Posted: November 26, 1998 at 11:01:58: by Martin Read
: : Tolkien said that Sauron invested a large amount of his native
: : strength in the Ring. This raises a question, was Sauron an
: : appreciably stronger being after the Ring was made, or was it
: : just a tool to enable him to gain his objectives more easily?
: : In other words did the Ring magnify his power or just focus it?
: : I would tend to think the latter. : Tolkien wrote that the One Ring actually made Sauron stronger. It did indeed magnify Sauron's power by externalizing it. So the Ring did increase his raw power, though it seems that it was also a tool, and a trap designed to ensnare his unwary quarry. It had a number of advantages for Sauron: to achieve a particular short-term objective - mastery over the Eregionite Elven Ring Makers, and also to further a long term aim - domination of humanity. Plus it increased his strength - though it introduced a peril for Sauron in that it made him more vulnerable because destruction of the Ring would destroy him. He obviously considered the benefits the Ring offered outweighed the potential danger.
: : One of the things which distinguishes Sauron from Morgoth, to
: : me, is that Sauron is much more interested in dominating and
: : controlling others than Morgoth. Morgoth seems to be a
: : petulant child writ large, his main motives are to destroy or
: : pervert the works of others, especially those of Eru.
: [snip] : I believe that Tolkien compared them similarly. Morgoth tended to start the big projects, or perhaps conceived of them, but it was usually Sauron who carried them out. : Nonetheless, Morgoth's capacity for dominating the wills of others, at least before he had diffused most of his strength throughout Arda, was considerably greater than Sauron's. Very true, though I think Morgoth probably derived less pleasure from the domination of others than Sauron did. The greatest Morgothian triumph of Sauron was his ruin of Numenor, but unlike Morgoth I feel that Sauron would have gained more joy from ruling as the god-king of a thriving though distorted, debased and wicked Numenor than he did from its utter ruin. I think that Sauron engineered the attack of the Numenoreans on Valinor more in the slight hope of it succeeding, at least partially, than in the expectation of it merely leading to ruin. Perhaps Sauron's greatest hope would have been that destruction would have been limited to Ar Pharazon and his host, leaving him the master of Numenor and its great resources.
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