# What does Sauron look like?



## Bucky

What did Sauron look like in the Third Age?

Just like he did after Numenor in the Second Age....

Let's dig a bit here.

(I sure hope I can find the 4 fingers quote)

First, before we get to the messiness of what his shape was like, let's establish the fact that Sauron did indeed have a shape in the Third Age & that shape was the same as the Second Age, post Akallabeth.....

Tale of Years, Appendix B, ROTK:

2060 TA: The power of Dol Guldur grows. The Wise fear it may be Sauron taking shape again.

Got it!

TTT, The Black Gate Is Closed:

Talking about the way to Cirith Ungol & Minas Morgul, the City Isildur built......

Frodo: "It was Isildur who cut off the finger of the Enemy."

"Yes, He has only four fingers on the Black Hand, but they are enough,' said Gollum shuddering. "And He hated Isidur's city."

"What does he not hate?' said Frodo...

Now, Gollum had been in Sauron's presence when he was tortured the previous year before , so he actually saw Sauron's hand......

Therefore Sauron had regained his shape.

Now, furthermore:

HoME # 10, Mtyhs Transformed VII, footnote #11:

'Thus Sauron was said to have fallen below the point of ever recovering (after the Ring was destroyed - added by me), though he had previously recovered (after going into the abyss at Numenor's Downfall & having the Ring cut off on Mount Doom to end the Second Age - again my addition).

The Silmarillion, 'Of the Rings of Power & The Third Age':

'For coming out of the wastes of the East he (Sauron) took up his abode in the south of the forest , and slowly he grew & took shape again;'

'Gandalf to Elrond, after going to Dol Guldur to spy on the Necromancer:

"True, alas, is our guess. This is not one of the Ulari (Nazgul) as many have long supposed. It is Sauron himself who has taken shape again & now grows apace..."

I guess this one's a slam-dunk.....

No lighthouse like PJ did. :*down

so, what was his shape?

Here comes the can o' worms. :*rolleyes:

This, and only this is what we have to go on & what I'm going say say doesn't go over big, but I think it's, well, let's read it first:

Akallabeth:

After the downfall:

'But Sauron was not mortal flesh, & though he was robbed of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep & passed as a shadow & a black wind over the sea, & casme back to Middle-earth & to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, & dwelt there, dark & silent, until he wrought for himself a new guise, an image of malice & hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.'

So, it is my supposition, based on this passage that Sauron was not just an 'eye' that went around or 'popped up' at times searching here & there, but actually had one eye in the middle of his head..

Why not, based on the above description?

I mean, 'few could endure'?

Was it hard to endure a cloud rolling by on a hill like Frodo on Amon Hen?

Hardly...

but, imagine Gollum in Sauron's presence...

That one eyed bugger scared the living daylights out of him! ;*)

So, I think the Eye was both a long distance thing & Sauron's literal look.

Anyhow, that's my $.02.


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## Elthir

I note the context with respect to the Third Age (contest with Aragorn) in the following:


'(...) In the contest with the Palantír Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. (...)' 

JRRT, Letters​


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## Bucky

Galin said:


> I note the context with respect to the Third Age (contest with Aragorn) in the following:
> 
> 
> '(...) In the contest with the Palantír Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. (...)'
> 
> JRRT, Letters​


 *
Which letter is that?

I've often wanted to quote that in regards to PJ making the Balrog 30 feet tall, but couldn't find it. 

Isn't there also a similar quote that says 'man size, but greater'?*


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## Elthir

The fuller quote reads: letter 246, from a letter to Mrs Eileen Elgar (drafts) September 1963

'In any case a confrontation of Frodo and Sauron would soon have taken place, if the Ring was intact. Its result was inevitable. Frodo would have been utterly overthrown: crushed to dust, or preserved in torment as a gibbering slave. Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of 'mortals' no one, not even Aragorn. In the contest with the Palantír Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance.'




> Isn't there also a similar quote that says 'man size, but greater'?




In reference to the Balrog, in the ultimate form of part of the description in Moria, the demon is described as: '... of man-shape maybe, yet greater' before it draws itself up to a 'great height'.


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## Bucky

I think we have just stumbled on to something big, here, lol. 

Back to the Balrog having wings thread.

I can't believe I never realized this before...

"absurdly simple, like most riddles, when you see the answer" as Gandalf once said....


