July 31, 2002

Re: Arina, the Ring, and Sorehead
Brett C.

Arina, it does not actually say in the text of LOTR that Sauron [or SoreHead to his close acquaintainces] was without physical form in the third age, as far as I know. I believed this was a cinematic contrivance of PJ's to explain why he wasn't personally out stomping through Gondor and the Shire, though I must say it is a very clever idea and works excellently in the film. But now with a bit of careful reading I'm not so sure.

Like all beings of Vailinorean origin Sauron was originally able to walk 'unclad' as Tolkien puts it, being invisible to the mortal warld yet suffering no loss of existence - inessence, he can exist in Middle Earth as a spirit. However, in the Silmarillion he is bested by the great hound Huan, despite the fact that he 'shifted shape, from wolf to serpent, and from monster to his own accustomed form.'; and must surrender or escape by 'foresaking his body utterly.' The text continues with Luthien negotiating with him...

'...and said that he should be stripped of his raiment of flesh, and his ghost be sent quaking back to Morgoth; and she said: "There everlastingly thy naked self shall endure the torment of his scorn, pierced by his eyes, unless thou yield to me the mastery of thy tower.'

The text seems to indicate that prior to his bodies destruction in the overthrow of Numenor Sauron had an accustomed form, which he presumably modified into that of Annatar in order to seduce the Elves of Eregion, since some of those immmortals may have recognized him form the wars of Beleriand. His ability to shape shift from Valinor he clearly retains at this point, but apparently he cannot walk totally unclad, being bound to the mortal world by his evil nature, or perhaps more precisely his lust for things of worldly disire, such as conquest - this is a fate he shares with his master Morgoth. Further, when his body on Numenor is destroyed it states that he arose as a dark spirit, and returned to Mordor to again take up the Ring [having left it behind when he went into exile] and that afterwards he was able to create a new form, but was now always terrible to behold.

So once his body had 'died' in the Downfall he could only regain physicality with the help of the Ring; that may explain why his form had to be evil to look upon, because the Ring itself is iredeemably corrupt. [At this point, if this were an interactive discussion, Annatar would no doubt jump in and comment on clever Sauron was to create an item which would allow him to endure even if his body was dstroyed by a tidal wave and buried under a continent at the bottom of the sea] Expanding on that precedent, its not unlikely the same thing happened when Sauron was defeated by Gil-Galad and Elendil - his spirit would have been forced from his body, but this time the Ring had actually fallen into his enemies hands, and he could not immediately reconstitute himself. Whether his slain body was somehow destroyed by the Last Alliance or crumbled to ash in the movie, we do not know. But given the need for the Ring to reclothe himself after Numenor, it seems not unlikely that he is as PJ has him in the movie, a potent spirit who can command, but needs his servants help to act physically.When the Ring is finally destroyed, his last tie to the mortal plain is cut and he goes into the shadows, never to rise again.

The only sticking point in this arguement is Gollum's reference to the black hand having four fingers. Perhaps this refers to the appearance of his spirit form, so powerful it can be perceived by mortal eyes, though still insubstantial. This might also expalin the various Elves concerns that Rivendell and Lothlorien cannot withstand an assault by the Dark Lord himself - he probably couldn't launch such an attack while his will was motivating and commanding his mortal servants.

[Huh - 3000 years without being able to program the timer record on his VCR - no wonder he was such a SoreHead!]