Re: Sauron vs Morgoth (Re: A far higher order ??)

Michael O'Neill wrote:
Despite later meandering by Tolkien and others,

In other words, you're saying from the start that you're going to
dispute Tolkien's own words if I quote them. Too bad. here it comes! ;-)

it is quite clear
that by the time of Finrod's challenge he was not in a position to
easily destroy one Elf, never mind say, a dragon like Glaurung.

Because his *personal* power was diminished from dispersing it into the
substance of Arda. His power was in the creatures and armies that he
controlled. If they could be defeated piecemeal, and thereby an enemy
could gain access to him in direct combat, he was quite personally weak
(relative to his native strength).

Thus
he was reduced to manipulating his creatures by low cunning and
daunting them with his malice and what remained of his godhood.


Only on a certain level. His real control was through the Morgoth
element that was in all matter, which he was able to manipulate.

The policies of containment exercised by the returning Elves merely
hemmed him in that is true, but prior to that there was no mass
destruction of what was extant in Middle Earth. Once the rest of the
Valar had left, he simply ruled the World - he didn't try to destroy
it.


Yes, after they gave up and stopped creating, Morgoth stopped
destroying.

"Thus, as 'Morgoth', when Melkor was confronted by the existence of
other inhabitants of Arda, with other wills an intelligences, he was
enraged by the mere fact of their existence, and his only notion of
dealing with them was by physical force, or the fear of it. *His sole
ultimate object was their destruction*." (emphasis mine) (MR, 'Myths
Transformed' p395)

""Morgoth would no doubt, if he had been victorious, have ultimately
destroyed even his own 'creatures', such as the Orcs, when they had
served his sole purpose in using them.... Melkor could do nothing with
Arda, which was not from his own mind and was interwoven with the work
and thoughts of others: even left alone he could only have gone on
raging on till all was levelled again into a formless chaos.... Sauron
had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. *He did not object
to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with
it*". (emphasis mine)(ibid,p 396)

I think these two passages illustrate my point that the MO of Morgoth
and that of Sauron were quite different.

Sauron was not into such
destruction for its own sake.

Nor was Morgoth as noted above.

Rather, he preferred to maintain that was
created by the Valar, but dominate
the minds and wills of its
inhabitants.

As did Morgoth up until the Battle of Beleriand.

No. Morgoth did not tolerate *anything* the Valar created, and destroyed
(or attempted to destroy) all their works.


*Very* different than Morgoth.

The sam, I think you'll agree.

Nope. I think I won't. ;-)


and whereas Middlle Earth was Morgoth's Ring,

Say rather that all of *Arda* was 'Morgoth's Ring'.

<bows>

I stand corrected.

Sauron made do with a
golden trinket.

In which Sauron was more wise than Morgoth,
and was also ultimately more
powerful as a result.

Power is relative and Sauron, even with his Ring, was still of an
order of power less than Morgoth at his weakest.

"Sauron was 'greater', effectively, in the Second Age than Morgoth at
the end of the First... Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the
*physical* constituents of the Earth - hence all things that were born
on Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits,
were liable to be 'stained'. Morgoth at the time of the War of the
Jewels had become permanantly 'incarnate': for this reason he was
afraid, and waged the war almost entirely by means of devises, or of
subordinates and dominated creatures.

"Sauron, however, inherited the 'corruption' of Arda, and only spent his
(much more limited) power on the Rings; for it was the *creatures* of
the earth, in their *minds and wills*, that he desired to dominate."(MR,
'Myths Transformed, pp394-5)


Morgoth dispersed his power into the substance of
Arda, to the great diminution of his innate power.

Sauron *concentrated*
his power into the Ring, to the
augmentation of his personal power
(while he had the Ring).

I don't follow this "power augmentation" route at all.

Sauron put his personal power, being the greater part of that might
that was "native to him in his beginning" into the One Ring, to make
is a thing of surpassing potency, capable of subverting from afar the
other Rings and the wearers of the other Rings, of binding their
power to it so that they should last only so long as it should
persist.

Right.


This did not provide Sauron with any way of increasing his personal
power beyond what it was originally that I can see, merely a way of
focussing much os his personal power into the One Ring to enable it
to control the others and their wearers.

Tolkien gives numerous examples, that I really don't need to repeat
here, of how Sauron's might would have been complete had he regained the
Ring. By the time of the WotR, the only ringbearers that he would have
been able to dominate were the Ringwraiths, and he already had them. His
attempts to control the bearers of the Three had failed, and the same
thing would have happened had he regained the Ring. Are you suggesting
that the total premise of the WotR was so that Sauron could gain
*further* control of the Ringwraiths??

I'm not the first to use this analogy, but the name of the person
escapes me (Steuard?). The Ring is a tool. Just as I might try to hammer
a nail with my bare hand, using a hammer concentrates and focuses my
strength. So the same with Sauron and the Ring. Had he regained it his
victory would have been "swift and complete". I don't think that would
have been through the Ringwraiths alone.


<snip>
Sauron could simply have eaten his Ring and there would be no way to
"take" it from him.

Except maybe to fish it from the deep, dark latrines of Barad Dur. ;-)

<snip film references>
--
Bill

"Wise fool"
Gandalf, THE TWO TOWERS
-- The Wise will remove 'se' to reply; the Foolish will not--


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: On the Ainur
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  • Re: The One Ring -- pure evil or just really, really evil?
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  • Re: Sauron vs Morgoth (Re: A far higher order ??)
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    (rec.arts.books.tolkien)
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