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## Erestor Arcamen

Thanks for this though Bucky and Galin. I always had trouble seeing a giant fiery eye floating from Dol Guldur to Mordor. How do you think he got from there to Mordor though? Did one of his Ringwraith's fly him or was he strong enough to fly there himself when the white council drove him out? I don't think he would have had teleportation powers or anything of the sort. I mean I think it would be obvious that they couldn't capture and imprison him, I don't think anyone in Middle Earth would be strong enough to do that to him at any point; and remember he allowed himself to be captured by the Numenoreans. Also guys, I found this thread from ages past on TTF that deals with this same subject: Stature or Form of Sauron in 3rd Age


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## Bucky

I have to assume Sauron simplt fled into the East at the oncoming White Council in the year that Smaug was destroyed & then secretly made his way to Mordor ten years later...

Not much info about this other than a few tidbits in 'The Tale of Years', Appendix A & 'Of The Rings of Power & the Third Age'.


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## Erestor Arcamen

Yeah, that's what I figured. I did notice you had a few posts in that previous thread I linked in my last post.

Anyways, I hope PJ doesn't have a giant floating eye in Dol Guldur if he shows anything from that at all...


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## Bucky

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Yeah, that's what I figured.
> Anyways, I hope PJ doesn't have a giant floating eye in Dol Guldur if he shows anything from that at all...


 
*I've thought about this for a while and felt that he's pretty much painted himself into a corner on this one....

At least as far as any 'continual film integrity' between his world of Middle-earth goes anyhow.

It should be interesting to see the 'Eye Lighthouse' 'flee' into the wastes in the East as the White Council 'puts forth it's strength' :*D*


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## Prince of Cats

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Yeah, that's what I figured. I did notice you had a few posts in that previous thread I linked in my last post.
> 
> Anyways, I hope PJ doesn't have a giant floating eye in Dol Guldur if he shows anything from that at all...


 
The great eye will levitate to Mordor, giving everyone the willies. Somehow this takes 10 years :*D


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## Troll

Bucky said:


> BTW: I'm a little late because I clicked on troll's link & spent about two hours watching absurd TLOR's & Star Wars parodies on youtube...


hehehehehe... :*D

Anyway, as for any depiction of Sauron in PJ's Hobbit films:

Perhaps Sauron simply took on different forms between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. After the fall of Numenor he was barred from taking on a fair-seeming shape, but I don't believe Sauron was descibed as having lost his ability to walk unclad... From the Sil, after losing the Ring "Sauron was for that time vanquished, and he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and hid in waste places."

Unlike PJ's depiction of the explosive decompression of Sauron after the loss of the One Ring, it seems JRR meant to convey such a catastrophic weakening that Sauron evaluated his advantage to be best served by a strategic withdrawl. I'd bet he _could_ have remained embodied after losing the Ring, but how would that have helped him?

I imagine that after being driven from Dol Guldur he did a similar trick, abandoning a mortal shell that no longer served his purpose. Doing so must have meant a loss of energy, but anything would be better than being held captive by the White Council. And it could explain why it took him ten years to return, if you believe that he bothered to re-embody himself once returned in Mordor and that doing so is a strain on his personal resources.

Two easy interpretations PJ could make would be: 1) Sauron did not take shape in Dol Guldur at all, and was present only as a horrible malignance.
2) Sauron did embody himself during his Dol Guldur phase, but once that form was destroyed, he either chose not to or was not able to embody again upon his return to Mordor.

As for Gollum's description of Sauron's hand, I'm not wholly convinced that Tolkien wasn't just being metaphorical. Being in the presence of a spirit as powerful as Sauron would probably leave one with all kinds of horrible and jumbled images, and the wounds Isildur inflicted on him were probably more than merely mortal. Sauron's "taking shape" could be a short way of saying "Sauron mustering his followers, building one of his doom forts, and spreading his usual buckets of rainbows."

I'm not a fan of the Evil Lighthouse myself; I think Sauron is a much more menacing figure if he spends much of his time intangible and incorporeal. Nothing is Scarier, after all.


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## Sulimo

> I'm not a fan of the Evil Lighthouse myself; I think Sauron is a much more menacing figure if he spends much of his time intangible and incorporeal. Nothing is Scarier, after all.



