August 17, 2002

Sauron's Physical Form
Danny

Okay, I recently posted saying that I don't think that Sauron's eye is the actual form of Sauron, but a symbol of his power and a tool for his use. I just read in the Silmarillion where it first mentions the eye of Sauron. It is mentioned associated with the form Sauron takes after the sinking of Numenor, but appears that it was an instrument of Sauron's before the ring was cut from his finger by Isuldur. My interpetation, and I stress that this is open to a reader's interpetation barring something more concrete, is that this strengthens the idea that the eye is not Sauron himself. It was an instument, and maybe an extension of Sauron even before the ring was lost to him. Sauron in my mind was still free to take on a physical form that resembled men. So as I said earlier, I think that by the end of his reign in LOTR, Sauron had grown in power enough to take a physical form. Pippin saw something different than the eye in the Palantir when he said "then He came. He did not speak, he just looked and I understood." He didn't say anything about the eye of Sauron, but spoke as if he saw something fairly human in shape and stature.