# Sauron questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643 "2004-01-09T14:53:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/1 "2004-01-09T14:53:24Z")
I was wondering this: Lets say Frodo fails, by dying en route to destroy the ring (lets say by the Orcs in the tower he’s a prisoner in). Sauron gets his ring back. What would happen then? I remember reading he’s unable to take physical form anymore (not sure why), so he would apparently take over Middle Earth with his armies as an eye staring out from the top of Barad-Dur. What good would this do him? it’s not like he can go anywhere, just look about Mordor ruling the land, through his forces. Once everyone is conquered and given up hope, what else is there for him to do? Or is that his whole point? and on a side note, what happened to Morgoth? I’d be grateful if people could shed some light. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/2 "2004-01-09T14:55:36Z")
As far as Im aware he DID have a physical form in the books. Someone will be along with a cite either way shortly. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/3 "2004-01-09T15:08:40Z")
Sauron can take physical form. Gollum mentions that he has only 9 fingers, though now that I think of it that may only be his recollection of the last battle of the Last Alliance as told through stories. In all of Tolkien’s work an items creator passes part of him/herself into their creation. For Sauron to control the elves he needed to put the majority of his strength into it. Once it was removed he was an empty spirit, however over time as he recovers his strength returns and he becomes able to cloth himself in physical form. It’s my opinion that Sauron can manifest himself in various ways. The burning eye simply seems the most terrifying. Terror is what Sauron does best. ---
**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/4 "2004-01-09T15:12:38Z")
I’m sure theres a part in the appendices to RotK that mentions after Isildur cuts his hand off and takes the ring, he can’t assume a physical form anymore (like the one in Fellowship). He’s more of a black cloudy spirit type thing. I haven’t read the books since early last year. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/5 "2004-01-09T15:17:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by paulberserker \* > \*\*What good would this do him? it’s not like he can go anywhere, just look about Mordor ruling the land, through his forces. Once everyone is conquered and given up hope, what else is there for him to do? > > Or is that his whole point?\*\* That is the whole point. Sauron isn’t doing it in order to get material things and pleasure, it’s because he’s evil. Remember that Morgoth decided to try and wreck the song simply out of jealousy and spite. The destruction of Middle Earth and spreading death, destruction and despair is the goal in itself. quote] **and on a side note, what happened to Morgoth?** [/QUOTE] Got cast into the void. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/6 "2004-01-09T15:29:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Grey \* > \*\*Sauron can take physical form. Gollum mentions that he has only 9 fingers, though now that I think of it that may only be his recollection of the last battle of the Last Alliance as told through stories. \*\* That was his recollection of being tortured in Mordor, where he went after escaping from Mirkwood. He said that Sauron has 9 fingers, but they are enough. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/7 "2004-01-09T15:52:24Z")
True he was tortured but Gollum also remember hearing stories of the “great battle” when in eth Dead Marshes. Likely he was told how it ended; with Sauron thrown down and his finger cut off. I’m betting Sauron personally saw to Gollum, but it’s not a wild conjecture. ---
**Author:** ![Lear\_s\_fool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/df788c/32.png) [@Lear\_s\_fool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lear_s_fool)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/8 "2004-01-09T20:57:58Z")
I all ways wondered if the nine fingred handed was a refrence tot he Nazgul (since there are nin of them). If you think about it in rather abstract way they are the hand of Sauron. But my friends always I’m somking crack when I run that thoery by them. ---
**Author:** ![Lear\_s\_fool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/df788c/32.png) [@Lear\_s\_fool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lear_s_fool)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/9 "2004-01-09T21:07:48Z")
I all ways wondered if the nine fingred handed was a refrence to the Nazgul (since there are nine of them). If you think about it in rather abstract way they are the hand of Sauron. But my friends always I’m somking crack when I run that thoery by them. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/10 "2004-01-09T21:08:18Z")