Troll, I gotta say that I am with Bucky on this one. I read that same quote Bucky posted, from letter 246 in JRRT Letters, and it quite explicitly states that Sauron did have a physical form in the Third Age. However, I also read in a paper I think from Tolkien and the Critics that discusses that Sauron had a physical from, but Tolkien elected to not actually include an encounter with him, because the incorporeal sense of evil was more daunting, then putting flesh to an evil being. Therefore, the Eye is often used to symbolize Sauron, but is really just one part of Sauron's body. However, it is interesting how the eye seems to take on its own persona, such as at the end of the Return of the King when Frodo claims the ring. 



> The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, the Eye piercing all shadows... Its wrath blazed like a sudden flame and its fear was like a great black smoke, for it knew its deadly peril, the thread upon which hung its doom... Its thought was now bent with all its overwhelming force upon the Mountain..



Its interesting that while it refers to the Dark Lord, the passage actually makes the Eye the subject of the description. As if the eye itself had volition. I think this has been updated though.


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## Troll

Sulimo said:


> Troll, I gotta say that I am with Bucky on this one. I read that same quote Bucky posted, from letter 246 in JRRT Letters, and it quite explicitly states that Sauron did have a physical form in the Third Age. However, I also read in a paper I think from Tolkien and the Critics that discusses that Sauron had a physical from, but Tolkien elected to not actually include an encounter with him, because the incorporeal sense of evil was more daunting, then putting flesh to an evil being. Therefore, the Eye is often used to symbolize Sauron, but is really just one part of Sauron's body. However, it is interesting how the eye seems to take on its own persona, such as at the end of the Return of the King when Frodo claims the ring.


 
I read the same quote you did, and I didn't see any reference to Sauron's corporeality that could not be construed as referring only to those bodies which perished in Numenor and at Lugburz. :*( If there's some other context I'm missing here, so be it, but just from what's been presented so far, I don't think it has been persuasively argued that a complete understanding of the text as written requires that Sauron have a body at any time subsequent to his apparent demise at the beginning of the Age (nor do I think it forbids such an idea, just for the record).

Tolkien was wise not to depict him, IMHO. Any possible depiction would have been a letdown, as the violent response to the Lighthouse of Doom indicates.


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## Elthir

There are other quotes from letters that concern Sauron's physical form.

One that says Sauron was always de-bodied when vanquished, and one (later on in the same letter possibly) where Tolkien notes that it took longer for Sauron to rebuild his body after the Last Alliance than it had after the fall of Numenor.

Also I think the letter cited already very strongly indicates a physical Sauron in the Third Age. I suppose it's possible that JRRT might 'jump' (in the next sentence or two) from a Third Age context to describing an earlier physical Sauron, and an even earlier, very different looking 'fair' version next -- but why tell the reader that the contest with the Palantir took place at a distance, in connection with the information that the tale allows the physical incarnation of 'great spirits'? Is not the meaning that Sauron was physical and destructible at this point at least, but not actually present with Aragorn?


I think a physical Sauron is key with respect to the larger Subcreated World, but as far as the story goes (the art of the telling of it), that's a different matter.


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## Bard the Bowman

Gandalf, wisest of the Maiar, states, "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."


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## Sulimo

> . I suppose it's possible that JRRT might 'jump' (in the next sentence or two) from a Third Age context to describing an earlier physical Sauron, and an even earlier, very different looking 'fair' version next --



No, that is not the case. I just reread the letter last night. The letter was written about Frodo, and his role in not destroying the ring. When it describes Sauron in the letter it is in reference to what he looked like at that particular time, if Frodo were to have a direct confrontation with Sauron. Hence why Tolkien used the Aragorn Palanthir example, because that was the only direct confrontation that occurred. There is no indication that Tolkien is harkening back to a previous incarnation of Sauron.


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## Elthir

Sulimo said:


> No, that is not the case. I just reread the letter last night. The letter was written about Frodo, and his role in not destroying the ring. When it describes Sauron in the letter it is in reference to what he looked like at that particular time, if Frodo were to have a direct confrontation with Sauron. Hence why Tolkien used the Aragorn Palanthir example, because that was the only direct confrontation that occurred. There is no indication that Tolkien is harkening back to a previous incarnation of Sauron.




Well, I would agree it's not likely. My only point there was, even if we grant the possibility of Tolkien not minding the context that immediately precedes his description of Sauron in this letter, and for some reason he then chooses to describe only the Sauron of the Second Age, as I say in the rest of my earlier post, the sentence before, to my mind, reveals that Sauron was physical and destructible in the Third Age in any case, but still 'distant' from Aragorn.


