[QUOTE=glee]
You missed Pete the Drummer, who left the Valar before they became famous. :eek:
[/QUOTE]
Pete was brother to Salmar and Omar-Amillo? Those two were the rockers of the Valar!
This helpful Valar Table will help identify Who Was Who among the Powers who descended into Arda from Eru’s Timeless Halls. Both the Big Fifteen and those that left before they got famous.
Chronos nailed it. Morgoth’s Ring.
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
Can Sauron come back even though he apparently lost his bodily form permanently?
Ack, sorry for asking too many questions! Anything people want to answer is fine.
[/QUOTE]
It looks like this one still needs some answer. Sauron with the destruction of the Ring is no more. What little was left of his spirit was dispersed by the strong wind probably sent by Manwë himself. At most, he might be able to muster the strength to be some weak haunt of malevolence, but no real power again.
BTW: There is no such thing as too many Tolkein questions. 
Glee: We do not speak of Pete, fate was not too kind too him.
Jim
[QUOTE=What Exit?]
At most, he might be able to muster the strength to be some weak haunt of malevolence, but no real power again.
[/QUOTE]
So, hypothetically speaking, somebody could live in a house haunted by the Ghost of Sauron ?? But, he has no real power, so I guess he would be limited to mere parlor tricks, such as making you feel thin and stretched?
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
So, hypothetically speaking, somebody could live in a house haunted by the Ghost of Sauron ?? But, he has no real power, so I guess he would be limited to mere parlor tricks, such as making you feel thin and stretched?
[/QUOTE]
I doubt it. I could not guess what little that Sauron would be able to do, but I suspect it would not be haunting a house.
Jim
He could maybe make your tea cool off a little sooner than it would otherwise. If he really exerted himself.
Okay, so:
Morgoth = most evil being ever. Vanquished at the end of the First Age.
Sauron = lieutenant of Morgoth. Defeated at the end of the Second Age; finally vanquished at the end of the Third Age.
If the pattern holds, then the next great evil to arise in Middle-Earth must be a lieutenant of Sauron, and will not be finally vanquished until the end of the Sixth Age.
Two potential candidates spring to mind offhand:
The Mouth of Sauron: Of Numenorean blood; a powerful sorceror; knew much of the counsels of the Enemy; fate unknown.
Saruman: Maiar spirit who shared many traits with Sauron; was unambiguously killed, but Gandalf demonstrated that this need not be a permanent condition. Plus, Saruman also crafted a ring, which was never found, and no one knew what it was supposed to do.
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Okay, so:
Morgoth = most evil being ever. Vanquished at the end of the First Age.
Sauron = lieutenant of Morgoth. Defeated at the end of the Second Age; finally vanquished at the end of the Third Age.
If the pattern holds, then the next great evil to arise in Middle-Earth must be a lieutenant of Sauron, and will not be finally vanquished until the end of the Sixth Age.
Two potential candidates spring to mind offhand:
The Mouth of Sauron: Of Numenorean blood; a powerful sorceror; knew much of the counsels of the Enemy; fate unknown.
Saruman: Maiar spirit who shared many traits with Sauron; was unambiguously killed, but Gandalf demonstrated that this need not be a permanent condition. Plus, Saruman also crafted a ring, which was never found, and no one knew what it was supposed to do.
[/QUOTE]
Tolkien was at least playing with the concept of a follow up to the LotR taking place at the end of or after Eldarion reign. The “enemy” was never really defined, but the problem would have been along the lines of internal strife and no so much an external arch-evil.
**QtM ** probably has some details on what little Tolkien had noted.
As a game master running a Middle-Earth campaigns in 110 Fourth Age at the end of Aragorn’s reign, I used the Mouth of Sauron as a liche, two of the Ring Wraiths that survived but weakly by their own sorceries and I did use Sauruman’s ring as a dire semi-intelligent Ring of Charm and Beguiling that could turn mortals invisible with a few other minor powers. It was cursed and in the hands of a corrupted Dunlander Chief.
Jim
Terrifel, JRRT’s take on it was that evil was just built into the world, thanks to Melkor going bad before the world was even built, and injecting his contrarian designs into all aspects of it.
So even though Melkor himself was shut beyond the Wall of Night,
JRRT, The Silmarillion
The upshot is that any mortal could rise up and continue to do Melkor’s evil.
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
The upshot is that any mortal could rise up and continue to do Melkor’s evil.
