This Is What You Need To Know About Sauron Ahead of 'The Rings of Power'
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The Dark Lord. The Deceiver. The Enemy. The Necromancer. The Lord of the Rings.
He was known by many names in the thousands and thousands of years of his existence. But who, or what, is Sauron, and why is he the Dark Lord at the center of much of the Tolkien universe? As we have explored the origins of other major characters set to play a role in the upcoming Amazon Prime show The Rings of Power, today we will explore the big bad himself.
Who Is Sauron?
That question could also be restated as what is Sauron?
To understand this, we must go back to the beginning, or rather, before the beginning. Eru Ilúvatar, the “god” of the Tolkien universe, created everything. Through what is called his “music,” Eru Ilúvatar sang everything into being, such as the world Arda (where Middle-earth resides), but also the Ainur, or holy ones, that would be his “children” and carry out the designs of his music in the universe.
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The Ainur, of which there were two orders, the Valar and the Maiar, were the most powerful and the first beings created by Eru Ilúvatar. The Valar were the chief and most powerful of the two orders. Think of them as gods themselves, but each had a specific task or focus. For example, there’s Ulmo, the King of the Sea (similar to the Greek god Poseidon). There was one Vala who was actually a little different and had a smattering of every other Valar’s powers. That would be Melkor, also known as Morgoth.
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The lesser of the two orders, the Maiar, was sort of like servants to the Valar. There have been many Maiar throughout time, and they are powerful beings. The wizards, like Saruman, Gandalf, and Radagast, were Maiar. As was Sauron. Since Sauron was a Maia, and the Maia was created before time, Sauron has been around for a long, long time.
His first name, back before time, was Mairon. He started as a servant of Aulë, a Vala whose chief focus was crafting and building things. Aulë was also the creator of the Dwarves. Being trained in the work of Aulë, Mairon became an excellent craftsman, which factors into the story later. Mairon came to covet power and control. This drew him to Melkor, and he joined with Melkor instead of staying with Aulë. He then became known as Gorthaur to some of the Elves, but Sauron to others. Sauron differed slightly from his new master in that Melkor wished to unmake the world and corrupt it, while Sauron, a builder, wanted to shape it and control it. As he became corrupted, Sauron took on new powers or skills. He became skilled at deception and could change his form. The more common ones were a wolf, a serpent, or a vampire. In time, Sauron became lord of the werewolves and all manner of dark beasts.
As Morgoth’s chief lieutenant, Sauron was highly active during the First Age. During one of the first attempts to stop the corruption of Morgoth, the Valar also looked for Sauron in Morgoth’s fortresses. With Sauron’s skill in deception and disguises, they did not find Sauron, and he was able to escape. This allowed Sauron to continue his work, in which he harried the Elves as they left the wasteland that was left after Morgoth’s first major war in Middle-earth, as well as command Morgoth’s armies to conquer Elven strongholds.
The First Age And The Silmarils
One of the biggest stories of Sauron in the First Age was his involvement in the story of the Silmarils, and his first major defeat. Beren, a mortal man, and Finrod Felagun, an Flf, went in search of the Silmarils stolen by Morgoth. They and ten of their companions disguised themselves as Orcs, but Sauron detected them when they entered his realm. He then captured them and threw them into a pit with a werewolf. This werewolf devoured each one of the group until only Beren and Finrod remained. Finrod killed the werewolf, but he himself was mortally wounded and died.
The Elf Lúthien, the love of Beren, came to his rescue. As she tried to rescue Beren, Sauron discovered her attempt and sought to capture her to give to Morgoth. He sent his wolves against her, but Lúthien’s hound, Huan, killed each of them until Sauron had to send the chief of the werewolves, Draugluin, against Huan. Huan killed Draugluin, forcing Sauron himself to come out in the form of a massive werewolf. As he tried to attack them, Lúthien blinded him and weakened him with her magic. This allowed Huan to clamp his jaws on Sauron. Sauron was unable to break free, trying all his different forms, until he finally yielded. In defeat, he fled as a vampire into a forest.
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At the end of the First Age, after the War of Wrath, when his master Morgoth was defeated and banished to the void, Sauron changed his form into a “fairer” form and repented. When he was forced to return to Valinor, the realm of the Valar, he refused and fled, hiding in Middle-earth
Until the Second Age.
