcs never discussed the One Ring, but one of them did allude to it in the novel version of The Lord of the Rings. In the chapter “The Uruk-hai” from The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin are tied up at the campsite in which both Saruman’s Uruk-hai and Sauron’s Orcs rest. When the Rohirrim arrived, one of the Orcs refrained from fighting them: Grishnákh. Instead, he took the opportunity to search the hobbits’ bodies while Uglúk was distracted. Pippin guessed that Grishnákh was looking for the One Ring, and he pretended that he knew where it was in hopes that Grishnákh would free him in return: “If we come to Isengard, it won’t be the great Grishnákh that benefits: Saruman will take all that he can find. If you want anything for yourself, now’s the time to do a deal.” Though Grishnákh did not fall for Pippin’s trick, he seemed tempted by the offer. Pippin assumed that Grishnákh wanted the One Ring for himself, and perhaps he did, but it is also possible that he wanted the Ring simply so he could bring it to Sauron instead of to Saruman as Uglúk intended. Maybe he imagined that he would be handsomely rewarded for delivering Sauron the prize that he had sought for so long. Of course, the Dark Lord was usually not one to express his gratitude, especially to his lowly Orc servants.

The Lord of the Rings’ Orcs Were Incredibly Greedy

Even if Grishnákh did not intend to betray the Dark Lord, he might have changed his mind if he had acquired the One Ring. Orcs had weak wills, which was the reason that the likes of Sauron and Saruman could control them so easily, and they were greedy by their very nature. The Orcs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol murdered each other over Frodo’s mithril shirt, and unlike the One Ring, that did not even have a magical influence on their minds — they just wanted it because it was shiny. If an Orc discovered the One Ring in the company of others, there would undoubtedly be a bloodbath. It would be like the fight between Sméagol and Déagol except on a much larger scale. In the end, only the strongest Orc would be left standing, and unless his fear of Sauron outweighed the One Ring’s temptation, he would claim it for himself — but it would do him little good.

The One Ring multiplied the existing strength of its wearer. In the chapter “The Mirror of Galadriel” from The Two Towers, Tolkien wrote that the Rings of Power “give power according to the measure of each possessor.” That was why Frodo, Bilbo, Gollum, and even Isildur were far weaker when in possession of the One Ring than Sauron was; they were mere mortals, while he was a divine spirit with millennia of experience as a dark sorcerer. Only someone of equal stature, like Gandalf, could use the One Ring to overthrow the Dark Lord. Orcs were physically tough, but in all other ways, they were even weaker than hobbits. An Orc would lack the force of will to truly master the One Ring, so he would not be able to draw much power from it.

An Orc With the One Ring Might Try to Become a Dark Lord

The video game Middle-earth: Shadow of War explored the concept of an Orc civil war, though the rebel Orcs were led by a Man with a Ring of Power rather than a fellow Orc.

Depending on the Orc’s rank and personality, there are two possibilities for what it would do with the One Ring. A meek Orc would likely behave in a manner similar to Gollum. He would become obsessed with the Ring but do little with it, and he would go into hiding. While certainly inconvenient for Sauron, this would not ruin his plans; it would simply return the One Ring to the state that it had been in for centuries before the events of The Hobbit. If a tougher Orc found the One Ring, it would likely fill him with delusions of grandeur, leading him to believe that he should be in charge. It would tempt him with his greatest desire: freedom from Sauron’s overbearing rule. He might rally an Orc army of his own to fight Saurons in an attempt to overthrow the Dark Lord.

Though an Orc with the One Ring might find success in the short term, he would not stand a chance against Sauron. Either a Nazgûl or the Dark Lord himself would destroy him and reclaim the One Ring. This was all part of Sauron’s plan. He wanted anyone who found the One Ring to grow overconfident and challenge him, as that was the easiest way to make his enemies bring the Ring to Mordor. He believed that he could defeat even the mightiest mortals who tried to oppose him. However, this was only a backup plan. He did not want an Orc or anyone else besides a Nazgûl to find the One Ring, as he would need to waste resources on taking it back. It was far more convenient for Sauron to keep his minions in the dark about the One Ring so that the possibility of betraying him never crossed their minds.