Moreover, while one can find Tolkien changing his mind about a number of things, in his letters I find JRRT very consistent about Sauron having a body in the Third Age. There are several more citations from letters that could be posted here concerning this matter, and for myself I have no doubt that Tolkien imagined a physical, self-incarnated Sauron in the Third Age.


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## Bucky

I think it's pretty clear Sauron has taken shape again...


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## Troll

Galin said:


> The fuller quote reads: letter 246, from a letter to Mrs Eileen Elgar (drafts) September 1963
> 
> 'In any case a confrontation of Frodo and Sauron would soon have taken place, if the Ring was intact. Its result was inevitable. Frodo would have been utterly overthrown: crushed to dust, or preserved in torment as a gibbering slave. Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of 'mortals' no one, not even Aragorn. In the contest with the Palantír Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance.'


 
I don't see why distance is purely an attribute of corporeality. Even when walking unclad, the Valar are in Valinor, are they not?

For a Catholic such as Tolkien, believing in the Real Presence* and other such abstruse manifestations of "being," I don't see why he would necessarily have found a contradiction between Sauron being a spirit and one being in his "actual presence," nor do I see why "taking shape" must necessarily require physicality.

That said, if there are other letters that produce a clearer case (which I would like to see), I suppose I have zero legs to stand on. I'm still not going to imagine him as corporeal, though. ;*)

*Yes I realize it's not the same thing.


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## Bucky

Troll said:


> I don't see why distance is purely an attribute of corporeality. Even when walking unclad, the Valar are in Valinor, are they not?
> 
> For a Catholic such as Tolkien, believing in the Real Presence* and other such abstruse manifestations of "being," I don't see why he would necessarily have found a contradiction between Sauron being a spirit and one being in his "actual presence," nor do I see why "taking shape" must necessarily require physicality.
> 
> That said, if there are other letters that produce a clearer case (which I would like to see), I suppose I have zero legs to stand on. I'm still not going to imagine him as corporeal, though. ;*)
> 
> *Yes I realize it's not the same thing.


 
*I'm not sure what you mean by 'Real Presence', so could you elaborate?

The one thing I could comment on about 'taking shape' not requiring physicality, I don't see how that really holds water when we consider this, since Sauron is already in spirit form when diminished. So, how does 'taking shape' or 'begins to take shape again' fit if Sauron remains a spirit that has continued to exist?

I won't bother belabouring the 4 fingers on the Black Hand again, because you already shot that one down, although it is the best, most positive & only eye-witness evidence imho.





*


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## Troll

Bucky said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by 'Real Presence', so could you elaborate?


The fine folks at Catholic.com do a better job than I ever could. Note that I wasn't invoking the Real Presence as a description of Sauron at any stage; rather, I was using it as a comparison to indicate that not all presences in Tolkien's worldview were necessarily as binary as "dis/embodiment."



> The one thing I could comment on about 'taking shape' not requiring physicality, I don't see how that really holds water when we consider this, since Sauron is already in spirit form when diminished. So, how does 'taking shape' or 'begins to take shape again' fit if Sauron remains a spirit that has continued to exist?


If you buy that discorporation causes Sauron to become weak and disoriented, "taking shape" could refer metaphorically to his reasserting his spirit and power for another go at overthrowing the Free Peoples.

Whenever I read the phrase in relation to Sauron on my own passes through LotR, I sort of imagined the difference between a thin mist over a field and the kind of fog that gathers in a well, if that makes any sense. They're both gaseous, one is just a lot more dense.

Again, since other corroborating evidence apparently exists, this is all just so much idle wankery on my part and should be taken as such. :*)


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## Elthir

Troll said:


> I don't see why distance is purely an attribute of corporeality. Even when walking unclad, the Valar are in Valinor, are they not?




But is not the point of this to explain why Aragorn did well in his contest with the seeing-stone? given that Sauron's actual presence was a very daunting thing. Not only was Aragorn the rightful owner of the Palantir (which made a difference) but...

... in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form (why note this if Sauron wasn't)... this physical and destructible being was not in Aragorn's presence however (as he would have been in the hypothetical with Frodo), because ... the contest took place at a distance.


Well that's the way I read this anyway: basically Sauron was physical (as the tale allows) but Aragorn was able to do what he did because this physical and powerful being was not present but distant, and the stone was rightfully Aragorn's too. Considering...

'... their power must be far greater when actually physically present.'


