Sauron

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sauron
Tolkien character
J. R. R. Tolkien's watercolour illustration of Sauron[T 1]
In-universe information
Aliases
  • Mairon (originally)
  • Annatar
  • The Dark Lord
  • The Necromancer
  • Lord of the Rings
Race
Maia
Book(s)

Sauron (pronounced [ˈsaʊrɔn]

Ainur, the "angelic" powers of his constructed myth, "were capable of many degrees of error and failing", but by far the worst was "the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron".[T 5]
Sauron appears most often as "the Eye", as if disembodied.

Tolkien, while denying that absolute evil could exist, stated that Sauron came as near to a wholly evil will as was possible. Commentators have compared Sauron to the

Balor of the Evil Eye in Irish mythology. Sauron is briefly seen in a humanoid form in Peter Jackson's film trilogy
, which otherwise shows him as a disembodied, flaming Eye.

Fictional history

Before the world's creation

The

Vala Melkor (later called Morgoth) rebelled against Eru, breaking the cosmic music that Eru had used in the world's creation with discord.[T 8][T 9] So began "the evils of the world",[T 10] which Sauron continued.[T 7]

Sauron's fall in the First Age

Servant of Aulë

Sauron served

Almaren, the dwelling-place of the Valar.[T 11] Melkor soon destroyed Almaren, and the Valar moved to the Blessed Realm of Valinor, still not perceiving Sauron's treachery.[T 15] Sauron left the Blessed Realm and went to Middle-earth, the central continent of Arda, where Melkor had established his stronghold.[T 16] Sauron openly joined the Valar's enemy.[T 6]

Lieutenant of Morgoth

Sauron became Morgoth's capable servant,

War of Wrath; he was defeated and cast into the Outer Void beyond the world, but again Sauron escaped.[T 20]

The Rings of Power in the Second Age

by the Tolkien fan
Álvaro Fernández González de Suron, 2022

About 500 years into the

Downfall of Númenor

Toward the end of the Second Age, Ar-Pharazôn, king of Númenor, led a massive army to Middle-earth. Sauron surrendered, to corrupt Númenor from within.

Aman by sea to steal immortality from the Valar.[T 5][T 15] The Valar laid down their guardianship of the world and appealed to Eru.[T 5] Eru destroyed the fleet, reshaped the world into a globe, removing Aman from the physical world. Númenor was drowned under the sea, Sauron's body was destroyed in the tumults and he lost the ability to appear beautiful.[T 22]

War of the Last Alliance

Led by

Círdan, Gil-galad's lieutenants, urged Isildur to destroy the Ring by casting it into Mount Doom, which would have banished Sauron from Middle-earth for ever, but he refused and kept it for his own.[T 14]

Third Age

A few years after the War of the Last Alliance, Isildur's army was ambushed by Orcs at the

Anduin, but the Ring, trying to return to Sauron, slipped from his finger. Isildur was killed by Orc archers. Sauron spent a thousand years as a shapeless, dormant evil.[T 24]

The Necromancer of Dol Guldur

Sauron concealed himself in the south of

The War of the Ring

In 3017, Gandalf identified Bilbo's Ring, now passed down to Bilbo's cousin

Black Gate of Mordor.[T 30] Frodo and Sam reached Mount Doom, but at the last minute Frodo was entranced by the Ring and claimed it for himself. That revealed the Ring to Sauron. He realised it was in peril of destruction, and ordered the Nazgûl to fly to Mount Doom to recover it. But it was too late: Gollum seized the Ring and fell into the Cracks of Doom, destroying the Ring and himself. Thus Sauron was utterly defeated, and vanished from Middle-earth.[T 30]
Tolkien describes Sauron's destruction:

...black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.[T 31]

Appearance

Physical body

Tolkien never described Sauron's appearance in detail, though he painted a watercolour illustration of him.[T 1] Sarah Crown, in The Guardian, wrote that "we're never ushered into his presence; we don't hear him speak. All we see is his influence".[2] She called it "a bold move, to leave the book's central evil so undefined – an edgeless darkness given shape only through the actions of its subordinates",[2] with the result that he becomes "truly unforgettable ... vaster, bolder and more terrifying through his absence than he could ever have been through his presence".[2]

He was initially able to change his appearance at will, but when he became Morgoth's servant, he took a sinister shape. In the First Age, the outlaw Gorlim was ensnared and brought into "the dreadful presence of Sauron", who had daunting eyes.

