What race/specie is Sauron?

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by gsmoove23

Someone posted a site that mentioned Gandalf was given a ring of fire, was this a ring of power connected to the one ring?

It was one of the "three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky", which were never touched by Sauron. Hence he had no control over them.

[gsmoove23]

Well ah'll be!

[Guest]

And about why Sauron was beaten the first time and his comparitive strength.
I believe it is implied that the humans and elves of those time were much stronger.
I mean the blood of Numenor still flowed, and human and elves traded a lot, and there were maybe more elves.

[Lord Merciless]

It's quite amazing how much impact that book has on later generations. The entire Dungeon and Dragon franchise was based on Tolkien, and so many authors have ripped off his ideas.

I still have this question though:

Why were Elves and Humans able to defeat Sauron the first time when he had the ring, but did have so much trouble the second time when he didn't have it?

[altF18]

Middle-Earth, yes! Great stories there...
and information about it isn't always elusive.
Here's a site, well, it's name say's it all - Encyclopedia of Arda (Middle-Earth)
Great stuff, though often simplified.

enjoy

[altF18]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
I still have this question though:

Why were Elves and Humans able to defeat Sauron the first time when he had the ring, but did have so much trouble the second time when he didn't have it?

The Last Alliance of Elves and Men...
The strength of Elves and Men were united, and therefore the armies of Sauron were crushed swiftly and the Barad-dur itself was besieged. Gil-galad and Elendil themselves fought Sauron, and they slew his body. After that, the elves left oversea, since their lands were ravaged and they forsook Middle-Earth due to Sauron's evils. And the strength of Men dwindled.
So when Sauron rose again there were little elves and the glory of the Dunedain was less, as Arnor was no more and Gondor had dwindled due to multiple wars and mingling. Sauron had armies lining up against Gondor, and no hlep could come from the North. So thus the events of LOTR.
but then again, the host of Mordor was swiftly crushed on the Pellenor, and the Black Gate itself was again assailed though without hope and by a sufficently smaller force.
It was impossible to gather an army to invade Mordor again, and so they were weaker than before.

[Sarxis]

The Istari and the Balrogs are both Maiar, and it is in the Silmarillion where it explains it in detail:

"For of the Maiar many were drawn to his [Morgoth] splendour in the days of his greatness, and remained in that allegiance down into his darkness... Dreadful among these spirits were the Valaraukar, the scourges of fire that in Middle-earth were called the Balrogs, demons of terror." pg 31

"Wisest of the Maiar was Olorin. ... In later days he was the friend of all the Children of Iluvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness." pgs. 30-1

And from the Index of Names in the back:

Olorin A Maia, one of the Istari (Wizards); see Mithrandir, Gandalf


You don't get to live 300 lives of men smoking Hobbit Hash.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
Why were Elves and Humans able to defeat Sauron the first time when he had the ring, but did have so much trouble the second time when he didn't have it?

In the first war, Sauron had only had a limited amount of time using the rings to establish mominion over the rest of middlee earth and did not have as many armies available. Indeed he had already already attack the evlish kingdoms prematurely and been crushed by the what remained of the and the Numenorians. And had to start over from near scratch. When begging to revover from that he was in conflict with the Numenorians, and when thaey laned with a Humogngous army, He decided it would be more profitable to corupt and co-opt them from within than fight them militarily, and he feign surrender and subservience to the Numenor's King, He corrupted most of Numenor and tricked the king and much of his army to destruction, sending them to attack Valinor, (hoping to pick up the kIngdom and its rescources) but the rection of the Valar destroyed numnor and Suarons body, another major setback for his power, from which he was not quite recovered, either in terms or army building or his in person combat power, when he attacked the Numenoreans exile Kingdoms, starting the war of the last alliance. In the third age, culminating in the war of the ring, he spent most of the OVER THREE MILLENIA consolidating imperial power in the rest of Middle Earth (of which the entire LoTR map is only about 1/6) before the War of the Ring.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
Why were Elves and Humans able to defeat Sauron the first time when he had the ring, but did have so much trouble the second time when he didn't have it?

They were only barely able to defeat him last time and that was only through an amazing stroke of luck; the severing of his hand. At least that was the impression that I got from the movie because I haven't read the Silmarillion yet.

[St Leo]

Re: What race/specie is Sauron?

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
How were the Elves and Men able to defeat him the first time when he had the ring, but had so much trouble the second time when he didn't have it?

Tolkien implemented the medieval notion of regress in his books. People in the Third Age were not as tough and intelligent as the ones in the Second. Civilization had, in many ways, collapsed.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba
The Istari and the Balrogs are both Maiar, and it is in the Silmarillion where it explains it in detail:

"For of the Maiar many were drawn to his [Morgoth] splendour in the days of his greatness, and remained in that allegiance down into his darkness... Dreadful among these spirits were the Valaraukar, the scourges of fire that in Middle-earth were called the Balrogs, demons of terror." pg 31

"Wisest of the Maiar was Olorin. ... In later days he was the friend of all the Children of Iluvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness." pgs. 30-1

And from the Index of Names in the back:

Olorin A Maia, one of the Istari (Wizards); see Mithrandir, Gandalf

You don't get to live 300 lives of men smoking Hobbit Hash.

This is complicated by the fact that the books are occasionally coy about the origins of the Istari. Presumably, we are meant to draw the inference that the Istari are Maiar, but they are supposed to be the secret agents of the Valar so they are shrouded in mystery.

Personally, I think Radagast gets a bad rap, and I'd love to know what really happened to the blue wizards.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
Possibly, though they wouldn't have been much left afterwards. The ones taken by dragons were melted...

Peculiar to think if Bilbo Baggins had been toasted by Smaug - and it was a close call - LOTR might not have happened.

I'm glad it did, not just for the books but also for the movie.

I could be wrong on this but I'm sure Sauron is named as a Maier and Mithrandir (aka Gandalf) is too in the Silmarillion.

It's been like 20 years since I read it so I'm probably wrong.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Cruddy

Peculiar to think if Bilbo Baggins had been toasted by Smaug - and it was a close call - LOTR might not have happened.

Aha!

This couldn't have happened as Tolkien is pretty clear that the One Ring can only be destroyed in the fires of Orodruin.

The other rings, being made in Eregion and lifted by Sauron (excluding the three) when he destroyed it, presumably were subject to less stringent requirements for destruction.

[Cruddy]

Agathon, I thought the point was debated in the Council at Rivendell? As in "O for a handy dragon. Sadly we've killed them all."

I thought Tolkien was making a point here about species extinction - it looks like I read too much into that!

[Lonestar]

Originally a Maia of Aulë's people, Sauron was early corrupted by Melkor and became his most trusted lieutenant. In the Wars of Beleriand, Sauron was the most feared of Morgoth's servants, but after the War of Wrath and the expulsion of the first Dark Lord, Sauron rose to become the greatest enemy of Elves and Men in the Second and Third Ages.

from http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/