# Origin of Sauron....



## Denethor (Jun 27, 2002)

*origins of Sauron....*

I want to Know a couple of things:
-Is Sauron his really name??
-Is he a human or an elf??
-Was he a good person before ??
-Does tolkien mention anything about his family??
-Why Sauron , the powerful lord , was the servant of Melkor??
-Where was he from??
Probably many of these questions don´t have an answer , but I appreciate if somebody try to answer them.


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## Gil-Galad (Jul 3, 2002)

Yeah Denethor you should read The Silmarillion.Although Smeagol did such a beautiful job is lots of information which would be interesting for you if you read the book.By the way,Smeagol,Melkor wasn't the strongest Vala.But he wanted to be the greatest one even to reach Illuvatar as the mightest "thing" in the world and out of it.


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## Lantarion (Jul 3, 2002)

Yup. That greedy bastard. Damn right what happened to him eventually. 
I think the Sil is the best book Tollers ever wrote, and it is DEFINATELY worth several reads. Not before the Hobbit and the LotR, certtainly: but immediately after! 
Excellent summary, Smeagol!


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## Darth Saruman (Jul 3, 2002)

> Does tolkien mention anything about his family?





> That's a funny question. His family are all the other Ainur, Valar and Maiar alike.



Sauron, Saruman, and Gandalf are brothers!!

Is this going to be in the movie? Are they going to pull off an ESB Luke/ Vader scene?


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## Lantarion (Jul 4, 2002)

Now now, there's no reason to get sarcastic. 
That's actually a difficult question. All the Ainur can't be related to eachother, surely. The Valar might be considered siblings if they hadn't got married amongst themselves.. The Maiar.. Well, it's hard to say. Old Ilú created them all, sbut I still wouldn't call them family.


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## Rúmil (Jul 5, 2002)

> By the way,Smeagol,Melkor wasn't the strongest Vala



I think you're wrong, there, Gil-Galad:



> Then hate overcame Fëanor's fear, and he cursed Melkor and bade him be gone, saying: 'Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!' And he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Eä.





> To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge





> Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor



All from the Silm.


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## Alcuin (Aug 10, 2006)

_Sauron_ was probably not the original name of that fallen Maia. The name means “The Abhorréd” or “The Abomination,” and was given to him by the Noldor of Beleriand; Gorthaur is the name in Sindarin. (Since it was Quenya, _Sauron_ had at first been pronounced _Thauron_: the Noldor had shifted many _th-_ sounds to _s-_ sounds: this was _The Shibboleth of Fëanor_, who refused to use the consonantal shift in his speech.) Another name he was given in his evil deeds was _Thû_, “The Hunter,” and _Morthû_, “The Black Hunter.” He also used the names _Annatar_, “Giver of Gifts,” and _Aulendil_, “Devoted to Aulë.” But his original name, the one he bore before he fell, is apparently lost.

Tolkien says that originally, Sauron was very like Saruman, and so understood him quickly. Both Maia were followers of Aulë. That was probably why Saruman was sent as an Istari to oppose Sauron’s attempts to corrupt and dominate Middle-earth.


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## Ermundo (Aug 11, 2006)

Sauron's real name is not given in the Sil nor any of Tolkiens works. The only names he goes by over the ages are those names that people give him and those that help in a situation. For example, Sauron called himself Anatar (hope that's spelled right) which meant Lord of Gifts. Calling himself that name made him seem more trustworthy in the eyes of the Elves of Eregion, which in the end led to their downfall.


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## Gordis (Aug 12, 2006)

Back in Eregion, Sauron used other names, mentioned by Alcuin:

Annatar - Lord of Gifts - this name he took in Eregion. 
He also used "Artano" - High Smith.

He told Galadriel that "Aulendil" - follower of Aule- was his real name back in Valinor, as far as I remember from UT "Galadriel and Celeborn".