I wouldn’t say it’s a reference, but it’s certainly a theme. 9 fingers, 9 rings, 9 Nazgul, Frodo ends up with 9 fingers, 9 members of the Fellowship. They’re all parallels. ---
**Author:** ![Engywook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Engywook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engywook)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/11 "2004-01-09T21:41:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lear’s\_fool \* > \*\*I all ways wondered if the nine fingred handed was a refrence to the Nazgul (since there are nine of them). If you think about it in rather abstract way they are the hand of Sauron. But my friends always I’m somking crack when I run that thoery by them. \*\* Funny, just the other day I was telling somebody that the Nazgul were “the nine fingers of Sauron.” Maybe a better way to look at it as that Sauron had a man wrapped around each of his fingers. The last - and the lost - finger was reserved for the One Ring. I was disappointed that in Jackson’s FOTR: Isildur cuts off all of the fingers of Sauron’s hand, not just the ring finger. I think it’s thematically important that both Sauron and Frodo had nine fingers. ---
**Author:** ![Engywook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Engywook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engywook)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/12 "2004-01-09T21:50:22Z")
PS - Towards an answer to the original question, at least regarding the movie… In FOTR, I believe that Saruman tells Gandalf that Sauron cannot _yet_ take physical form. If anybody happens to be at home with a DVD player, ya might wanna check this out. This implies to me that Sauron must be able to take physical form eventually. Last thought: can something without physical form be in a physical place? If you say “Sauron’s in Mordor,” can that be a true statement if Sauron doesn’t have physical form? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/13 "2004-01-09T22:00:14Z")
The movies do say that, however, Saruman then goes on about how Sauron has taken the shape of a lidless eye. Its tricky and I’d go with the books. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/14 "2004-01-10T01:32:28Z")
In the books it is said that he can no longer take a _fair_ form, but maybe there’s also a line about how he can no longer take a physical form. I can’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/15 "2004-01-10T02:19:19Z")
Evidence for a physical body: > [@](#): > > “‘He has only four [fingers] on the Black Hand, but they are enough’, said Gollum shuddering.” - The Two Towers This seems to imply strongly that Sauron has fingers and Gollum has seen them. Given his shuddering, it likely links his knowledge to time of his torture, rather than to some historical knowledge. > [@](#): > > “It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was ‘real’, that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructible like other physical organisms. … After the battle with Gilgalad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Numenor (I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit…)” - Letter #200 Here Tolkien seems to pretty much state outright that Sauron physically reformed after he lost the ring. Later he confims this. When discussing how various characters (including Aragorn and Gandalf) would fare against Sauron in direct battle he says: > [@](#): > > “in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. … The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic.” - Letter #246 This seems to be a very explicit description of what his form was like in the 3rd age. And we also have references to the “Eye of Sauron” long before the 3rd age imply that it wasn’t a new form, but an old ability. For example this one here from the Akallabeth in the Silmarillion. > [@](#): > > He took up again the great Ring and clothed himself in power; and the malice of the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure." This is a pre-Last Alliance quote so the ‘Eye’ wasn’t anything new in the 3rd age. As for the OP. Sauron was a control freak. According to various letters and notes from Tolkien, after the fall of his master Morgoth, Sauron truely repented of the evil he had done. And he began to try to make amends. But he quickly grew short tempered at the unwillingness of others to follow his vision on how to improve Middle Earth. So he decided to ‘create order’ first and heal ME later. Conquest was orginially just a means to enforce cooperation and order. By the 3rd age he had long since forgotten his original ends and the means had become the ends. By the 3rd age Sauron conquest and an enforced ‘order’ were the sum total of Sauron’s goals. This helps make Gandalf’s refusal to take the ring all the more relevant. As he could see the path by which he could follow Sauron. > [@](#): > > “'Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.” - The Fellowship of the Ring ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/16 "2004-01-10T04:44:51Z")
