: Hardly! Sauron was recovering from having to reform after the fall of Numenor, which he was right in the middle of. Gil-galad and Elendil had the greatest force of the peoples of Middle Earth ever assembled, short of The War of Wrath (or the Fifth Battle - can't remember) and the two most potent weapons of the age at their disposal. So the weakened Sauron was up against the odds. He was far from full power so its not surprising that he lost! Although it is probably the case that Gil-galad and Elendil got lucky!

>>Where in Tolkien's work does it ever say that Sauron is recovering. Recovering from what? Gandalf suffered a far more traumatic situation and he recovered in a matter of days. Second of all, where does it say Gil-galad and Elendil got lucky? You don't get lucky and beat someone like Sauron in hand to hand. I do agree though that there probably wasn't enough power in Middle-earth to destroy Sauron at that time in the Third Age. Though the good side would have Gandalf, Radagast, Alatar, Pallando, Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, Bombadil, and Cirdan. Not to bad but maybe not enough. But of course if the Valar came, it would be over ring or no ring. And our arguement aside, if Eonwe came with the Vanyar and the Noldor of Valinor it would be over.

: : So the ring isn't the be-all and end-all holy graille of magic powers. And he was an actual guy then instead of just this brooding, skulking, shapeless eye-guy. Well, he'd probably crush Minas Tirith and Rohan. But what then? How's he going to run the whole continent? Especially if his guys are a bunch of idiot orcs and mutton eating trolls? What kind of regional administrators are they gonna be? Look at Mordor, his own home turf, it's a stinking sty! And this guy, this quaking cloud of oily smoke, is going to centrally plan and administer to all of Middle Earth? He'd have his hands (if he had any... by the way, how's he going to wear the thing anyway?) full just keeping the stupid orcs in line. So even if he did manage to conquor most of Middle Earth, he wouldn't be able to hold it together for long.

: Untrue! For a start the One Ring *was* the most potent artefact of all time, short of Morgoth's Iron Crown. And where do you get the idea that Sauron is some shapeless misty form from? He always had the ability to reform. OK after the fall of Numenor he could only take the form of some meanacy Dark Lord, but he could still take such a form. Gollum say that the Dark One has only nine fingers now (or maybe that's just in the BBC radio version - I haven't got LotR on me to check the small details). As for administrators - well we get an idea of the sort of people he would use to rule the far reaches of Middle Earth in The Black Gate Opens and the Mouth of Sauron trotts on out! Black Numenoreans! Powerful, Intelligent, cunning, etc, etc! You can be sure the The Mouth was not the last of his kind, and besides, Sauron's and the Ring's power was to dominate, by force, the minds of others. With the One Ring, it wouldn't matter who was in control of a particular area, Sauron would have total control of their minds and they would simply do as he commanded, if they were not intelligent enough to work on their own iniative.

: If he did get the One back, he would not only conquer Middle Earth, but the world would be under his Iron heel until the end.

Again, only if the Valar stayed out of it. Because the Ring only had Sauron's native power put into it. And no Maiar is stronger than a Valar.

Jon