We know that Sauron indeed was a maia of Aule. Perhaps he was telling the truth this time? Perhaps Aulendil / or Arthano/ was his real name before he left Valinor and bacame a follower of Melkor?


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## Thorondor_ (Aug 12, 2006)

> He told Galadriel that "Aulendil" - follower of Aule- was his real name back in Valinor, as far as I remember from UT "Galadriel and Celeborn".


 I pretty much doubt that; UT actually states that it is Galadriel that is not deceived by his pretenses - seeing that she does come from Valinor and she is a lore-master. Furthermore, it is rather unlikely that Aulendil was a proper name:


Late writings said:


> Nerdanel's father was an 'Aulendil' [> 'Aulendur'], and became a great smith.
> ...
> A note is appended to Aulendur:
> 
> 'Servant of Aule': sc. one who was devoted to that Vala. It was applied especially to those persons, or families, among the Noldor who actually entered Aule's service, and who in return received instruction from him.


 More imporantly:


Notes on the Language of the Valar said:


> *Now the names that we have for the Valar or the Maiar, whether adapted from the Valarin or translated, are not right names but titles*, referring to some function or character of the person; for though the Valar have right names, they do not reveal them. Save only in the case of Orome.


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## Gordis (Aug 12, 2006)

UT actually states the following:



> UT Galadriel and Celeborn, note 7:
> Sauron endeavoured to keep distinct his two sides: _enemy_and _tempter_. When he came among the Noldor he adopted a specious fair form (a kind of simulated anticipation of the later Istari and a fair name: _Artano_ "high-smith," or _Aulendil_, meaning one who is devoted to the service of the Vala Aulë. (In _Of the Rings of Power_, p. 287, the name that Sauron gave to himself at this time was _Annatar_ the Lord of Gifts; but that name is not mentioned here.) The note goes on to say that Galadriel was not deceived, saying that this _Aulendil_ was not in the train of Aulë in Valinor, "but this is not decisive, since Aulë existed before the 'Building of Arda,' and the probability is that Sauron was in fact one of the Aulëan Maiar, corrupted 'before Arda began' by Melkor." With this compare the opening sentences in _Of the Rings of Power_: "Of old there was Sauron the Maia. ...In the beginning of Arda Melkor seduced him to his allegiance."



So, the fact that Galadriel knew no Aulendil-Artano in Valinor doesn't prove much. Anyway, Sauron departed from Valinor long before Galadriel was born there.

Silm states:


> Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people.



If he lied about his name (title) of old, then we have no way to know his real name. 
But it case he didn't lie (why would he? - no living Elf could remember him anyway - he had been corrupted before the Children awoke) - then his name might be Aulendil or Artano. After all, he was likely the mightiest of Aule's maiar. So it seems fit that he would have some lofty "good" name, maybe was called after his Vala, before he turned evil


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## Alcuin (Aug 12, 2006)

If the Valar were given their names by the Eldar, as seems to be the case for all of them save Oromë, Sauron is naming himself in any case: the name given to him by the Eldar was _Sauron_, so unless he is revealing his original “right name” as had Oromë, perhaps he is naming himself as he would have preferred to be called or imagined he would have been called – that is, had he not fallen.

In that case, _Aulendil_ would be a descriptive name of his kind even as it was of the Noldor who studied under Aulë in Valinor. _Annatar_ would be a self-styled _epessë_ or “after-name.” _Artano_, which appears to be a Quenya name, might be either his “right name” or something either resembling it or that Sauron imagined might have been what the Eldar _would_ have called him, if only he had not chosen … to be evil.

I wonder that the Ainur had not told the Eldar about their fallen brethren, just in case something went wrong and they happened to come into contact with the Elves. Perhaps they had, but this was not widely-known: it must have been an unpleasant subject, unsuitable, maybe, for the atmosphere of Valinor. Mahtan, father of Nerdanel and father-in-law of Fëanor, might have been aware of this information, for instance, and thus of Sauron and his original nature; but Fëanor was long dead, having seemingly never met Sauron, and so were most of his followers by the Second Age. Galadriel could have heard something of the sort, however, and perhaps this informed or reinforced her alarm?

