In Call of Cthulhu, the protagonist rams a boat into Cthulhu’s head.
Granted, but I always thought it was actually one of the least scary and atmospheric Lovecraft stories. I’m thinking more like “The Whisperer in Darkness” or “Pickman’s Model.” I guess I should amend the above post to “hardly ever.”
And from The Dunwich Horror:
‘Oh, oh, my Gawd, that haff face - that haff face on top of it… that face with the red eyes an’ crinkly albino hair, an’ no chin, like the Whateleys… It was a octopus, centipede, spider kind o’ thing, but they was a haff-shaped man’s face on top of it, an’ it looked like Wizard Whateley’s, only it was yards an’ yards acrost…’
Now that’s roughly analogous to Pippen or Gollum describing what they had seen of Sauron. In “The Dunwitch Horror” the horror is literally unseen for almost all of the story.
Readers are capable of filling in all kinds of details the author doesn’t supply. Chances are, for example, that you have some mental image of Mrs. Hudson from the Sherlock Holmes stories, though Doyle never described her at all.
I always pictured Sauron as looking a lot like Cary Grant since he was (kind of, sort of) an angel and I liked Cary Grant as an angel in The Bishop’s Wife.
It’s a good thing. It’s not at all uncommon for the title villainous character to appear rarely, if at all, in the book bearing his name. Most of the drama actually comes from the reactions of those victimized by and/or fighting against him.
A good example is Dracula, who really doesn’t appear very much in a book that is nominally about him, and hardly at all after they leave Transylvania. The movies and plays give you more of him than the book does, but even in those it’s clear that we’re following Van Helsing and the vampire-hunters more than the shadowy Count.
Another is The Phantom of the Opera, who’s much better as a threatening menace than as an active villain. Even in the films, it’s Christine Daea’s story. If the Phantom were really such an important part, they’d have got a better singer than Gerard Butlker when they filmed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical.
Huh. That decoration is the most phallic and yanic at the same time thing I’ve ever seen. Why did they put vulvas on the giant dicks ?
Hmm, could be. In an early screenplay draft, Peter Jackson had Sauron appear in his pleasant-to-the-eye Annatar guise at the end of ROTK and fight Aragorn; fortunately they dropped that idea and Aragorn battled a troll instead. Here’s how Sauron/Annatar would’ve looked: http://images2.fanpop.com/image/quiz/388000/388278_1269562220547_174_232.jpg
What’s “yanic”?
I’m no biblical or Tolkien expert, but isn’t Tolkien essentially and smartly taking a literary play from the bible and treating Sauron as the Satan or “adversary”? There is relatively little in the bible about the devil firsthand, perse, and much of it is inconsistent, and metaphorical, or allegorical, or outright mythological. I’m not sure, but I think there are only a couple of direct quotes from the “adversary” himself in the whole bible, and Jesus’ account is secondhand.
It’s always amazed me the contortions, and reading into, who or what the devil is, society has invented and imposed on the devil as a monolithic figure going on so little information.
No, not from what I can see in the link I provided earlier.
The timeline link I provided is apparently made by someone from the other “camp”. 
There are parrallels, but there are major differences, too.
The other sentient races (orcs/elves, trolls/giants, and dwarves) don’t have an equivelant in the bible. (The Ainur/Valar are “angel” analogs, I assume.)
Non humanoids also have better representation in Tolkein. (The dragons, ents, for example.)
That’s not what I am saying, I am not talking about parralel races and figures and wotnot.. only Tolkien’s literary treatment of Sauron as it relates to the OP and his seeming lack of direct appearance.
nm
Sauron isn’t actually Tolkien’s depiction of Satan-- That would be Morgoth, the Old Enemy, who was once Sauron’s boss. I’m not sure that Satan’s second-in-command is ever explicitly named in Judeo-Christian lore, but whoever that would be, that’s Sauron.
For the second time, I am not equivocating Sauron with Satan, only Tolkien’s literary treatment of Sauron.
A typo for yonic.
Huh, I always thought the One Ring was the literal ‘lord’ of the rings – i.e. the one to rule them all?
In Book II, when Gandalf, Frodo, & the three young hobbits are are in Rivendell, Pippin makes a joking toast to Frodo as the Lord of the Rings, and Gandalf reprimands him sharply, saying something to the effect that there’s only one Ringlord, it isn’t’t Frodo, and it’s not wise to joke about things like that. He clearly means Sauron.
I think Satan makes more appearances in the bible (Genesis/snake, Book of Job, Tempter of Jesus, Book of Revelations) than Sauron makes in Lord of the Rings.