Sauron

{{further|History of Arda|Decline and fall in Middle-earth}}

The Ainulindalë tells how the supreme being Eru began the creation with good, immortal spirits, the Ainur. The lesser Maiar included Sauron, under the greater Valar. The Vala Melkor rebelled against Eru,The story of the Song of Creation was presented by the Valar "according to our modes of thought and our imagination of the visible world, in symbols that were intelligible to us". {{harvnb|Tolkien|1994|p=407}}{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc="Ainulindalë"}} starting evils{{harvnb|Tolkien|1996|p=413}} that Sauron continued. Sauron perceived Eru directly;{{harvnb|Tolkien|1993|pp=395–398}} he was "far higher" than the Maiar who later came to Middle-earth as Wizards.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#183, notes on W. H. Auden's review of The Return of the King }}

Sauron served Aulë, the smith of the Valar, acquiring knowledge;{{harvnb|Tolkien|1993|p=52}}{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc="Valaquenta"}} he was called Mairon (Quenya: "The Admirable") until he joined Melkor. In Beleriand, he was called Gorthu (Sindarin: "Mist of Fear") and Gorthaur (Sindarin: "The Cruel").Parma Eldalamberon #17, 2007, p. 183 Sauron, hating disorder, was drawn to Melkor's power.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc="Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"}} He became a spy for Melkor on the isle of Almaren, the Valar's home, which Melkor soon destroyed; the Valar moved to Valinor, not perceiving Sauron's treachery.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951 }} Sauron followed Melkor to Middle-earth,{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|p=239}} joining the Valar's enemy.

Sauron helped Melkor in every kind of deceit.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1993|pp=420–421}} By the time Elves awoke, Sauron was Melkor's lieutenant with command over the stronghold of Angband. The Valar made war on and captured Melkor; Sauron escaped.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 3 "Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor"}} He repaired Angband, and bred an army of Orcs. Melkor, now called Morgoth, murdered Finwë, King of the Noldor, and escaped to Middle-earth with the Silmarils, pursued by the Noldor.{{efn|This conflicts with earlier versions of the story, in which Orcs existed before the wakening of the Elves, as in The Fall of Gondolin.{{harvnb|Tolkien|2018|p=25}}}} Sauron directed the war against the Elves, conquering their fortress of Minas Tirith (not the later city in Gondor) on the isle of Tol Sirion. Lúthien came there to save her lover, the imprisoned Beren, with Huan the Wolfhound. Sauron, as a werewolf, battled Huan, who took him by the throat; he was defeated and left as a huge vampire bat. Lúthien destroyed the tower and rescued Beren. Eärendil sailed to Valinor, getting the Valar to fight Morgoth in the War of Wrath; he was cast into the Outer Void, but again Sauron escaped.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1987|p=333}}

In the Second Age, Sauron reappeared, intent on taking over Middle-earth.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#153 to Peter Hastings (draft) }} To seduce the Elves into his service, Sauron assumed a fair appearance as Annatar, "Lord of Gifts" and befriended Celebrimbor's Elven-smiths. He taught them arts and magic, helping them to forge the Rings of Power. Sauron secretly forged the One Ring, to rule all the others. The Elves detected him when he put on the Ring, and removed their Rings. Enraged, Sauron made war, killed Celebrimbor, and seized the Seven and the Nine Rings of Power. The Three Rings were hidden by the Elves Gil-galad, Círdan, and Galadriel. Sauron attacked them. The Elves were saved by an army from Númenor, defeating Sauron. Sauron fortified Mordor and completed the Dark Tower of Barad-dûr. He distributed the Seven and the Nine Rings to lords of Dwarves and Men. Dwarves would not submit, but he enslaved Men as the feared Nazgûl. Orcs, Trolls, Easterlings and men of Harad became his servants.