[/QUOTE]
Well, but that must have been just as true at the end of the First Age; and yet it was a powerful minion of Morgoth who ultimately proved the greatest force of evil in the two Ages to come. Since there are still powerful minions of Sauron running around unaccounted for at the beginning of the Fourth Age, it just seems natural to look first to their ranks for the next gathering threat.
Sure, mortal men will turn to evil on their own; but surely all the wights, werewolves, foul spirits, orc-chieftains and dark magicians left over in the wake of Sauron’s fall wouldn’t be content to sit idly by without trying to reweave that web of conquest and machination.
Granted, they probably wouldn’t be able to muster sorcery on as grand a scale as Sauron; but that’s to be expected given the generally entropic character of Middle-Earth. Saruman’s Orthanc seems like a reasonable projection of how such a Fourth Age Dark Lord’s kingdom might be scaled; a pale flattery of Barad-Dur, yet still formidable enough to menace the kingdoms of Men through both subtle manipulation and force of arms.
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Well, but that must have been just as true at the end of the First Age; and yet it was a powerful minion of Morgoth who ultimately proved the greatest force of evil in the two Ages to come. Since there are still powerful minions of Sauron running around unaccounted for at the beginning of the Fourth Age, it just seems natural to look first to their ranks for the next gathering threat.
Sure, mortal men will turn to evil on their own; but surely all the wights, werewolves, foul spirits, orc-chieftains and dark magicians left over in the wake of Sauron’s fall wouldn’t be content to sit idly by without trying to reweave that web of conquest and machination.
Granted, they probably wouldn’t be able to muster sorcery on as grand a scale as Sauron; but that’s to be expected given the generally entropic character of Middle-Earth. Saruman’s Orthanc seems like a reasonable projection of how such a Fourth Age Dark Lord’s kingdom might be scaled; a pale flattery of Barad-Dur, yet still formidable enough to menace the kingdoms of Men through both subtle manipulation and force of arms.
[/QUOTE]
Ellesar and Eldarion, riding with Eomer and his descendents and the Princes of Ithilien and Dol Amroth, did much after the war to cleanse Gondor and Arnor of many of the ancient evils. At least for the reign of Ellesar and Eomer, the humans and Durin-Folk worked together to eradicated many of the old goblin lairs. Without Sauron’s or Sauramen’s guidance the Orc and Goblins are ill-suited to doing anything other then harassing lost travelers. Trolls were rare and reproduce very slowly without guidance. Werewolves were already rare by the 3rd age and were rarely seen and not even mentioned in the LotR. Wargs would remain problems for a long time, but as human populations increased, their numbers would decrease like any other wolves. The lesser Dragons fully appear to be lazy and cowardly by nature and we have no clue how they reproduce. The foul-spirits are generally not mobile monster.
I agree the Mouth of Sauron and some other Black Numenoreans are your likeliest suspects to follow Sauron, however, Numenor, Gondor, Arnor and Rohan already in their history showed that much evil could be done by civil-war and kin-strife or just a few weak Kings in a row.
My use of the Ring Wraiths is a cheap trick to play to my audience. Having Ring Wraiths after the ring was destroyed was cool, not terribly logical within the framework that Tolkien provided.
I am not sure if you are considering Sauraman a minion of Sauron, but he was not. By his own greed and fall he did much harm to Rohan. However, he had the strong ambition to be the power himself. I am sure the Mouth of Sauron and the Witch King knew that there was to be no chance at moving to the top.
Jim
On the contrary; shortly before passing through Khazad-Dum, the Fellowship is ambushed by a pack of what certainly seemed to be werewolves (at least, by Tolkien’s conception of the creatures). Remember that when dawn came, they found arrows scattered about, but no wolf corpses to be seen?
[QUOTE=Chronos]
On the contrary; shortly before passing through Khazad-Dum, the Fellowship is ambushed by a pack of what certainly seemed to be werewolves (at least, by Tolkien’s conception of the creatures). Remember that when dawn came, they found arrows scattered about, but no wolf corpses to be seen?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t agree. I was left with the impression that the smart Wargs dragged the bodies back off.
I see where you could get the impression they might have been werewolves, but they were neither as great in size as the werewolves described in the Silmarillion nor was their disappearance in the morning showing any particular ability that the Werewolves of Middle-Earth were known for.
In your favor in review the spell he cast:
“fire be for saving of us! Fire against the werewolf-host!”
So maybe I am wrong, but I still favor Wargs over Werewolves.
Jim
Wargs dragging the bodies off, I could buy. Wargs performing battlefield surgery, not so much. If they had dragged the bodies off, they would have taken the arrows with them, but all were left behind, even the one that plunged into the alpha’s heart and got its shaft burned away. And it’s not just no bodies left; it’s no trace of the wolves at all. Aragorn could read a track from a bent blade of grass; surely he’d be able to find trace of a pack of wolves fighting and then dragging off their casualties.
