Sauron

Origins

Sauron began as one of the Maiar of Aulë, and from the smith he learned the craft and the love of order that never left him. In the earliest days of Arda Melkor drew him into his service, and he became the greatest and most trusted of the Dark Lord's servants, less powerful than his master but more subtle, and for a long time less wholly corrupted; the histories suggest that Sauron's original wish was to see things well ordered, and that his fall lay in coming to believe that order could only be achieved by his own domination. The Elves of Beleriand called him Gorthaur the Cruel.

Lieutenant of Angband

In the First Age Sauron commanded Angband during Melkor's imprisonment and served as his chief captain afterward. A master of shape-changing, sorcery and the breeding of monsters, he was lord of werewolves and vampires, and his chief servants were Draugluin, the father of werewolves, and Thuringwethil, the vampire messenger. In F.A. 457, after the Dagor Bragollach, he took Finrod's tower on Tol Sirion and made it Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves, from which he watched the passes into Beleriand. There he captured Beren and Finrod and their companions, defeated Finrod in a contest of song, and had them devoured one by one. Lúthien came with Huan, the hound bit Sauron's throat as he shifted from wolf to serpent to his own shape, and he yielded the mastery of the tower to save his body, fleeing as a great vampire to Taur-nu-Fuin. It was his one defeat in the First Age, and he never forgot it.

The Second Age

When Morgoth was overthrown Sauron came before Eönwë in a fair form and repented, or seemed to; but when he was told that he must return to Valinor for judgement, he fled and hid in Middle-earth. About S.A. 1000 he chose Mordor as his realm and began Barad-dûr. Then, calling himself Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, he went to the Elven-smiths of Eregion, whom Gil-galad and Elrond had refused to admit, and taught Celebrimbor and his fellows the making of the Rings of Power. In secret, about S.A. 1600, he forged the One Ring in the fire of Mount Doom, pouring much of his own strength into it so that it would rule the others. The Elves perceived him the moment he put it on, and hid the Three. War followed: Sauron destroyed Eregion, killed Celebrimbor, took the Seven and the Nine, and was only stopped by the Númenórean fleet under Tar-Minastir. With the Nine he made the Nazgûl, his most terrible servants, led by the Witch-king.

In S.A. 3262 Ar-Pharazôn of Númenor landed with a host so great that Sauron's own servants deserted him, and he surrendered and was taken to Númenor as a hostage. Within a few decades he was the king's chief counsellor. He turned the Númenóreans to the worship of Melkor, built a temple in Armenelos where the White Tree was burned and men were sacrificed, and persuaded Ar-Pharazôn that he could win immortality by conquering Aman. When the fleet sailed and Eru broke the world, Sauron's body was destroyed in the drowning of Númenor. His spirit returned to Mordor, but he could never again take a fair shape.

Elendil and his sons, escaping the Downfall, founded the realms in exile, and Sauron attacked them before they were secure. The Last Alliance of Elves and Men marched on Mordor, won the Battle of Dagorlad, and besieged Barad-dûr for seven years. Sauron came out at last and fought on the slopes of Orodruin; he killed both Gil-galad and Elendil, but Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shard of Narsil, and his spirit fled from his body.

The Third Age

For a thousand years Sauron was a shadow. Then he took shape in Dol Guldur in Greenwood, which darkened into Mirkwood, and was known only as the Necromancer. The Valar sent the Istari in answer. His Nazgûl founded Angmar and destroyed the North-kingdom, then took Minas Ithil from Gondor. Gandalf discovered his identity in 2850, and in 2941 the White Council drove him from Dol Guldur, but it was too late: he had already returned to Mordor in secret, and in 2951 he declared himself openly and rebuilt Barad-dûr. He captured Gollum and learned that the Ring had been found by a Hobbit named Baggins, and in 3018 he sent the Nine to the Shire.

The War of the Ring was the last act of his long career. He struck at Osgiliath, Minas Tirith and the North, expecting Aragorn to take up the Ring and challenge him, and when Aragorn showed himself in the palantír and marched on the Black Gate Sauron emptied Mordor to crush him. At that moment Frodo reached the Cracks of Doom, and Gollum fell into the fire with the Ring. With its destruction the power that Sauron had placed in it was gone, Barad-dûr fell, and his spirit rose as a vast shadow over Mordor and was blown away by the wind from the West. He can never take shape again.

Nature and legacy

Sauron was never as mighty as Morgoth, but he was more dangerous to the later ages precisely because he was more focused: where Morgoth spent his power into the whole substance of the World in hatred, Sauron concentrated his into a single object and a single purpose, the ordering of Middle-earth under his will. He could appear fair until the Downfall, and his gifts of persuasion undid Eregion and Númenor. In the Third Age he was seen only as an Eye, and his servants ruled in his name. Every evil of the later ages, the Nazgûl, the Orcs of Mordor, the corruption of Saruman and the Easterlings and Haradrim, was his work, and his destruction ended the age of the Ainur's open conflict in Middle-earth. Gandalf noted that Sauron, being wholly consumed by his desire for the Ring, could not imagine that anyone would try to destroy it, and that this blindness was his undoing.

When the One Ring was destroyed on 25 March T.A. 3019, Sauron's spirit was reduced to a powerless shadow that can never take shape again.