Late in the Second Age, Númenor sought to colonise Middle-earth. Led by Ar-Pharazôn, a massive army sailed to Middle-earth to battle Sauron. Dismayed, Sauron surrendered, hoping to corrupt Númenor from within.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#211 to Rhona Beare, 14 October 1958 }} Using the One Ring, Sauron soon dominated the Númenóreans, undermining Númenor's religion, and inciting the island to worship Melkor with human sacrifice. Sauron convinced Ar-Pharazôn to attack Aman by sea to steal immortality from the Valar. The Valar appealed to Eru, who destroyed Númenor. Sauron's body was destroyed and he lost the ability to appear beautiful.

Led by Elendil, nine ships escaped from the Downfall; they founded the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in Middle-earth. Sauron returned to Mordor and made war on these Exiles.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=Appendices}} He captured Minas Ithil; Elendil's son Isildur escaped down the Anduin. Anárion defended Osgiliath and drove Sauron's forces back to the mountains. Elendil, Isildur and Anárion formed the Last Alliance with the Elves and defeated Sauron at Dagorlad. They invaded Mordor and besieged Barad-dûr for seven years. Finally, Sauron came out to fight face-to-face, killing Elendil and Gil-galad; Elendil's sword Narsil broke beneath him. Isildur took up the hilt-shard and cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, vanquishing Sauron. Isildur refused to destroy the Ring by casting it into Mount Doom, but kept it for his own.

{{further|The Lord of the Rings}}

Isildur was ambushed by Orcs at the Gladden Fields. Isildur put on the Ring and attempted to escape by swimming across Anduin, but the Ring slipped from his finger. Isildur was killed by Orc archers. Sauron spent a thousand years as a shapeless evil.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1980|loc="The disaster of the Gladden Fields", p. 275}}

Sauron eventually reembodied, hiding in Mirkwood as the Necromancer, in Dol Guldur, "Hill of Sorcery".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", "The Third Age"}} The chief of the Nazgûl, the Witch-king of Angmar, destroyed the northern realm of Arnor. When attacked by Gondor, the Witch-king retreated to Mordor. The Nazgûl captured Minas Ithil, renamed Minas Morgul, and seized its palantír, a seeing stone from Númenor.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1980|loc=part 4, ch 3 "The Palantíri"}} The White Council of Wizards discovered Sauron,{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond", and Appendix B.}} and drove him from Mirkwood. He returned to Mordor, openly declared himself, rebuilt Barad-dûr, and bred armies of large orcs, Uruks.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=Appendix A, "The Stewards": "In the last years of Denethor I the race of Uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor."}} (Denethor I died in TA 2477.)

The One Ring, lost in the Anduin, was found by the hobbit Sméagol. The Ring corrupted him. He shunned sunlight and took on the personality of Gollum. He retreated into caves, obsessed with the Ring, his "Precious". It slipped from him and was picked up by Bilbo Baggins. Gollum attempted to murder Bilbo and reclaim the Ring, but Bilbo escaped when the Ring slipped onto his finger. Many years later, Gandalf identified Bilbo's ring, now passed down to his cousin Frodo, as Sauron's One Ring. He tasked Frodo with taking it to Rivendell.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"}}

Sauron tortured Gollum and discovered where the Ring was.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"}} Sauron sent the Nazgûl to pursue Frodo, but he escaped to Rivendell, where Elrond convened a council. It determined that the Ring should be destroyed in Mount Doom by the Company of the Ring. Saruman attempted to capture the Ring, but was defeated. The palantír of Orthanc fell into the hands of the Company; Aragorn, Isildur's descendant and heir to the throne of Gondor, used it to show himself to Sauron as if he held the Ring. Sauron, troubled, attacked Minas Tirith prematurely. His army was destroyed at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Frodo entered Mordor. Aragorn distracted Sauron with an attack on Mordor's Black Gate.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=book 5, ch. 9 "The Last Debate"}} Frodo reached Mount Doom, but claimed the Ring for himself, revealing the Ring to Sauron. Gollum seized the Ring and fell into the Cracks of Doom, destroying it and himself. Sauron was utterly defeated, and vanished from Middle-earth.