And where was Galadriel when the war of the Elves and Sauron broke out? In Lindon with Gil-galad? At Nenuial, where Elendil would later build (or inherit) the city of Annúminas? Not in Ost-in-Edhil, I think. Had she already settled in Lothlórien?


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## Thorondor_ (Aug 13, 2006)

> so unless he is revealing his original “right name” as had Oromë,


I don't think that Sauron had a "right name", only the valar did, according to HoME XI


> _Artano_, which appears to be a Quenya name, might be either his “right name” or something either resembling it or that Sauron imagined might have been what the Eldar _would_ have called him, if only he had not chosen … to be evil.


I agree; in UT, he is posing as "an emissary of the Valar, sent by them to Middle-earth ("thus anticipating the Istari") or ordered by them to remain there to give aid to the Elves".


> I wonder that the Ainur had not told the Eldar about their fallen brethren, just in case something went wrong and they happened to come into contact with the Elves


I think that would have helped little, seeing how the maiar are able to array themselves whatever bodies they wished.


> And where was Galadriel when the war of the Elves and Sauron broke out? In Lindon with Gil-galad? At Nenuial, where Elendil would later build (or inherit) the city of Annúminas? Not in Ost-in-Edhil, I think. Had she already settled in Lothlórien?


Between 1350 and 1400, Galadriel left Eregion due to Sauron and established in Lorinand (Lorien), cf UT; seeing I know of no contrary evidence (even Celebrimbor came there to consult with her), I presume she was there at the time of the war with Sauron.


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## Alcuin (Aug 13, 2006)

I am comfortable in agreement on all but one point,


Thorondor_ said:


> I don't think that Sauron had a "right name", only the valar did, according to HoME XI


is, in my opinion, a bit too precise. As all the Ainur were individuals, I think they all had “right names.” Closing this to only a dozen or so in the “first rank” means that the others are … what? unimportant? insignificant? 

How would a Maia be addressed by a Vala if it had no “right names”? “Hey, you! Yeah, you with the shiny eyes…” It would be like walking through any crowded venue and saying, “You there!” and 50 people turn around to see who’s talking. Logically, I think even the Maia must have “right names”: they are of the same order as the Valar but of lesser degree.” (_Silmarillion_ “Valaquenta”, “Of the Maiar”) This passage then continues,


> Their number is not known to the Elves, and few have names in any of the tongues of the Children of Ilúvatar; for though it is otherwise in Aman, in Middle-earth the Maiar have seldom appeared in form visible to Elves and Men.


I take three things from this passage:
That “few have names in any of the tongues of the Children of Ilúvatar” means to me that like the Valar, they may have “right names” that are not revealed, but they have never been tagged with epessë or “nicknames” by the Eruhíni, in particular the Elves.
The Maiar who have names seem to be “the Maiar have seldom appeared in form visible to Elves and Men” in Middle-earth,” or at least remembered by the Elves who dwelt in Middle-earth and “made the histories” that Tolkien “transmitted.”
There are a lot of Maiar that the Eldar encountered in Aman, and to some of them the Eldar gave names; but even for many of these, their names were not recalled in Middle-earth, where they were not “in form visible to Elves and Men.”
Tolkien is not as strict about names as Le Guin in her _Earthsea_ books, where knowing the name of someone or something can give you absolute power over it; but at least in dealing with dragons, “you don’t want to reveal your proper name” (_The Hobbit_, “Inside Information”). Glaurung seems also to have relied upon the use of proper names in enchanting Turin and Nienor. Treebeard was secretive of his name, and considered Merry and Pippin “hasty” for revealing theirs (although perhaps it helped to win his confidence). The Dwarves were secretive of their “true names,” which they “never revealed to any one of alien race.” (_RotK_, “Appendix F”) In _FotR_, “Shadow of the Past”, Gandalf remarks that “Bilbo very foolishly told Gollum” his name, with the result that Gollum and a troop of Black Riders were all looking for “Baggins.” 

