#and that the betrayal might have actually worked *better* if they'd let adar live - both because seeing his children become enslaved

[greenleaf4stuff]

I still can't digest Adar's demise because he deserved better, or at least he deserved the chance to stab Sauron one last time, but I thought about it more, and Adar was so MVP that Sauron did not want to risk losing his body again to him, so he used Adar's children to take him out because he knew Adar wouldn't defend himself if his children turned on him. Sauron was kinda cowardly.

Hi anon and thank you for your ask! :)

I think part of Sauron using Adar's children to kill him might have been Sauron not wanting to get his hands dirty/avoiding a direct confrontation to minimize the risk towards his newer body (I didn't even fully register that aspect before, and it is a good point!), but I think the main reason he did it is because he knew it would hurt Adar the most.

As we can see in the scene itself, Adar doesn't even fight back. Partly because of Nenya (Sam Hazeldine mentioned in an interview that the transformation caused Adar to feel defenseless, that he wasn't able to fight Sauron anymore), but also - in my opinion - because he couldn't bear to hurt his children, whom he had spent centuries defending and fighting for.

Everything he did - including killing Sauron - was for his children (Sam Hazeldine mentioned in two interviews how Adar only continues to live for the uruk); I think one possible reading might be that when the uruk attacked him, he lost his will to live.

And it's essentially the most cruel death Sauron could have given Adar - not only have his own children turned against him, but they are now going to be enslaved by Sauron, and all of Adar's work to better their situation and future will have been for nothing. And Adar must have been aware of that, in that moment.

That he failed, utterly and completely.

It's just...extremely cruel, and petty.

As been pointed out various times, it also mirrors Adar's own betrayal of Sauron, but at least Adar was the first one to attack Sauron during the betrayal in s2e1, whereas Sauron didn't lift a finger and let Adar's children do the dirty work.

(Also, sidenote, but I think this way of killing Adar is also a cruelty towards the uruk - Sauron has already killed Glug, and when he begins to force the uruk into following his orders, they will know that it was they themselves - their own kin - who killed the only person who ever cared about their wellbeing and protected them. That they took their only choice of a better future from themselves, and are now stuck with the consequences.)