Tolkien never described Sauron's appearance in detail, though he painted a watercolour illustration of him.{{harvnb|Hammond|Scull|1995|pp=152ff}} Sarah Crown, in The Guardian, wrote that "we're never ushered into his presence; we don't hear him speak. All we see is his influence". She called it "a bold move, to leave the book's central evil so undefined – an edgeless darkness given shape only through the actions of its subordinates", with the result that he becomes "truly unforgettable ... vaster, bolder and more terrifying through his absence than he could ever have been through his presence".{{cite news |last=Crown |first=Sarah |title=Baddies in books: Sauron, literature's ultimate source of evil |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/oct/27/baddies-in-books-sauron-literatures-ultimate-source-of-evil |access-date=19 September 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=27 October 2014 |archive-date=28 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028060905/https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/oct/27/baddies-in-books-sauron-literatures-ultimate-source-of-evil |url-status=live }}

He was initially able to change his appearance at will, but when he became Morgoth's servant, he took a sinister shape. In the First Age, the outlaw Gorlim was ensnared and brought into "the dreadful presence of Sauron", who had daunting eyes.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 19, "Of Beren and Luthien"}} In the battle with Huan, the hound of Valinor, Sauron took the form of a werewolf. Then he assumed a serpent-like form, and finally changed back "from monster to his own accustomed [human-like] form".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 20 "Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad"}} He took on a beautiful appearance at the end of the First Age to charm Eönwë, near the beginning of the Second Age when appearing as Annatar to the Elves, and again near the end of the Second Age to corrupt the men of Númenor. He appeared then "as a man, or one in man's shape, but greater than any even of the race of Númenor in stature ... And it seemed to men that Sauron was great, though they feared the light of his eyes. To many he appeared fair, to others terrible; but to some evil."{{harvnb|Tolkien|1987|p=67}} After the destruction of his fair form in the fall of Númenor, Sauron always took the shape of a terrible dark lord.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#246 to Eileen Elgar, September 1963 }} His first incarnation after the Downfall of Númenor was hideous, "an image of malice and hatred made visible".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=Akallabêth}} Isildur recorded that Sauron's hand "was black, and yet burned like fire".

{{anchor|Eye of Sauron}}

File:Flag of Mordor SVG.svg in 1954]]

Throughout The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" (known by other names, including the Red Eye, the Evil Eye, the Lidless Eye, the Great Eye) is the image most often associated with Sauron. Sauron's Orcs bore the symbol of the Eye on their helmets and shields, and referred to him as the "Eye" because he did not allow his name to be written or spoken, according to Aragorn.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=book 3, ch. 5 "The Departure of Boromir"}}{{efn|A notable exception was Sauron's emissary, the Mouth of Sauron.}} The Lord of the Nazgûl threatened Éowyn with torture before the "Lidless Eye" at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=book 5, ch. 6 "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"}} Frodo had a vision of the Eye in the Mirror of Galadriel:

{{blockquote|The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 2, ch. 7 "The Mirror of Galadriel"}}}}

Later, Tolkien writes as if Frodo and Sam really glimpse the Eye directly. The mists surrounding Barad-dûr are briefly withdrawn, and:

{{blockquote|one moment only it stared out ... as from some great window immeasurably high there stabbed northward a flame of red, the flicker of a piercing Eye ... The Eye was not turned on them, it was gazing north ... but Frodo at that dreadful glimpse fell as one stricken mortally.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=book 6, ch. 3 "Mount Doom"}}}}

This raises the question of whether an "Eye" was Sauron's actual manifestation, or whether he had a body beyond the Eye. Gollum (who was tortured by Sauron in person) tells Frodo that Sauron has, at least, a "Black Hand" with four fingers.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=book 4, ch. 3 "The Black Gate is Closed"}} The missing finger was cut off when Isildur took the Ring, and the finger was still missing when Sauron reappeared centuries later. Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion that "the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure" even before his body was lost in the War of the Last Alliance. In the draft text of the climactic moments of The Lord of the Rings, "the Eye" stands for Sauron's very person, with emotions and thoughts:

{{blockquote|The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him [Frodo], the Eye piercing all shadows ... Its wrath blazed like a sudden flame and its fear was like a great black smoke, for it knew its deadly peril, the thread upon which hung its doom ... [I]ts thought was now bent with all its overwhelming force upon the Mountain..."{{harvnb|Tolkien|1992|loc=part 1, ch. 4 "Mount Doom"}}}}

Christopher Tolkien comments: "The passage is notable in showing the degree to which my father had come to identify the Eye of Barad-dûr with the mind and will of Sauron, so that he could speak of 'its wrath, its fear, its thought'. In the second text ... he shifted from 'its' to 'his' as he wrote out the passage anew."

