What was sauron originally

Before J. The character is explored in more detail in The Book of Lost Tales section of The History of Middle-earth which sees Tevildo working under Morgoth before being beaten by Huan - a similar fate to Sauron. Unlike the Dark Lord however, Tevildo controls cats, rather than armies of hungry wolves and orcs.

Interestingly, the cat influence never disappeared completely and served as inspiration for the Eye of Sauron which looks strikingly similar to that of a feline. Although the book and movie versions of The Hobbit differ as to the extent Sauron is featured, both versions paint Smaug as the primary villain and for the most part, the dragon is unconcerned with the larger events taking place in the background.

However, in the extended version of The Desolation of Smaug yup, it gets even longer! Although the Appendices in Return of the King did suggest that Gandalf feared a potential alliance between the two, confirmation of such was never published and fans continue to debate whether Sauron could even control the dragon in the first place.

If Sauron and Smaug did team up though, Middle-earth would surely be done for. One power that many are unaware of is the villain's ability to emit an intense heat from his body strong enough to kill nearby enemies. To kill such a powerful Elf is no mean feat, although the fact Gil-Galad managed to greatly wound Sauron before his death suggests the technique is not quite an irresistible force.

Such impatience perhaps hints at the potential for wrongdoing. It is somewhat surprising then that the villain spent many years in a form that was not only Elf-like in nature but was also oft described as fair and beautiful. While in this form, Sauron was referred to as Annatar and he used this guise in his attempts to manipulate and influence others, such as when he was encouraging the Elves to forge the Rings of Power.

Interestingly, illustrations of Sauron in his fair disguise look somewhat similar to the character of Thranduil as seen in the The Hobbit trilogy. This meant that the next time the Dark Lord attempted to seize Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings he had to do so via war and bloodshed, having been stripped of his powers of manipulation and shape-shifting. Sauron filled the isle with his own minions - wolves in particular - and renamed it Tol-in-Gaurhoth which translates to Isle of Werewolves.

Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part And Melkor made also a fortress and armoury not far from the north-western shores of the sea, to resist any assault that might come from Aman.

That stronghold was commanded by Sauron, lieutenant of Melkor With the Valar came other spirits whose being also began before the World, of the same order as the Valar but of less degree. These are the Maiar, the people of the Valar, and their servants and helpers. Sauron created the One Ring himself, in order to gain control over the wearers of all the other rings. Because he put so much of his own power into the Ring, its destruction was essential to defeating him:.

And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring; for the power of the Elven-rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What race is Sauron and was he involved in the creation of the rings of power? Ask Question. Asked 7 years, 5 months ago. Active 1 year, 7 months ago. Viewed 44k times. Improve this question.

Gallifreyan 20k 6 6 gold badges 98 98 silver badges bronze badges. Ben Ben 97 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 3 3 bronze badges. See also our earlier question scifi. Or googling. Oh this is adorable. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Sauron was a fallen Maia. The world was bent , so that thereafter, only Elven-Ships could sail into the Utter West. Sauron's body was destroyed, but his spirit was not diminished, and he fled back to Mordor bearing the Ring, where he slowly rebuilt a new body and his strength.

From this point on, he lost the ability to assume a fair shape, and ruled now through terror and force. After learning that Elendil , whom he had especially hated, had survived and was ordering a realm on his borders, Sauron, after a while, made war on them.

He struck too soon, however, and had not restored most of his strength, whereas the Elven-king, Gil-galad had increased his power on Middle-earth in his absence. Finally, Sauron himself came forth and dueled with both Elendil and Gil-galad, slaying them both single-handedly; however, he himself was overthrown in the process.

Then Isildur , son of Elendil, took up his father's broken sword, Narsil , and used it to cut the One Ring from Sauron's finger. While Sauron's physical body was destroyed, his spirit endured and fled. But his campaign to defeat the free peoples had seemingly failed, with his greatest weapon having been taken from him. But while Isildur had taken the Ring, he could not bring himself to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged, but kept it for himself.

He was eventually betrayed by it a few years later, and slain by Orcs at the Gladden Fields. The Ring fell into the Gladden river, and was lost for centuries.

Despite his defeat, Sauron was not vanquished permanently. Though greatly weakened, and in non-corporeal form, he still existed, due to pouring most of his native power, strength, and will into the One Ring. Thus, as long as it existed, he could never be truly defeated, and during the first millenium of the Third Age , he lay in hiding, slowly recovering his strength until he was once again able to take physical form.

There, he was disguised as a dark sorcerer known as "the Necromancer", and the Elves did not realize at first that he was actually Sauron returned. Around this time, the Valar sent the five Wizards , or Istari , including Gandalf the Grey, who later became Gandalf the White, to oppose Sauron and rally the free peoples of Middle-earth against him.

Without the Ring in his possession and facing the combined power of the three Elven rings and the skill of Saruman , Sauron could draw on only the smallest fraction of his strength, so that his enemies were able to drive him from Dol Guldur with relative ease. However, the Dark Lord, having had ample time to prepare, abandoned Dol Guldur willingly, and returned secretly to Mordor , where he openly declared himself in TA , and began preparations for his final war to dominate Middle-earth.

Sauron bred immense armies of Orcs and allied with and enslaved Men from the east and south. He adopted the symbol of a lidless eye , and as he exerted his will over Middle-earth, the Eye of Sauron became a symbol of power and fear. After Gollum was captured, Sauron had him tortured and learned that he once had a magic ring, and, from him, he heard the words Shire and Baggins.

Meanwhile, Sauron lured Saruman the White, one of the Istari, into his service, and used him to try to destroy Rohan , one of the major obstacles to Sauron's conquest of Gondor and the remaining Elves. Saruman failed however, and Sauron lost one of his most powerful vassals as well as Saruman's large Uruk-hai army.