I’m reading Hammond and Scull’s _Reader’s Companion_ for the first time. On page 383 of that text, they quote Treebeard:


> *Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language* – Tolkien felt much the same about words and names, and what they reveal about those who had spoken the language in which they occurred.


On pp 595-6, they quote Paul H. Kocher’s from _Master of Middle-earth_, p67, concerning the Mouth of Sauron,


> … ‘Mouth of Sauron’ he calls himself, a man without any name of his own, ‘for he himself had forgotten it.’ Considering the high value placed in Tolkien’s Middle-earth upon real names as indices of identity – Treebeard and the whole race of dwarves refuse to reveal their names to anybody, and virtually nobody will even pronounce Sauron’s aloud in the Black Speech – such namelessness is the acme of total surrender…


The bottom line is that I think the Maiar must all have “right names” given to them at their creation, but these are not known to Elves and Men, nor is their number known. (This reflects traditional Christian beliefs about angels. That’s not intended as a religious comment, but an observation on what seems to be a clear relationship between the Ainur his subcreation and what Tolkien believed.) 

Finally, _War of the Jewels_ ([/i]HoMe XI[/i]) also says, in “Quendi and Eldar”, “Note on the ‘Language of the Valar’”, that


> Few of the Eldar ever learned to speak Valarin, even haltingly… Fëanor … is said to have learned more of this tongue than any others before his time… but what he knew he kept to himself…
> 
> ‘…For the tongues of the Valar are great and stern, but also swift and subtle in movement, making sounds that we [the Eldar] find hard to counterfeit; and their words are mostly long and rapid, like the glitter of swords, like the rush of leaves in a great wind or the fall of stones in the mountains.’
> 
> Pengolodh comments, ‘Plainly the effect of Valarin upon elvish ears was not pleasing.’


Finally, this section says,


> …Now the names we have for the Valar or the Maiar, whether adapted from the Valarin or translated, are not right names but titles, referring to some function of character of the person; for though the Valar have right names, they do not reveal them. Save in the case of Orome. [sic] … [The Elves] asked him his name, and he answered: _Orome_. Then they asked him what it signified, and again he answered: _Orome. To me only it is given; for I am Orome._


I think this is the passage to which you referred. But it is clear from the beginning of the passage that the Maiar also have names in Valarin. And the nature of Oromë’s clearly signifies that it is a “right name,” a tag by which this particular Ainu might be addressed without any ambiguity. They must all have been given individual “right names” at creation.


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## Thorondor_ (Aug 13, 2006)

Even the elves distinguished between tengwesta, a system or code of signs (_any_ kind of signs) and lambe, a system built of sounds. The natural form of conversation between the valar is direct thought transmission, as we see, for example, their converse in the Ring of Doom after the exile of the noldor. Even Olorin was able to transmit images and inspirations, without using words; the quendi themselves had greater ability (than Men) to use thought-transfer - and no matter how hard we could try, a word can never express completely the thought that it tries to convey (image, sound, scent, touch, abstract concept, etc). So I am perfectly fine with the fact that only the valar had "right names" - after all, the valar and the maiar, given their status, had numerous other ways to identify each other directly, not by just using labels of sounds; I think we are looking at the matter through too human lenses.

I will go some further more; vala is translated as as "has power" over the matter of Ea. The fact that the only the valar have right names and that they are secret (with the exception of Orome), might reffer to the mandate they have in Ea, and the power they have in it (through their names too); the maiar have no similar mandate, no similar power, and, therefore, no similar "right name" (or at least not one (easily) translateble in sounds.


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## Alcuin (Aug 13, 2006)

That isn’t what the text says in _War of the Jewels_.