Since the earliest versions of the Silmarillion legendarium, as detailed in the History of Middle-earth series, Sauron underwent many changes. The prototype or precursor Sauron-figure was a giant monstrous cat, the Prince of Cats. Called Tevildo, Tifil and Tiberth among other names, this character played the role later taken by Sauron in the earliest version of the story of Beren and Tinúviel in The Book of Lost Tales in 1917.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1984b|loc=Part Two, "The Tale of Tinúviel"}} The Prince of Cats was later replaced by Thû, the Necromancer. The name was then changed to Gorthû, Sûr, and finally to Sauron. Gorthû, in the form Gorthaur, remained in The Silmarillion; both Thû and Sauron name the character in the 1925 Lay of Leithian.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1984|loc="The Lay of Leithian"}}

The story of Beren and Lúthien also features the heroic hound Huan and involved the subtext of cats versus dogs in its earliest form. Later the cats were changed to wolves or werewolves, with Sauron becoming the Lord of Werewolves.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 18 "Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin"}}

Before the 1977 publication of The Silmarillion, Sauron's origins and true identity were unclear to those without access to Tolkien's notes. In 1968, the poet W. H. Auden conjectured that Sauron might have been one of the Valar.{{cite journal |last=Auden |first=W. H. |author-link=W. H. Auden |title=Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings |journal=Critical Quarterly |volume=10 |issue=1–2 |date=June 1968 |pages=138–142 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8705.1968.tb02218.x}}

{{further|Evil in Middle-earth}}

Tolkien stated in his Letters that although he did not think "Absolute Evil" could exist as it would be "Zero", "in my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible." He explained that, like "all tyrants", Sauron had started out with good intentions but was corrupted by power, and that he "went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination", being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit. He began as Morgoth's servant; became his representative, in his absence in the Second Age; and at the end of the Third Age actually claimed to be 'Morgoth returned{{' "}}.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#183 notes on W. H. Auden's review of The Return of the King }}

{{see also|Tolkien and the classical world}}

The classicist J. K. Newman comments that "Sauron's Greek name" makes him "the Lizard", {{ety|grc|σαῦρος (sauros)|lizard or reptile}}, and that in turn places Frodo (whose quest destroys Sauron) as "a version of Praxiteles' Apollo Sauroktonos", Apollo the Lizard-killer.{{cite journal |last=Newman |first=J. K. |title=J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings': A Classical Perspective |journal=Illinois Classical Studies |volume=30 |year=2005 |pages=229–247 |jstor=23065305}}

Gwenyth Hood, writing in Mythlore, compares Sauron to Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. In her view, both of these monstrous antagonists seek to destroy, are linked to powers of darkness, are parasitical on created life, and are undead. Both control others psychologically and have "hypnotic eyes". Control by either of them represents "high spiritual terror" as it is a sort of "damnation-on-earth".{{cite journal |last=Hood |first=Gwenyth |title=Sauron and Dracula |journal=Mythlore |date=1987 |volume=14 |issue=2 (52) |pages=11–17, 56 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss2/2/ |access-date=2020-05-31 |archive-date=2020-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200919185156/https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss2/2/ |url-status=live }}