I believe that the bit about Sauron no longer being able to take a fair form comes in the _Akallabêth_. When Sauron was brought to Númenor as a prisoner he could still take a fair form, and used it to his advantage to worm his way into the good graces of Ar-Pharazôn. But when Númenor was destroyed, Sauron went with it into the depths, and that fair form was destroyed. From that time on he could only take a terrible form, of which the single-eyed version was one of the most imposing and frightening. Since he also could only manifest himself with nine fingers after Ilsidur cut the ring from his hand, it would appear that a Maiar was not purely a creature of spirit, just putting on a new body as they see fit - they seem to have a permanent body shape, which could be reconstructed after being destroyed, but which bore the signs of damage done in the past. As an interesting aside, Zelazny took a similar view in his s.f. novel that posited that science could find a way to achieve reincarnation on the Hindu model, _Lord of Light_. At one point, one of his characters says that if a person’s new body were immortal, it would gradually come to look like the person’s original body, because of the influence of the soul. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/17 "2004-01-10T17:45:48Z")
**Bartman** has already quite ably posted my argument for Sauron having bodily form. **Northern Piper** , I have read _somewhere_ in JRRT’s writings that while initially the Maiar had great ability to don many different forms, they were somewhat limited in the beginning by the very nature of their spirit just how much variety they could assume. And it was later asserted by JRRT (assuming I recall correctly) that Melkor, Sauron, the Balrogs, and other renegade Maiar lost their flexibility in this matter as they spent more of their native power on domination, terror and hate. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/18 "2004-01-10T19:05:05Z")
As for Melkor/Morgoth, he’s experiencing a kind of long prison term; he was, according to _The Silmarillion_ “cast into the fastness of Mandos whence none can escape… and there he is doomed to abide for three ages long, before his cause can be tried anew, or he can plead again for pardon.” So he’s up for parole in three ages. The Silmarillion speaks of a Last Battle at the end of the world, so I guess we can’t count Melkor out for good. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/19 "2004-01-10T19:32:47Z")
> [@](#): > > As for Melkor/Morgoth, he’s experiencing a kind of long prison term; he was, according to The Silmarillion “cast into the fastness of Mandos whence none can escape… and there he is doomed to abide for three ages long, before his cause can be tried anew, or he can plead again for pardon.” **Rubystreak** , those events were back before the first age! Melkor got pardoned, suborned the Noldor, stole the Silmarils, and slew the Two Trees. Then he fled to Middle-earth where elves and men made war on him. After the War of Wrath, Melkor was captured and thrust beyond the Wall of Night. Ëarendil guards the wall, and Melkor may not return while Manwë reigns; though Melkor’s malice remains in the world. It is prophecied that he will return for Dagor Dagorath (Ragnarok, the War to End all Wars, and literally “The battle of battles”), but whether and when that will happen only Eru (and perhaps Manwë) know. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643/20 "2004-01-15T12:11:07Z")
Here’s the passage I was thinking of from _The Silmarillion_. It happens after Ar-Pharazôn has led the Númenoreans off to invade the Undying Lands. Sauron’s waved them good-bye and stayed behind in Númenor: > [@](#): > > And Sauron, sitting in his black seat in the midst of the Temple, had laughed when he heard the trumpets of Ar-Pharazôn sounding for battle; and again he had laughed when he heard the thunder of the storm; and a third time, even as he laughed at his own thought, thinking what he would do now in the world, being rid of the Edain for ever, he was taken in the midst of his mirth, and his seat and his temple fell into the abyss. But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, **so that he could never again appear fair in the eyes of Men,** yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dûr, and dwelt there, dark and silent, **until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible** ; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure. So that fits with your recollection, **Qadgop** - the more focused he became on hatred, the more it affected his physical appearance. But that passage raises an issue that never occurred to me before - it implies that Sauron left the Ring behind in Mordor when we went to confront Ar-Pharazôn and was taken hostage. Why would he leave the Ring behind, since it was the source of his power? and where would he leave it? pesky things, rings - easily misplaced. Wasn’t he taking quite a chance? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sauron-questions/223643.md?page=2)