> ‘Even if we had no knowledge of it,’ [Pengolodh] says, ‘we could not reasonably doubt that the Valar had a _lambe_ of their own. We know that all members of their order were incarnated by their own desire, and that most of them chose to take forms like those of the children of Eru… In such forms they would take on all the characters of the Incarnates that were due to the co-operation of the _hröa_ indwelling with the _fëa_, for otherwise the assumption of these forms would have been needless, and they arrayed themselves in his manner long before they had any cause to appear before us visibly. Since, then, the making of a _lambe_ is the chief character of an Incarnate, the Valar, having arrayed them in this manner, would inevitably during their long sojourn in Arda have made a _lambe_ for themselves.
> 
> ‘But without argument we know that they did so; for there are references to the _Lambe Valarinwa_ in old lore and histories, though these are few and scattered…’


 The phrase “all members of their order” must include the Maiar, “of the same order as the Valar but of less degree” (_Silmarillion_, “Valaquenta”, “Of the Maiar”). I don’t think you can just summarily cut off the Maiar from this discussion attributed to Pengolodh because you don’t want to concede that they also had “right names.” How would they distinguish one from another once incarnated? Even before or without incarnation, they would require the ability to distinguish one from another, and whatever that mental label is, it is a “right name.”

Again, your citation is a bit incomplete. _War of the Jewels_, “Quendi and Eldar”, p 403 in my hard copy:


> _Vala_ ‘has power’ (sc. Over the matter of Eä), ‘a Power’; pl. _Valar_, ‘they have power, the Powers’. Since these words are from the point of Q[uenya] structure verbal in origin, they were probably versions of V[alarin] words of verbal meaning. Cf. _axan_ …, _Eä_, and also Q _eques_.


Looking back one page, we find


> _Eä_ ‘All Creation’, meaning ‘it is’, or ‘let it be’. Valarin not recorded.


meaning that the Quendi were converting verbs into nouns, as we English speakers do with gerunds and other verb forms: e.g., “running” or “breathing” as gerunds, “speaker” as a noun with a verb as its root.

Then there is Tolkien’s (author’s) Note 32 on p 416:


> _Note 32_…
> Little is said in Ñoldorin lore concerning the language of the Valar and Maiar; but on this point a note is added at the end of the Appendix…


and this “note … at the end of the Appendix” is the little essay “Note on the ‘Language of the Valar’”. It is not merely the language of the Valar _alone_, but the language of the Valar _and_ Maiar. They are all Ainur, distinguished not by kind but by degree: the Valar being greater in degree are the leaders of all the Ainur.


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## Thorondor_ (Aug 14, 2006)

I think we are starting to go in circles; since I consider this my final post, as I have little else to add, I will first return to your previous post to better clear my position:


> But it is clear from the beginning of the passage that the Maiar also have names in Valarin


Not names, but titles.


> And the nature of Oromë’s clearly signifies that it is a “right name,”


That is stated by the text itself, indeed.


> They must all have been given individual “right names” at creation.


As far as I can tell, this is an unwarranted conclusion


> Even if we had no knowledge of it,’ [Pengolodh] says, ‘we could not reasonably doubt that the Valar had a _lambe_ of their own.


What I interpret is that the valar devised a language, and then, the maiar, their servants, adopted it.


> How would they distinguish one from another once incarnated?


That is stated by the text itself: by titles reflecting some functions of the character; those titles existed in Valarin and were known and adapted/translated by the elves.


> It is not merely the language of the Valar _alone_, but the language of the Valar _and_ Maiar


You are discussing here a different matter - the existence and use of the Lambe Valarinwa. I don't see how this impacts on the existence of the "right names" of the maiar.


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## Alcuin (Aug 14, 2006)

Thorondor_ said:


> I think we are starting to go in circles; ... I consider this my final post...


Very well. I shall also stand down, and others may take this up as they see fit.

We do not agree on this issue. So be it.

With my respect, my friend Thorondor_.


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