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## Bard the Bowman

There are many references to "The Eye of Sauron" and "The Eye" in Lord of the Rings. Some think this supports the theory of a Great Eye. Sorry. These references existed even before his defeat at Barad-dur. From the Akallabeth, "...and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure."


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## Elthir

Here's a couple more references from Tolkien's letters. I can get the numbers if wanted, but for now I'm just pasting this from an old post of mine -- where I was apparently too lazy to note the numbers. 

I gave one date however :*D

'I note your remarks about Sauron. He was always de-bodied when vanquished.' JRRT 1957 

Tolkien continues (skipping some stuff)... 

' ... It was thus that Sauron appeared in this shape. It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was 'real', that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructible like other physical organisms. But that of course did not destroy the spirit, nor dismiss it from the world to which it was bound until the end. After the battle with Gilgalad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Númenor (I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit, that might be called the 'will' or the effective link between the indestructible mind and being and the realization of its imagination). The impossibility of re-building after the destruction of the Ring, is sufficiently clear 'mythologically' in the present book.' JRRT 

Notable points here in my opinion: 

A) the impossibility of rebuilding not after _the loss_ of the One, but after its destruction 

3) Sauron rebuilds his body _after_ the Last Alliance (that it took longer also fits well with the implication of certain statements in the text and _The Tale of Years_)



And (another letter)... 

'After which the Third Age began, a Twilight Age, a Medium Aevum, the first of the broken and changed world; the last of the lingering dominion of visible fully incarnate Elves, and the last also in which Evil assumes a single dominant incarnate shape.' 

Here Sauron would appear to be incarnate in the Third Age as well.


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## Troll

There you have it then. You are correct; Sauron was embodied during the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (most likely the same body throughout). :*up

Still not gonna try imagining his shape. :*p


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## Bucky

Troll said:


> There you have it then. You are correct; Sauron was embodied during the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (most likely the same body throughout). :*up
> 
> Still not gonna try imagining his shape. :*p



*Why not?

It was...

'Terrible' :*D

I admit that the one-eyed 'Cyclops' literal therory is rather difficult to substantiate in light of the overwhelming fact of so much factual proof of the Eye being a 'long distance' means of Sauron imposing his will & presence on folks from this point forward, but on the other hand, why the heck not? ;*) *


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## Elthir

Hmm, I don't much like the 'cyclops' version myself :*D


Tolkien did actually draw 'Sauron' for the cover of _The Return of the King_ (it wasn't used at the time of course)... or at least a depiction of Sauron 'in some sense' I should say. It's not very detailed, but I think it portrays Sauron, or the image of him, as 'dual-eyed', but given that the view is from the side-ish, even this isn't certain enough I guess.

The eye facing the viewer isn't centrally located however (not that *Bucky* claimed it was anyway).

I think Sauron's a dual-eyed, terrible, more than human stature but not gigantic kind of guy ;*)


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## Bucky

Is there a link to a picture, or can you post it here, Galin?

As you can probably tell, I'm rather, uh, teachable. ;*)


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## Elthir

*Bucky*, I'm pretty sure this image of Sauron was reproduced in Hammond and Scull's: _JRRT, Artist and Illustrator_ (without checking my copy right now)...

... but I don't know if it's (legally) on the web anywhere, at the moment.


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## Bard the Bowman

I'm wondering about the cyclops Sauron figure. Perhaps Sauron did become a cyclops-type creature. I'm just thinking about the symbol on the banners and the shields. The Red Eye of Sauron it is called. Why would that be the symbol?


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## Sulimo

Galin, can you put the actual letter numbers for those quotes. I have the book, but don't have time to read it all right now, and I would at least like to read those letters in full. 
Thanks


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## Elthir

No problem Sulimo.

The first two hail from the same letter, 200. The quote about the Third Age hails from the letter to Milton Waldman, number 131.


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## Bucky

I'm actually reading Letter #131 right now....

It's the _Magna Carta _of Tolkien's letters, detailing Middle-earth in the late 40's in an attempt to sell *The Silmarillion* along with*TLOR* to a different publisher.

It goes from beginning to end in, it says, in 10,000 words, about 12-15 pages I believe; it's been a while.

It really is amazing that, despite the fact Tolkien rewrote the entire Silmarillion to a large degree, very little of the basic story changed.....

Even names, other than 'Tar-Calion, 13th and last King of Numenor'.....

