Unless I am wrong – and I am never wrong – the start of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies opens with a narrated passage about Sauron’s first defeat. As I recall, the voice-over refers to his motivation as his “lust to dominate all life.”
It’s been decades since I read the books. Is that (the urge to dominate all life):
a) indeed what the movie said, and
b) an accurate representation of his motives as established by Tolkien himself?
Pretty close. “Into this Ring he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life”
IIRC pretty much. As I recall, originally his goal was to “bring order” to the world, to make it a better (by his standards) and more organized place. After millennia of corruption, his goal has degenerated into power for the sake of power.
I thought that was Melkor/Morgoth’s original goal, and that Sauron, as his #1 servant, may not have had even such lofty aims.
Roddy
Morgoth eventually degenerated into sheer nihilism, according to the Perfesser, and wanted (wants) nothing short of destruction of everything that was not him.
In the Akallabeth, there is a hint that Sauron’s ultimate goal may have been to bring back Melkor (Morgoth). He tries to get the Numenoreans to worship Melkor, and hints that Meelkor may be able to remove the threat of Death from man.
No doubt to replace it with the promise of death. If you’re already dead, you can’t be afraid it anymore.
So that men will be like gods. You know, the reason for the first sin. Except, in that case, they were already immortal and wanted knowledge: but the end goal was the same.
sauron hated men and sought to subborn them during the SA. the TA age was to have completed his plan. from his actions in SA, it seems he believed melkor would somehow return. he would have been un-maiar-like to believe he could rule ME indefinitely. well he did some boo-boos even a mortal wouldn’t commit --like staking his immortality on a ring.
That was smarter than it looked. It made him more powerful, and only destroyed him due to an extremely unlikely chance - that Gollum was there, attacked Frodo and fell into the lava. You see, he knew that the lure of the Ring at its origin was so strong that no one would be able to bring themselves to destroy it - and he was right. Barring Gollum’s attack and fall, the end result of Frodo’s quest would have been Sauron reclaiming his Ring.
It’s a long time since I read the story, but IIRC, the Numenoreans were not immortal; they sailed west to invade the realm of the Valar and “wrest immortality” from them, and the Valar sunk Numenor in punishment.
Exactly. They were manipulated by Sauron into a suicidal attack.
You’re as confused as a Welshman. The Men of Westernesse were far from immortal; they just lived longer than “lesser” Men, but it was their growing fear of death that tempted them to sin.
Well, that and the desire to see Nessa’s bouncing bodacious bosom. Girl can dance.
Morgoth was a Dalek?
While I’d love to let you guys think I know more about LOTR than I do, I wasn’t referring to anything in-story.
I was referring to Adam and Eve being immortal before the Fall, which is the tradition. I was saying that becoming like a god is always a good temptation for a writer to use. Then I was expounding on the major difference: that Adam and Eve were immortal, but naive, while these people had a knowledge of the world, but wanted immortality.
Sorry for the clumsy wording. It was too early in the morning. And perhaps the idea itself wasn’t even relevant.
Adam & Eve were not immortal before they ate of the Tree of Knowledge. At least, I’ve never thought so. The only thing in the myth that indicates anything like that is the claim that eating of the Tree of Knowledge will cause them to die, but that doesn’t have to mean they were immortal or ageless. And the presence of the Tree of (presumably eternal) Life in the Garden seems to indicate that they they weren’t immortal. Not to mention this passage from the third chapter of Genesis:
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](Genesis 3 NIV - The Fall - Now the serpent was more - Bible Gateway)