{{further|Celtic influences on Tolkien}}

Edward Lense, also writing in Mythlore, identifies a figure from Celtic mythology, Balor of the Evil Eye, as a possible source for the Eye of Sauron. Balor's evil eye, in the middle of his forehead, was able to overcome a whole army. He was a leader of the supernatural Fomorians. Lense further compares Mordor to "a Celtic hell", just as the Undying Lands of Aman resemble the Celtic Earthly Paradise of Tír na nÓg in the furthest (Atlantic) West; and Balor "ruled the dead from a tower of glass".{{cite journal |last=Lense |first=Edward |title=Sauron and Dracula |journal=Mythlore |date=1976 |volume=4 |issue=1 |at=article 1 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol4/iss1/1/ |access-date=2020-05-31 |archive-date=2020-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200918170825/https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol4/iss1/1/ |url-status=live }}

The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that if there was an opposite to Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, it would not be Aragorn, his political opponent, nor Gandalf, his spiritual enemy, but Tom Bombadil, the earthly Master who is entirely free of the desire to dominate and hence cannot be dominated.{{cite book |last=Flieger |first=Verlyn |author-link=Verlyn Flieger |chapter=Sometimes One Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures |editor1-last=Bogstad |editor1-first=Janice M. |editor2-last=Kaveny |editor2-first=Philip E. |title=Picturing Tolkien |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNjKrXRP0G8C&pg=PA244 |year=2011 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=978-0-7864-8473-7 |pages=50–51 |access-date=2020-06-28 |archive-date=2020-09-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921142641/https://books.google.com/books?id=jNjKrXRP0G8C&pg=PA244 |url-status=live }}

File:Sauron.jpg, in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring{{cite web |title=Sala Baker |url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2bcac0937e |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203145133/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2bcac0937e |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 3, 2020 |publisher=British Film Institute |access-date=13 September 2022}}]]

In film versions of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron has been left off-screen as "an invisible and unvisualizable antagonist" as in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version,{{cite encyclopedia |last=Langford |first=Barry |title=Bakshi, Ralph (1938–) |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-last=Drout |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |encyclopedia=J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA48 |year=2013 |orig-year=2007 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=Abingdon, England |isbn=978-0-415-96942-0 |page=48 |access-date=2020-07-03 |archive-date=2020-08-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200802072541/https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA48 |url-status=live }} or as a disembodied Eye, as in Rankin/Bass's 1980 animated adaptation of The Return of the King.{{Cite web |url=http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/tolkien/rotk-2-3400-eye-sauron.html |title=The Eye of Sauron – J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King |access-date=2006-10-13 |archive-date=2017-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170601224634/http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/tolkien/rotk-2-3400-eye-sauron.html |url-status=live }}

In the 2001–2003 film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, Sauron is voiced by Alan Howard. He is briefly shown as a large humanoid figure clad in spiky black armour, portrayed by Sala Baker,{{cite web |last=Vejvoda |first=Jim |title=Lord of the Rings: Amazon Series Reportedly Includes Sauron, Galadriel, and Elrond |url=https://www.ign.com/articles/lord-of-the-rings-series-sauron-galadriel-elrond |publisher=IGN |access-date=14 October 2022 |date=31 July 2020 |quote=The villainous Sauron was played in humanoid form by Sala Baker, while Alan Howard voiced the antagonist in The Lord of the Rings}} but appears only as the disembodied Eye throughout the rest of the storyline.{{cite journal |last=Harl |first=Allison |title=The monstrosity of the gaze: critical problems with a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings |date=Spring–Summer 2007 |journal=Mythlore |volume=25 |issue=3 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol25/iss3/7 |access-date=14 October 2022 |archive-date=19 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200919191226/https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol25/iss3/7/ |url-status=live }} In earlier versions of Jackson's script, Sauron does battle with Aragorn, as shown in the extended DVD version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The scene was removed as too large a departure from Tolkien's text and was replaced with Aragorn fighting a troll.{{cite web |last=Stauffer |first=Derek |title=Lord Of The Rings: 15 Deleted Scenes You Won't Believe Were Cut |url=https://screenrant.com/lord-of-the-rings-best-deleted-scenes-extended-edition/ |website=Screen Rant |access-date=31 May 2020 |date=10 August 2017 |archive-date=6 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806035624/https://screenrant.com/lord-of-the-rings-best-deleted-scenes-extended-edition/ |url-status=live }} Sauron appears as the Necromancer in Jackson's The Hobbit film adaptations, where he is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.{{cite news |last=Child |first=Ben |title=Hobbit forming: will Peter Jackson give Tolkien's story a new ending? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jan/06/the-hobbit-peter-jackson-ending |access-date=31 May 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=6 January 2012 |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111173337/http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jan/06/the-hobbit-peter-jackson-ending |url-status=live }}