And, if you don't have a copy of _The Letters,_ it's the forward in later copies of _The Simarillion._


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## Bard the Bowman

I think the question we need to ask, is why does David Day believe Sauron was a great lidless red Eye?


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## Erestor Arcamen

I never read this letter in its entirety until I read this thread and this just helps me to visualize Sauron as something other than a lighthouse with the eye on the top (I posted the whole letter because I find it VERY interesting!):



> _246 From a letter to Mrs Eileen Elgar (drafts) September 1963
> [A reply to a reader's comments on Frodo's failure to surrender the Ring in the Cracks of Doom.]
> Frodo in the tale actually takes the Ring and claims it, and certainly he too would have had a clear vision – but he was not given any time: he was immediately attacked by Gollum. When Sauron was aware of the seizure of the Ring his one hope was in its power: that the claimant would be unable to relinquish it until Sauron had time to deal with him. Frodo too would then probably, if not attacked, have had to take the same way: cast himself with the Ring into the abyss. If not he would of course have completely failed. It is an interesting problem: how Sauron would have acted or the claimant have resisted. Sauron sent at once the Ringwraiths. They were naturally fully instructed, and in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring. The wearer would not be invisible to them, but the reverse; and the more vulnerable to their weapons. But the situation was now different to that under Weathertop, where Frodo acted merely in fear and wished only to use (in vain) the Ring's subsidiary power of conferring invisibility. He had grown since then. Would they have been immune from its power if he claimed it as an instrument of command and domination?
> Not wholly. I do not think they could have attacked him with violence, nor laid hold upon him or taken him captive; they would have obeyed or feigned to obey any minor commands of his that did not interfere with their errand – laid upon them by Sauron, who still through their nine rings (which he held) had primary control of their wills. That errand was to remove Frodo from the Crack. Once he lost the power or opportunity to destroy the Ring, the end could not be in doubt – saving help from outside, which was hardly even remotely possible.
> Frodo had become a considerable person, but of a special kind: in spiritual enlargement rather than in increase of physical or mental power; his will was much stronger than it had been, but so far it had been exercised in resisting not using the Ring and with the object of destroying it. He needed time, much time, before he could control the Ring or (which in such a case is the same) before it could control him; before his will and arrogance could grow to a stature in which he could dominate other major hostile wills. Even so for a long time his acts and commands would still have to seem 'good' to him, to be for the benefit of others beside himself.
> The situation as between Frodo with the Ring and the Eight might be compared to that of a small brave man armed with a devastating weapon, faced by eight savage warriors of great strength and agility armed with poisoned blades. The man's weakness was that he did not know how to use his weapon yet; and he was by temperament and training averse to violence. Their weakness that the man's weapon was a thing that filled them with fear as an object of terror in their religious cult, by which they had been conditioned to treat one who wielded it with servility. I think they would have shown 'servility'. They would have greeted Frodo as 'Lord'. With fair speeches they would have induced him to leave the Sammath Naur – for instance 'to look upon his new kingdom, and behold afar with his new sight the abode of power that he must now claim and turn to his own purposes'. Once outside the chamber while he was gazing some of them would have destroyed the entrance. Frodo would by then probably have been already too enmeshed in great plans of reformed rule – like but far greater and wider than the vision that tempted Sam (III 177)5 – to heed this. *But if he still preserved some sanity and partly understood the significance of it, so that he refused now to go with them to Barad-dûr, they would simply have waited. Until Sauron himself came. In any case a confrontation of Frodo and Sauron would soon have taken place, if the Ring was intact.* Its result was inevitable. Frodo would have been utterly overthrown: crushed to dust, or preserved in torment as a gibbering slave. Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of 'mortals' no one, not even Aragorn._



I can't imagine Frodo standing right in front of a giant flaming Eye and somehow handing the Ring to him...


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## Matthew Bailey01

As a substitute "real Catholic" (I was born Catholic, and even though I left that faith - and any other - I did study the relevant theology), the term "Real Presence" is a form of expression regarding the heretical belief, that Evil has an _actual substance_ and is not just the absence of Good or God.

The Early Christian theologian Boethius wrote a great deal about this aspect of evil.

Troll has included most of the Post-Vatican II Theology regarding the issue.

But we have to remember, Tolkien lived most of his life _prior_ to Vatican II, and wrote _The Lord of the Rings_ prior to Vatican II as well.

Tolkien incorporated many things that would be considered heretical by the Catholic Church.