Eönwë, near the beginning of the Second Age when appearing as Annatar to the Elves, and again near the end of the Second Age to corrupt the men of Númenor. He appeared then "as a man, or one in man's shape, but greater than any even of the race of Númenor in stature ... 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."[T 34] After the destruction of his fair form in the fall of Númenor, Sauron always took the shape of a terrible dark lord.[T 35] His first incarnation after the Downfall of Númenor was hideous, "an image of malice and hatred made visible".[T 36] Isildur recorded that Sauron's hand "was black, and yet burned like fire".[T 4]

Eye of Sauron

A flag displaying the Red Eye of Sauron, based on a design by Tolkien that was used on the cover of the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954

Throughout The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" (known by other names, including the Red Eye, the Evil Eye, the Lidless Eye, the Great Eye) is the image most often associated with Sauron. Sauron's Orcs bore the symbol of the Eye on their helmets and shields, and referred to him as the "Eye" because he did not allow his name to be written or spoken, according to Aragorn.

Lord of the Nazgûl threatened Éowyn with torture before the "Lidless Eye" at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.[T 38] Frodo had a vision of the Eye in the Mirror of Galadriel:[T 39]

The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.[T 39]

Later, Tolkien writes as if Frodo and Sam really glimpse the Eye directly. The mists surrounding Barad-dûr are briefly withdrawn, and:

one moment only it stared out ... as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye ... The Eye was not turned on them, it was gazing north ... but Frodo at that dreadful glimpse fell as one stricken mortally.[T 40]

This raises the question of whether an "Eye" was Sauron's actual manifestation, or whether he had a body beyond the Eye.[T 41] Gollum (who was tortured by Sauron in person) tells Frodo that Sauron has, at least, a "Black Hand" with four fingers.[T 42] The missing finger was cut off when Isildur took the Ring, and the finger was still missing when Sauron reappeared centuries later. Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion that "the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure" even before his body was lost in the War of the Last Alliance.[T 36] In the draft text of the climactic moments of The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" stands for Sauron's very person, with emotions and thoughts:[T 41]

The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him [Frodo], 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 ... [I]ts thought was now bent with all its overwhelming force upon the Mountain..."[T 41]

Christopher Tolkien comments: "The passage is notable in showing the degree to which my father had come to identify the Eye of Barad-dûr with the mind and will of Sauron, so that he could speak of 'its wrath, its fear, its thought'. In the second text ... he shifted from 'its' to 'his' as he wrote out the passage anew."[T 41]

Concept and creation

Since the earliest versions of The Silmarillion

Lay of Leithian.[T 44]

The story of

Huan and involved the subtext of cats versus dogs in its earliest form. Later the cats were changed to wolves or werewolves, with the Sauron-figure becoming the Lord of Werewolves.[T 45]

Before the publication in 1977 of The Silmarillion, Sauron's origins and true identity were unclear to those without access to Tolkien's notes. In 1968, the poet W. H. Auden conjectured that Sauron might have been one of the Valar.[3]

Interpretations

Wholly evil will

Tolkien stated in his Letters that although he did not think "Absolute Evil" could exist as it would be "Zero", "in my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible." He explained that, like "all tyrants", Sauron had started out with good intentions but was corrupted by power, and that he "went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination", being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit. He began as Morgoth's servant; became his representative, in his absence in the Second Age; and at the end of the Third Age actually claimed to be 'Morgoth returned'".[T 46]

Classically reptilian

The classicist J. K. Newman comments that "Sauron's Greek name" makes him "the Lizard", from

Apollo Sauroktonos", Apollo the Lizard-killer.[4]

Destructive Dracula-figure

Gwenyth Hood, writing in Mythlore, compares Sauron to Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. In her view, both of these monstrous antagonists seek to destroy, are linked to powers of darkness, are parasitical on created life, and are undead. Both control others psychologically and have "hypnotic eyes". Control by either of them represents "high spiritual terror" as it is a sort of "damnation-on-earth".[5]

Celtic Balor of the Evil Eye

Edward Lense, also writing in Mythlore, identifies a figure from

Earthly Paradise of Tír na nÓg in the furthest (Atlantic) West; and Balor "ruled the dead from a tower of glass".[6]

Antagonist

The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that if there was an opposite to Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, it would not be Aragorn, his political opponent, nor Gandalf, his spiritual enemy, but Tom Bombadil, the earthly Master who is entirely free of the desire to dominate and hence cannot be dominated.[7]

Sauron's opposite, as analysed by Verlyn Flieger[7]
Sauron Tom Bombadil
Role Antagonist Earthly counterpart
Title Dark Lord "Master"
Purpose Domination of whole of Middle-earth Care for
The Old Forest
"No hidden agenda, no covert desire or plan of operation"
Effect of the One Ring "Power over other wills" No effect on him "as he is not human", nor does it make others invisible to him, or him to others
How he sees the Ring The Eye of Sauron desires to dominate through the Ring Looks right through it, his "blue eye peering through the circle of the Ring"