Sauron appears in the form of his eye in the 2017 The Lego Batman Movie voiced by Jemaine Clement. He is one of the many classic villains the Joker frees from the Phantom Zone to run amok in Gotham City.{{Cite web |first=Caitlin |last=Busch |url=https://www.inverse.com/article/27676-lego-batman-villains-voldemort-sauron-godzilla-king-kong-daleks-jaws/amp |title=The 9 Most Surprising Cameos in 'Lego Batman' |date=February 10, 2017 |access-date=3 January 2021 |archive-date=29 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029063450/https://www.inverse.com/article/27676-lego-batman-villains-voldemort-sauron-godzilla-king-kong-daleks-jaws/amp |url-status=live}}{{Cite web |first=Caitlin |last=Busch |url=https://www.inverse.com/article/27707-lego-batman-voldemort-sauron-daleks-harry-potter-lord-of-the-rings-doctor-who/amp |title='LEGO Batman' Crosses over with 'Harry Potter,' 'Doctor Who,' and 'Lord of the Rings' |date=February 10, 2017|access-date=3 January 2021 |archive-date=29 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029063449/https://www.inverse.com/article/27707-lego-batman-voldemort-sauron-daleks-harry-potter-lord-of-the-rings-doctor-who/amp |url-status=live}}

File:Alternative views of Evil in the world.svg are hinted at in Tolkien's Middle-earth writings: Manichaean, where evil coexists with good, and Augustinian, where the world is created good, and evil represents the absence of goodness. ]]

Sauron appears in the merchandise of the Jackson films, including computer and video games. These include The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (where he was voiced by Fred Tatasciore), The Lord of the Rings: Tactics, and The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age.{{cite news |last=Power |first=Ed |title=The battle of Middle Earth: how Christopher Tolkien fought Peter Jackson over The Lord of the Rings |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/battle-middle-earth-christopher-tolkien-fought-peter-jackson/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/battle-middle-earth-christopher-tolkien-fought-peter-jackson/ |archive-date=2022-01-11 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=31 May 2020 |work=The Telegraph |date=17 January 2020}}{{cbignore}}{{cite news |last1=Sammut |first1=Mark |title=Every Single The Lord Of The Rings Video Game, Officially Ranked |url=https://www.thegamer.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-video-games-ranked-best-all-time/ |newspaper=Thegamer |access-date=3 July 2020 |date=23 July 2018 |archive-date=3 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200703115658/https://www.thegamer.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-video-games-ranked-best-all-time/ |url-status=live }} In the Lord of the Rings Online game, he is featured as an enemy.{{cite journal |last=Bainbridge |first=William Sims |title=Virtual Nature: Environmentalism in Two Multi-player Online Games |journal=Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture |date=September 2010 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=135–152 |doi=10.1558/jsrnc.v4i3.135 }}