The Second Age And Sauron’s Rise To Power
With his master gone, Sauron was free to resume his quest for dominance in Middle-Earth, but it would take some subtlety. Thinking the Valar had forgotten about him and Middle-earth, he resumed his work, but this time, he started with Men. The Men in the South and East of Middle-earth had already been corrupted by Morgoth, and thus he was able to sway them to his side. High King of the Noldor, Gil-galad, could sense this growing shadow and warned the Men of the West, the Númenorians, of this threat. Sauron came to fear their growing power, and moved to Mordor, turning it into his fortress realm and building his famous tower Barad-dûr (that ultimately fell in The Return of the King).
Despite being able to corrupt Men, his ultimate goal was to corrupt the Elves. However, Elves were not as easily corruptible, and they were more powerful, so he resorted to deception and subterfuge. Disguising himself as a Maia by the name of Annatar, Lord of Gifts, he came to the Elves of Lindon, ruled by Gil-galad. Gil-galad and his herald Elrond sensed something was wrong with Annatar and barred him from their realm. Undeterred, Sauron instead turned to Eregion. Originally ruled by Galadriel, she also distrusted Annatar. However, by the time he arrived in Eregion, Lord Celebrimbor was in charge, and he welcomed Annatar into his realm.
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Celebrimbor was himself a craftsman, and Annatar shared his gifts with them freely, teaching him and his Elves much of his art and magic. Annatar instructed them in the construction of the Rings of Power, which would help all the free people of Middle-earth to hold power over Middle-earth. He and Celebrimbor made several rings. Three were made for the Elves, seven for the Dwarves, and nine for Men.
But Sauron had a hidden agenda. Secretly, he crafted the One Ring. He poured most of his power into the crafting of this ring, creating it to control all the other rings and thus have dominion over the people of Middle-earth. His plans were revealed, however, and the elves learned of his true identity. Celebrimbor hid the Elven rings when he found out and did not use them. When he refused to turn over the other rings, Sauron went to war with the Elves.
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The Elves proved unable to resist Sauron’s power, even with the help of the Dwarves, and he laid waste to much of the realms of Elves inland of the coasts. Until Númenor arrived. The combined forces of Elves and Númenórean pushed Sauron into Mordor with little left of his great armies.
But he was not completely defeated.
The Fall Of Númenor
Though reduced greatly in number, his prior corruption held sway over the Men of the East and South, and he had managed to get the rings he desired, distributing them among Men and Dwarves. The Dwarves proved to be resistant to his corruption, but not men. Three lords of Númenor, and six other lords of Men throughout Middle-earth took the rings and succumbed to Sauron’s power, eventually becoming the Ringwraiths, his most powerful slaves.
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Still angry over his defeat after the arrival of Númenor, but knowing Men to be corruptible, he resorted to subterfuge to bring Númenor to his will. He allowed himself to be taken captive and brought to Númenor. There, he managed to corrupt their king, Ar-Pharazôn, and eventually became his advisor. With the ear of the king, he began to corrupt the rest of the island nation, getting them to worship his old master, Melkor. He had them create a great temple to worship Melkor and performed human sacrifice. With his corruption holding sway over Númenor, he convinced the king to rebel against the Valar, who had bestowed the gift of long life on the Númenorians for their help in the First Age against Melkor. They launched an attack on Valinor, realm of the Valar. This was enough to bring Eru Ilúvatar to intervention. He sank Númenor and its great fleet beneath the sea. Sauron was on Númenor when it sank. Losing his physical body, his spirit returned to Mordor.
Utterly weakened by this, his spirit was able to rebuild its strength and gained physical form again. However, he could no longer change into other forms and use deception. Therefore, he resorted to terror and force. The surviving Númenóreans had established kingdoms on the mainland. Under their king Elendil, they formed the Last Alliance of Elves and Men together with Gil-galad, Elrond, and Elendil’s son, Isildur. They marched against Sauron, eventually coming to Barad-dûr. After seven years, Sauron himself came down to the siege. Elendil and Gil-galad fought him directly, and though they managed to wound his physical form, they themselves were mortally wounded. In his weakened state, he was unable to take on Isildur, who managed to sever the One Ring from Sauron’s hand, banishing him.
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But the spirit of Sauron endured within the One Ring as the Second Age ended. His power grew again in the Third Age, the events of which are depicted in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Sauron’s actions take place over thousands of years, even in the Second Age, which is when The Rings of Power takes place. However, the story being told over five seasons of the show will be condensed, so it remains unknown how all of these things will be depicted in the show.
It will begin to unfold when the first two episodes debut on September 2nd.
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Source(s): Tolkien Gateway