12-19-2020, 11:14 PM
Lord Sauron ~ Veiled Malice
Of all the evil antagonists ever portrayed in literature, the Dark Lord Sauron is certainly one of the most mysterious. He is not Evil itself embodied in the Satanic Lord Morgoth who poisoned the two Trees of the Undying Lands, but he is its servant, and as a loyal servant he has learned all the diabolical ways of his Master. Since he has plagued Middle Earth for millennia and has been reduced to a black shapeless spirit of terror, we know he is immortal like the Valar and at one time was a spirit of good as Lord Elrond declares, “... nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.”69 Sauron then is obviously a fallen member of an angelic race similar to demons in Christian theology, and as such he is greatly feared by all the faithful peoples of Middle Earth who remain true to the One Creator and His immortal Guardians, the Valar. Strangely, in spite of the terror he spreads and the vast armies under his command, we do not see Lord Sauron throughout the entire epic of Lord of the Rings. He is only perceived under different veils for we learn in the Chronicles in the Appendixes that he assumes various 'shapes' throughout the different ages when his evil powers grow, but his forms are never fully described. He did at least have a hand on which he bore the One Ring before Isildur hacked it off, but whether he assumed a man-like shape or a beast with a hand-like appendage is left to the imagination. At another point in Middle Earth’s history he had assumed another form and was called the ‘Necromancer’, but again, what he looked like, and indeed if he looked human at all, is left a mystery.
During the Third Age in which the Lord of the Rings takes place, it is curious that Tolkien leaves this shadowy veil draped over his principal character of evil. Considering that for the first time in millennia Sauron has the opportunity of crushing the last remnant of the Faithful Númenoreans and is reaching the zenith of his powers, he does not rise forth in a blaze of demonic bravado to lead his own armies as the reader might expect in fantastic literature such as this. Tolken completely sidesteps this dramatic imagery and instead, he reveals one particular feature of Sauron's being that fills the world with awe and fear ~ the Great Lidless Eye, a burning Eye, an Evil eye that never sleeps and watches over all, plotting, seeking, mustering fell beasts, rallying evil allies and causing despair.
Frodo is shown a vision of the terrible Eye in the Mirror of Lady Galadriel:
“But suddenly the Mirror went altogether dark, as dark as if
a hole had opened up in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into
emptiness. In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that
slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mirror. So terrible was it
that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze.
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.”70
a hole had opened up in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into
emptiness. In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that
slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mirror. So terrible was it
that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze.
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.”70
69 Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 284.
70 Ibid. p. 383.