September 6, 2002

Reply to Aiglos
Danny

Gollum spoke of Sauron's nine fingers and Sauron obviously didn't have the rign then. Pippin speaks of seeing him not of seeing just an eye. There are enough references to support the idea that Sauron again took phyiscal form. Frodo saw the eye and was not nearly as tramatized as Pippin who saw Sauron. It seems very clear to me that Pippin saw something more dreadful than the eye. Also in the Silmarillion the eye is first mentioned after the sinking of Numenor, but before he loses his ring. At that time he was still taking a fair form and was called the giver of gifts. It seems to me that he used the eye long before the ring was lost to him, and that as he grew in power he reclaimed a physical form. I feel that he did so early enough that Gollum would see that form and speak of his nine fingers when he was captured. It even seems to me that the Necromancer in the Hobbit was certainly a very different form than the lidless eye.

Sauron was a master of forms in his early days with Morgoth. He changed to a wolf, a serpent and then to his normal form when he fought Huan. So even when he was unable to defeat a wolf, even though it was a powerful wolf like Huan, he still had control over his form. I feel that Sauron could still change forms of dread during the times of the Fellowship and that the eye is a symbol of him but not his actual self.