As for showing any particular ability the Werewolves were known for, they weren’t really known for any ability, other than being particularly nasty. Charcaroth couldn’t turn into a humanoid, or anything like that. Admittedly, this means that “werewolf” is a bit of a misnomer, as Tolkien surely should have known, but for whatever reason, he did choose to use that term to name his supernatural wolf-monsters.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
Wargs dragging the bodies off, I could buy. Wargs performing battlefield surgery, not so much. If they had dragged the bodies off, they would have taken the arrows with them, but all were left behind, even the one that plunged into the alpha’s heart and got its shaft burned away. And it’s not just no bodies left; it’s no trace of the wolves at all. Aragorn could read a track from a bent blade of grass; surely he’d be able to find trace of a pack of wolves fighting and then dragging off their casualties.
As for showing any particular ability the Werewolves were known for, they weren’t really known for any ability, other than being particularly nasty. Charcaroth couldn’t turn into a humanoid, or anything like that. Admittedly, this means that “werewolf” is a bit of a misnomer, as Tolkien surely should have known, but for whatever reason, he did choose to use that term to name his supernatural wolf-monsters.
[/QUOTE]
Gaurhoth is what they were really called, so werewolf just worked as a short hand. I suspect, Tolkien was not up on werewolves, I think they became far more popular to the general public after Tolkien wrote those chapters and that Christopher may have made a mistake in using Werewolf as opposed to something more literal like Dread Wolf. I do not see where a Gaurhoth would be any more capable of removing the arrows than wargs who were used to working with Goblins already.
Gandalf only said that they were no ordinary wolves. It is still a jump to assume werewolves when they were called both Wargs and Gaurhoth. It could go either way and I doubt that even Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir and Legolas could have fought off that many Gaurhoth.
I think the only thing we can be sure of is that it is not clear and that their is support for either position. Yours or mine.
Jim
Ok. I just made up a new LotR joke, so I might as well post it here. It’s a variation on one I heard a couple LotR threads back.
The forgotten tenth Ringwraith (the black sheep of the group), decides to head out on his own and, after a long journey, he ends his travels by setting up a delicatessen in Harad. Balrog burgers, dragon wings, goblin salad, Bree cheese, you name it and he’s got it. Amazingly enough, he succeeds and ends up running a popular local shop for quite some years.
Sadly for the citizens of Harad, It all comes to an end though when the Ring is destroyed. The tenth ringwraith never really had any friends, so the store was closed. In its place a Chinese shop operated by the Wong brothers, Sammy and Li, opened up.
It sold decent Chinese food at a decent price, but it just wasn’t the right part of town for that kind of restaurant. The brothers struggled for three years to break even, but eventually had to fold up and leave town.
The moral of the story: Two Wongs dont make a Wight.
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
The moral of the story: Two Wongs dont make a Wight.
[/QUOTE]
And it is also said: “One does not simply wok into Mordor.”
I don’t think that they removed the arrows; I think that when they died, their bodies faded into nothingness, leaving anything real and physical embedded in them (like arrows) to fall where they will. But to concede a point back at you, no such disappearance is mentioned for any of the wolves slain by Huan at Sauron’s isle, and Charcaroth’s corpse remained intact at least long enough that they had to cut open his belly to retrieve the Silmaril.
But at the very least, “Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!” is a mention of werewolves in LotR. 
[QUOTE=Chronos]
I don’t think that they removed the arrows; I think that when they died, their bodies faded into nothingness, leaving anything real and physical embedded in them (like arrows) to fall where they will. But to concede a point back at you, no such disappearance is mentioned for any of the wolves slain by Huan at Sauron’s isle, and Charcaroth’s corpse remained intact at least long enough that they had to cut open his belly to retrieve the Silmaril.
But at the very least, “Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!” is a mention of werewolves in LotR.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed and besides I owe you a thanks for making me scan through that chapter and rediscovering the line that included gaurhoth. My mind had indexed the "great host of Wargs " part instead. As well as I know my Tolkien, this board always leads me to something new.
Jim
Some questions in light of the posited fish delivery method:
Q: Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.
A: Fisssh Nazgul!
Q: No legs lay on one-leg, two-legs sat near on three-legs, four legs got some.
A: Step 1. Fisssh. Step 2. Kitty Nazgul. Step 3. Profit!
[Wok into Mordor!!]