Fearing that his enemies would use the Ring against him, Sauron sped up his plans and attacked the city of Minas Tirith in Gondor sooner than he had planned, seeking to raze the city and crush the last human resistance to his rule before his enemies could fortify it, and to prevent the Men of the West uniting under one king. Despite still possessing more than enough military strength to destroy Minas Tirith and easily conquer Middle-earth once Gondor fell, doubt began to grow in Sauron.

As such, he watched and waited, hoping for a period of strife between Aragorn and other potential Ringlords in which he could move out and take the Ring for himself.

Despite their successful repulse of Sauron's armies at Minas Tirith, Gandalf and Aragorn knew that the bulk of Sauron's forces remained in Mordor, readying themselves for another, deadlier strike against the city.

In light of the situation, Aragorn called for a council consisting of the major commanders of all the forces present in Minas Tirith, and appointed Gandalf to be their commander until the crisis had passed. Gandalf made it clear to all those present that, despite their great victory, they ultimately could not hope to defeat Sauron's armies by force.

Therefore, they had two options available. They could station their remaining force, considerably greater than it had been before the battle due to the reinforcements from Rohan and southern Gondor, at Minas Tirith and hope to endure Sauron's next attack. Or, they could take a force to the Black Gate and attempt to challenge Sauron directly.

This force, as Gandalf suggested, would only need to be great enough to offer battle, and the rest of their forces could remain behind to garrison Minas Tirith.

This option, though suicidal for those involved, would serve to distract Sauron from gazing into his own land, through which the Ring Bearer would be traveling. Furthermore, Gandalf theorized that, once Sauron learned that a force too small to pose any real threat to him was on its way to the Black Gate to directly assault Mordor, he would likely believe that the leader of the attacking force would have the One Ring in their possession. Sauron would assume that the Ring itself would influence its wielder, who, in his pride and over-confidence in his newfound power, might be foolish enough to challenge Sauron's might with a force too small to assault Mordor in earnest.

This action left the Plains of Gorgoroth largely unguarded, allowing Frodo and Sam to reach Mount Doom with far less difficulty than otherwise. However, once Frodo reached the Cracks of Doom , he finally succumbed to the power of the Ring, and put it on. Immediately, Sauron became aware of the halfling, and turning his gaze towards the mountain. He frantically sent the Ringwraiths to retrieve the Ring, but was too late, as Gollum, after taking the Ring from Frodo, slipped and fell to his death into the Cracks of Doom.

The Ring was unmade. The cone of Mount Doom burst apart in a cataclysmic eruption that consumed the eight remaining Nazgul. With his source of power gone, Sauron was utterly defeated and his armies were destroyed or scattered, bereft of the driving will behind their conquest. With the Ring's destruction, Sauron was permanently robbed of his physical form, reducing him to a malevolent spirit that hovered above Mordor as a "huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, With the destruction of the Ring, the vast majority of Sauron's being and his power was forever lost.

With that, Sauron's power was forever crippled, and the threat of his dominion was forever removed. For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so a great evil of this world will be removed. Sauron is the Quenya term for "the Abhorred".

Thu is reintroduced as an alternate name for Sauron in Beren and Luthien Tevildo , before that, was the name of the forerunner character to Sauron, a "Prince of Cats" who is a villain told of in the stories of The Book of Lost Tales. Despite being the title character of The Lord of the Rings , Sauron is notable for never directly appearing during the events of the trilogy.

Nowhere is any detailed description given of what he looks like, other than in vague terms. In the time of The Silmarillion , however, Sauron was a shape changer, taking in one instance the forms of a serpent, a vampire, and a great wolf. And it seemed to men that Sauron was great; though they feared the light of his eyes. To many he appeared fair, to others terrible; but to some evil. He apparently gave off great heat, so much so that Gil-galad was burned to death by his mere touch, and Isildur described Sauron's hand as black, yet burning like fire, suggesting that his entire body was blackened from fire and heat.

Gollum, having apparently once seen Sauron directly, described him as having only four fingers on his black hand, suggesting that Sauron was unable to regenerate the finger from which Isildur took the One Ring, similar to how the wounds Morgoth took from Fingolfin never healed. In addition to his physical appearance, Sauron also apparently had an aura of incredible malevolence. A passage in The Silmarillion describes him as having a "dreadful presence," and daunting eyes.

In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the economic well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal angelic spirit.

Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants, by a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle-earth.

When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. Tolkien [16]. Philosopher Peter J. Kreeft proposes that Sauron is in fact the main character of The Lord of the Rings , inasmuch as he has the largest significance to the work of good and evil in the story, given his shared essence with the Ring; and given the title's referral to him.

Sauron was among the mightiest of the Maiar. Sauron also seemed primarily linked to the use of fire, and as Morgoth's chief lieutenant, his ability to tap into the fires in the Earth was of great value.

At the end of the First Age, Sauron took on a fair form to appeal to the Captain of the Hosts of the Valar and ask for pardon. In the Second Age, Sauron took up that fair form again and used it under the alias "Annatar" to deceive the Elves into creating the Rings of Power.

The level of deception required to fool the Elves of Eregion must have gone beyond simply taking on a fair form, since Sauron was literally instructing the Elves to make artifacts that, while capable of great good, were ultimately purposed for his own domination and were imbued with power to arrest the natural order of the world, yet the Elves were unaware of who they were dealing with until the eleventh hour, and only narrowly escaped his trap.

Such destruction is a testament to Sauron's manipulative nature and ability to twist the perceptions of his enemies. An interesting dichotomy is set up between his deceptive nature and his symbol.