One such think was that Evil, and Darkness (as well as Goodness and Light) had actual _Substance_.

That is to say, you could turn to someone holding four vats (Good, Evil, Light, and Dark), and say "I would like a bushel of Goodness, a pound of Evil, and a quart each of light and dark, to go, please."

Thus, Sauron's Spirit would have been enough for him to take on physical shape. To say "Evil had taken shape in him" would be no metaphor.

We see other examples of this in the "presences" of the Nazgûl as a tangible weight pressing down on everyone.

We see this in the webs of darkness woven in Valinorë by Ungoliantë, or in the vats or wells of light collected around the two tree which Ungoliantë drank.

MRB


I obviously take Middle-earth too seriously!

Also, the "no one can withstand his eye" is an expression, from Old English, referring to a person's gaze, not just an eye.

If you are going to be that literal, then other statements to the effect of "no one could resist once the Eye of Sauron fell upon them" you might as well say that he is taking his "eye" out of his head, and physically dropping it upon them.

MRB


I obviously take Middle-earth too seriously!


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## grimalkin

There is nothing heretical to the RCC because this is fable, but JRR doesnt explain how this world of his becomes the real world we live in. Lets leave that... Is Sauron bound to Mordor, can he roam freely as a spirit again after his return to Mordor? If he was confined to Mordor v(lets say by Galadrielc's powerb) then he could be a lighthouse, an eye, a ring or a termite hill .... i guess... i think that there should be made a distinction between Sauronc's spirit power and energy ... they are distinct, in that his will is v(just like other willsb) spiritual forces acting on natural ie, spirit working on energy and on matter ...


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## Ingolmin

I am here to answer the first question put up by my friend Bucky, friend of Steve Rogers. Just joking!!
Sauron was a Mair as you know and he had the power to put on the shape he wished to have.
When he was defeated in the War of Wrath, he took a shape of a man fair to look upon and full of wisdom. The elves were so much enamored of him that they befriended him. So, he was called Atanar, Lord of Gifts.During the drowning of Numenore, he had lost his mortal body in which he had commited many sins as the Lieutenant of Melkor. But still, he yet had much power to take a shape. So he took the shape of a Dark Lord much like his master had taken and never did changes his form again. It was told by Tolkien that he appeared of a greater stature than that of Men(even the Dunedain) and his eye was so terrible that only few could endure it.
When Isildur, son of Elendil cut the Ring from his hand, Sauron fled in his spirit form fearing that his power was lost but he could not be finished till his ring was destroyed because most of his power lived in it. So he took shape again in Mirkwood helped by his faithful servants, the Nazgul but till he could not attain the Ring, his eye was only visible. So, I think that Sauron would have taken at least 4 shapes(one as Mairon, one as Lieutenant of Melkor, one as friend of elves and men and one as a Dark Lord).


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## Smegma

Howdy! I'm new to this forum and couldn't resist this thread. Sauron is not a Lighthouse and thought I'd put in my 2 cents.
My theory is that the Great Eye and the effect of the tower resembling a lighthouse is as follows. Sauron no matter what form he was in is established as using a "seeing stone". If he was in some kind of spirit form he could have actually been residing *in* the seeing stone. The effect of lights and the big eye was his willpower utilizing the stone to gaze outward. When other individuals tried using the other stones they were subjected to his gaze like immediately. In the book when the Steward of Gondor went into the tower to use his stone it said something to the effect that there was a light effect coming from the tower and that was just from being used by a mortal. Imagine that effect being multiplied by being used by someone in a higher weight class, like Sauron.


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## CheriptheRipper

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Yeah, that's what I figured. I did notice you had a few posts in that previous thread I linked in my last post.
> 
> Anyways, I hope PJ doesn't have a giant floating eye in Dol Guldur if he shows anything from that at all...


How did you end up liking Sauron's portrayal in the latter hobbit films?


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## Erestor Arcamen

CheriptheRipper said:


> How did you end up liking Sauron's portrayal in the latter hobbit films?


I liked them, thought he was cool looking. I wasn't a huge fan of those movies but didn't hate the way the portrayed him


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## Squint-eyed Southerner

A more recent thread that -- for a brief moment -- was on the same topic:








Depiction of Sauron at the time of the war of the Ring


Does anyone have any pictures of what they believe Sauron would appear as in Mordor during the war of the ring?




www.thetolkienforum.com


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