Sauron's rise to power in the Second Age is portrayed in the Amazon prequel series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.{{cite news |last=Otterson |first=Joe |title='Lord of the Rings' Amazon Series Reveals Full Title in New Video |website=Variety |date=19 January 2022 |url=https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/lord-of-the-rings-rings-of-power-amazon-series-1235156784/ |access-date=23 July 2022 }} He first appears disguised as the non-canonical human character Halbrand,{{cite news |last=Hibberd |first=James |title='The Rings of Power' Finale: Even Sauron Actor Didn't Know He Was Sauron at First |work=The Hollywood Reporter |date=13 October 2022 |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/rings-of-power-finale-sauron-actor-interview-1235240895/ |access-date=14 October 2022}} and then in the second season as Annatar (a canonical alias of Sauron), both played by Charlie Vickers.{{cite magazine |last=Dockterman |first=Eliana |title=Why Sauron Can Change Form on The Rings of Power |date=29 August 2024 |magazine=Time magazine |url=https://time.com/7010955/the-rings-of-power-sauron-true-form/ |accessdate=30 August 2024}} The Halbrand persona was conceived to make the audience share the feeling of being deceived by Sauron, and to ensure he would not overshadow other characters. Afterwards, he would be allowed to function like other classic TV villains (such as Walter White or Tony Soprano), or Lucifer in John Milton's Paradise Lost.{{cite news |last=Hibberd |first=James |title='The Rings of Power' Showrunners: Sauron Will Be Like Walter White in Season 2 |work=The Hollywood Reporter |date=13 October 2022 |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/rings-of-power-sauron-season-2-lotr-1235240809/ |access-date=5 October 2024}} Vickers said he was unaware of his character's true identity until filming the third episode. He admitted he began to suspect when lines from John Milton's Paradise Lost, a narrative poem about the biblical story of the fall of man, were used during an audition. Jack Lowden portrays the character's First Age and early Second Age form in flashback in the second season premiere. The depiction of evil in Arda as embodied in Sauron shifts both in Tolkien's writings and in the Amazon series. The prequel adopts Tolkien's use of both Augustinian and Manichean attitudes to evil.{{cite journal |last1=Walther |first1=Bo Kampmann |last2=Larsen |first2=Lasse Juel |year=2024 |title=Beyond the Fantasy of Orcs: Orcish Transformation in Amazon's The Rings of Power |journal=HumaNetten |issue=52 (Spring 2024) |pages=92–109 |url=https://open.lnu.se/index.php/hn/article/view/4305/3796 |doi=10.15626/hn.20245209|doi-access=free }}

{{further|List of things named after J. R. R. Tolkien and his works}}

The Eye of Sauron is mentioned in The Stand, a 1978 post-apocalyptic novel written by Stephen King. The villain Randall Flagg possesses an astral body in the form of an "Eye" akin to the Lidless Eye. The novel itself was conceived by King as a "fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting".{{cite book |last=King |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen King |title=The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York City |date=1978 |isbn=978-0-385-12168-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/stand00step_1 |url-access=registration}} The idea of Sauron as a sleepless eye that watches and seeks the protagonists also influenced King's epic fantasy series The Dark Tower; its villain, the Crimson King, is a similarly disembodied evil presence whose icon is also an eye.{{cite book |last=Magistrale |first=Tony |author-link=Tony Magistrale |date=21 December 2009 |title=Stephen King: America's Storyteller |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=neqOJbFjVvEC&pg=PA40 |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=Praeger |page=40 |isbn=978-0313352287 |access-date=19 May 2015 |archive-date=29 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029063451/https://books.google.com/books?id=neqOJbFjVvEC&pg=PA40 |url-status=live }}

In the Marvel Comics Universe, the supervillain Sauron, an enemy of the X-Men created in 1969, names himself after the Tolkien character.{{cite comic |writer=Roy Thomas |penciller=Neal Adams |inker=Tom Palmer |letterer=Sam Rosen |editor=Stan Lee |story=In the Shadow of...Sauron! |title=The X-Men |volume=1 |issue=60 |date=September 1969 |publisher=Marvel Comics |location=New York City}} In the comic series Fables, by Bill Willingham, one character is called "The Adversary", an ambiguous figure of immense evil and power believed to be responsible for much of the misfortune in the Fables' overall history. Willingham has stated "The Adversary", in name and in character, was inspired by Sauron.{{cite web |last=O'Shea |first=Tom |title="This is a Wonderful Job": An Orca Q&A with Fables' Bill Willingham | year=2003 |url=http://www.orcafresh.net/interview/in020503.html |access-date=31 July 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050429103441/http://www.orcafresh.net/interview/in020503.html |archive-date=29 April 2005}} Interview with Bill Willingham

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Category:The Silmarillion characters

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de:Figuren in Tolkiens Welt#Sauron