ethenalar

Angband in pictures

Marion, the cruel, lord of wolves.

I thought it would be nice to have our boy with his dogs, if only he could get them to be still for a bit. Also trying a new colour on sauron, hot blue.

saintmairon

Sauron: you slam door in face of husband? You call him jailbird? You wage war on him? Death to your only grandchild

ophelie-letanneur

Morgoth and Carcharoth

And Sauron and Draugluin

saurons-pr-department

Normal person that I am, I read all references to Sauron in Morgoth’s Ring yesterday and now I’m having some Thoughts:

What really intrigues me about the character of Sauron, is the fact that so much of Tolkien’s writing on his motives and personality (such as it is) talk about how he was originally good, how his desire for control and order originally came from the desire to provide for everyone’s well-being, how his knowledge of what made people tick had come from his former love of the minds of others. It’s emphasised that his later actions come from a perversion of these earlier desires. That his wanting everything to be ordered turned into everything should be ordered his way and that everyone would be happy if they just accepted him as their Lord, eventually morphing into a desire to be worshiped as a God-King.

I suppose, this intrigues me so much because Sauron is a character that is already evil by the time the earliest stories of Arda are happening. We never see him doing anything but be evil. I don’t think we even see him doing anything even vaguely morally ambiguous. Yet Tolkien often seems to take the time to point out that Sauron wasn’t always like this. There was a time when he genuinely wanted what was best for the Children. There’s even a suggestion that during Morgoth’s imprisonment, he actually tried to not be evil but got pulled back into it. There’s also, I believe, the occasional hint that he may have believed that he was actually helping in some way?

And yet… there’s not much in the way of explanation of how this happened. How did Melkor manage to lure The Admirable to his side? What were the “bonds” that he had laid upon him that meant that he fell back into darkness? How did this all happen?? Not to mention, we see him enjoy tricking people, defeating them, dabbling in dark magics that definitely aren’t helping anyone (necromancy, his werewolves…).

He’s just… sir, what are you trying to do???

fortuitousraven

Those are very intriguing points, Tolkien really should have shown us that too :(

Looking at the little we do get on Sauron’s motives for joining Melkor:

and [early 2nd Age Sauron] was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all ‘reformers’ who want to hurry up with 'reconstruction’ and 'reorganization’ are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up.

-Letters

It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.

-Morgoth’s Ring

, it seems that Sauron started by being impatient to achieve his aims. But why exactly did he need to be patient and why did he expect working under Melkor to be quicker for achieving them than working under Aulë?

The Valar are mostly constrained from them categorically refusing to take an ‘ends justifies the means’ approach, e.g. them releasing Morgoth from Mandos because they couldn’t justly have done otherwise. Did Mairon perhaps get frustrated by that?

Which is also interesting in light of Annatar’s lines, especially since we never see pre-corrupted Sauron so his short-lived redemption attempt is the closest we have to non-evil Sauron:

“Alas, for the weakness of the great! For a mighty king is Gil-galad, and wise in all lore is Master Elrond, and yet they will not aid me in my labours. Can it be that they do not desire to see other lands become as blissful as their own? But wherefore should Middle-earth remain for ever desolate and dark, whereas the Elves could make it as fair as Eressëa, nay even as Valinor? And since you have not returned thither, as you might, I perceive that you love this Middle-earth, as do I. Is it not then our task to labour together for its enrichment, and for the raising of all the Elven-kindreds that wander here untaught to the height of that power and knowledge which those have who are beyond the Sea?’

He again sees it as weakness that the Elves aren’t structuring the rest of Middle-earth according to their designs, when obviously those other lands have people who are outside their authority would have objected to them attempting that.

But luckily Annatar has a solution to that in the end with his mind-control rings ;). Which I think is what his desire for power ultimately originates form? He’s not willing to accept it when there are moral conflicts preventing him from doing what he thinks is best.

As for him also enjoying being cruel to people, I think a quote from 1984 is pretty relevant here: ‘How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer.’ It’s an extension of him coming to value having power for its own sake.

undercat-overdog

I think Sauron went to Morgoth because Sauron is interested in political power. He wants to rule, or to be the one organizing things from behind the throne. What chance did he have of that in Aule’s service, even as the chief of Aule’s people? As the chief of Morgoth’s people, he has that. And then when Morgoth was imprisoned, he had an opportunity to rule on his own - in Morgoth’s name, but Sauron was the one making the decisions when Morgoth was in Mandos, and in the Silmarillion we see him acting on his own too. Morgoth’s lieutenant, but when he’s onscreen he’s not in Angband but in Tol-in-Gaurhoth where he’s in charge.

The Second Age: it’s interesting that he went to Lindon first, not Eregion. Why Lindon? We know of no great smiths who are there, no masters of the deep lore of the Elves. Instead it’s the center of Elven political power and the High King lives there. Only when turned away does he go to Eregion. I don’t think he went to the Elves with the intention of making Rings of Power, or even of learning their deep knowledge. I think he went to Lindon with the intent of making himself Gil-Galad’s chief counselor and when he went to Eregion he probably wanted the same thing: to advice (read: control) the rulers. With good intentions, of course: he’s the one who knows what’s best and if others stand in his way they’re doing wrong.

But he found himself welcomed not by Galadriel and Celeborn but by the Gwaith-i-Mirdain, and found himself teaching and learning from them. Probably originally to insinuate himself in a group of people who did have influence in the land, but while Sauron desires power, he’s also a creative person who once followed Aule, the god of craft and making. It’s something he likes, something he’s good at. But Eregion is the only time we see him as a smith, a craftsman, some who makes things, the one time we don’t see him wielding or attempting to wield political or military power. I think Eregion was a surprise for him, an interlude, and not at all what he originally planned. I think he was having fun doing something that he loved and oh hey, this is a cool Ring project we’re working on, oh hey, I can bind all my will to dominate into One. But I don’t think making Rings of Power was at all his original goal, or even a gleam in his eye when he first set out to Lindon. 

As for cruelty, part of that is the human impulse of wanting to hurt people when you don’t get your way, when you don’t have control, when someone is doing something that you don’t want them to do. Having an awful day at work and on your drive home being an asshole on the road. Playing loud music when someone is trying to sleep. Sabotaging someone who got their way on a work project. Shaking that baby that’s been crying for two days straight. Torturing a colleague to death because he just won’t do what you want. That impulse can lead to petty meanness or to outright evil acts, but I think it’s very human. 

tosquinha

a powerpoint brainwashing tar mairon