Adaptations

Film

Sauron, portrayed by Sala Baker, in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring[8]

In film versions of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron has been left off-screen as "an invisible and unvisualizable antagonist"

Rankin/Bass' 1980 animated adaptation of The Return of the King.[10]

In the 2001–2003 film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, Sauron is voiced by Alan Howard. He is briefly shown as a large humanoid figure clad in spiky black armour, portrayed by Sala Baker,[11][8] but appears only as the disembodied Eye throughout the rest of the storyline.[12] In earlier versions of Jackson's script, Sauron does battle with Aragorn, as shown in the extended DVD version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The scene was removed as too large a departure from Tolkien's text and was replaced with Aragorn fighting a troll.[13] Sauron appears as the Necromancer in Jackson's The Hobbit film adaptations, where he is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.[14]

Sauron appears in the form of his eye in the 2017 The Lego Batman Movie voiced by Jemaine Clement. He is one of the many classic villains the Joker frees from the Phantom Zone to run amok in Gotham City.[15][16]

Television

Sauron's rise to power in the Second Age is portrayed in the Amazon Prime prequel series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.[17] He appears disguised as the non-canonical character Halbrand, played by Charlie Vickers.[18]

Video games

Sauron appears in the merchandise of the Jackson films, including computer and video games. These include

Lord of the Rings Online game, he is featured as an enemy.[21]

In culture

The Eye of Sauron is mentioned in

post-apocalyptic novel written by Stephen King. The villain Randall Flagg possesses an astral body in the form of an "Eye" akin to the Lidless Eye. The novel itself was conceived by King as a "fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting".[22] The idea of Sauron as a sleepless eye that watches and seeks the protagonists also influenced King's epic fantasy series The Dark Tower; its villain, the Crimson King, is a similarly disembodied evil presence whose icon is also an eye.[23]

In the

Marvel Comics Universe, the supervillain Sauron, an enemy of the X-Men, names himself after the Tolkien character.[24] In the comic series Fables, by Bill Willingham, one character is called "The Adversary", an ambiguous figure of immense evil and power believed to be responsible for much of the misfortune in the Fables' overall history. Willingham has stated "The Adversary", in name and in character, was inspired by Sauron.[25]

Notes

  1. ^ This is made clear in the chapter "The Council of Elrond", where Glorfindel states that "soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it".[T 4]
  2. Mouth of Sauron
    .

References

Primary

  1. ^ a b Hammond & Scull 1995, pp. 152ff
  2. ^ Tolkien 1977, "Note on Pronunciation": "The first syllable of Sauron is like English sour, not sore"
  3. ^ Strack, Paul (2008–2023). "Quenya pronunciation and transcription". the sounds were approximately those represented by i, e, a, o, u in English "machine", "were", "father", "for", "brute", irrespective of quantity. A representation of these sounds in typical English-dictionary style would be "ee, eh, ah, oh, oo.
  4. ^ a b c Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond"
  5. ^ a b c d e f Carpenter 2023, #156 to Robert Murray, S.J., 4 November 1954
  6. ^ a b c d e Carpenter 2023, #183, notes on W. H. Auden's review of The Return of the King
  7. ^ a b c d e Tolkien 1993, pp. 395–398
  8. Valar "according to our modes of thought and our imagination of the visible world, in symbols that were intelligible to us". Tolkien 1994
    , p. 407
  9. ^ Tolkien 1977, "Ainulindalë"
  10. ^ Tolkien 1996, p. 413
  11. ^ a b Tolkien 1993, p. 52
  12. ^
    Valaquenta
    "
  13. Parma Eldalamberon
    #17, 2007, p. 183
  14. ^ a b c d e Tolkien 1977, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
  15. ^ a b c d e Carpenter 2023, #131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951
  16. ^ Tolkien 1955, p. 239
  17. ^ a b c Tolkien 1993, pp. 420–421
  18. ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 3 "Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor"
  19. ^ Tolkien 2018, p. 25
  20. ^ Tolkien 1987, p. 333
  21. ^ Carpenter 2023, #153 to Peter Hastings (draft)
  22. ^ a b c Carpenter 2023, #211 to Rhona Beare, 14 October 1958
  23. ^ Tolkien 1955, Appendices
  24. ^ Tolkien 1980, "The disaster of the Gladden Fields", p. 275
  25. ^ Tolkien 1955, Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", "The Third Age"
  26. ^ Tolkien 1980, part 4, ch 3 "The Palantíri"
  27. ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond", and Appendix B.
  28. ^ Tolkien 1955, Appendix A, "The Stewards": "In the last years of Denethor I the race of Uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor." (Denethor I died in TA 2477.)
  29. ^ Tolkien 1954a, part 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"
  30. ^ a b Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 9 "The Last Debate"
  31. ^ Tolkien 1955, book 6, ch. 4 "The Fields of Cormallen"
  32. ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 19, "Of Beren and Luthien"
  33. ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 20 "Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad"
  34. ^ Tolkien 1987, p. 67
  35. ^ Carpenter 2023, #246 to Eileen Elgar, September 1963
  36. ^
    Akallabêth
  37. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 5 "The Departure of Boromir"
  38. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 5, ch. 6 "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"
  39. ^ a b Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 7 "The Mirror of Galadriel"
  40. ^ Tolkien 1955, book 6, ch. 3 "Mount Doom"
  41. ^ a b c d Tolkien 1992, part 1, ch. 4 "Mount Doom"
  42. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 3 "The Black Gate is Closed"
  43. ^ Tolkien 1984b, Part Two, "The Tale of Tinúviel"
  44. ^ Tolkien 1984, "The Lay of Leithian"
  45. ^ Tolkien 1977, ch. 18 "Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin"
  46. ^ Carpenter 2023, #183 notes on W. H. Auden's review of The Return of the King

Secondary

  1. TheOneRing.net. Archived
    from the original on 14 September 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2006.
  2. ^ a b c Crown, Sarah (27 October 2014). "Baddies in books: Sauron, literature's ultimate source of evil". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
  3. .
  4. .
  5. ^ Hood, Gwenyth (1987). "Sauron and Dracula". Mythlore. 14 (2 (52)): 11–17, 56. Archived from the original on 2020-09-19. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  6. ^ Lense, Edward (1976). "Sauron and Dracula". Mythlore. 4 (1). article 1. Archived from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-05-31.
  7. ^ from the original on 2020-09-21. Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  8. ^ a b "Sala Baker". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on December 3, 2020. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
  9. ^ from the original on 2020-08-02. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  10. ^ "The Eye of Sauron – J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King". Archived from the original on 2017-06-01. Retrieved 2006-10-13.
  11. ^ Vejvoda, Jim (31 July 2020). "Lord of the Rings: Amazon Series Reportedly Includes Sauron, Galadriel, and Elrond". IGN. Retrieved 14 October 2022. The villainous Sauron was played in humanoid form by Sala Baker, while Alan Howard voiced the antagonist in The Lord of the Rings
  12. ^ Harl, Allison (Spring–Summer 2007). "The monstrosity of the gaze: critical problems with a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore. 25 (3). Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  13. ^ Stauffer, Derek (10 August 2017). "Lord Of The Rings: 15 Deleted Scenes You Won't Believe Were Cut". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  14. ^ Child, Ben (6 January 2012). "Hobbit forming: will Peter Jackson give Tolkien's story a new ending?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  15. ^ Busch, Caitlin (February 10, 2017). "The 9 Most Surprising Cameos in 'Lego Batman'". Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
  16. ^ Busch, Caitlin (February 10, 2017). "'LEGO Batman' Crosses over with 'Harry Potter,' 'Doctor Who,' and 'Lord of the Rings'". Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
  17. ^ Otterson, Joe (19 January 2022). "'Lord of the Rings' Amazon Series Reveals Full Title in New Video". Variety. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
  18. ^ Hibberd, James (13 October 2022). "'The Rings of Power' Finale: Even Sauron Actor Didn't Know He Was Sauron at First". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  19. ^ Power, Ed (17 January 2020). "The battle of Middle Earth: how Christopher Tolkien fought Peter Jackson over The Lord of the Rings". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  20. ^ Sammut, Mark (23 July 2018). "Every Single The Lord Of The Rings Video Game, Officially Ranked". Thegamer. Archived from the original on 3 July 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  21. .
  22. .
  23. from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  24. ^ Roy Thomas (w), Neal Adams (p), Tom Palmer (i), Sam Rosen (let), Stan Lee (ed). "In the Shadow of...Sauron!" The X-Men, vol. 1, no. 60 (September 1969). New York City: Marvel Comics.
  25. ^ O'Shea, Tom (2003). ""This is a Wonderful Job": An Orca Q&A with Fables' Bill Willingham". Archived from the original on 29 April 2005. Retrieved 31 July 2007. Interview with Bill Willingham

Sources

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article: Sauron. Articles is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license; additional terms may apply.Privacy Policy