Sauron, while evil as one could be, was not really Satan. He was really an evil wizard who was halfway between the shadow world and Middle Earth, much like the nine wring wraiths who were once kings of men, seduced by Sauron and accepted rings of power that corrupted them.
Sauron is actually a
Maia, an angelic spirit created by Eru (= God). You’re correct that he’s not exactly Middle Earth’s ‘Satan’ per se; that was his master, Melkor/Morgoth. That said, Sauron did take the mantle of ‘biggest baddie’ after Morgoth was thrown out into the Void following his defeat in the War of Wrath: he was, as Tolkien said, a ‘satellite’ of Morgoth.
In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. I do not think that at any rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil. Satan fell. In my myth Morgoth fell before Creation of the physical world. In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit.* In
The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about ‘freedom’, though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour. The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants;† if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world. So even if in desperation ‘the West’ had bred or hired hordes of orcs and had cruelly ravaged the lands of other Men as allies of Sauron, or merely to prevent them from aiding him, their Cause would have remained indefeasibly right. As does the Cause of those who oppose now the State-God and Marshal This or That as its High Priest, even if it is true (as it unfortunately is) that many of their deeds are wrong, even if it were true (as it is not) that the inhabitants of ‘The West’, except for a minority of wealthy bosses, live in fear and squalor, while the worshippers of the State-God live in peace and abundance and in mutual esteem and trust.
- Of the same kind as Gandalf and Saruman, but of a far higher order.
† By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. when Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. By the end of the Second Age he assumed the position of Morgoth’s representative. By the end of the Third Age (though actually much weaker than before) he claimed to be Morgoth returned.
He once had a physical body and was defeated by Isildur, High King of Gondor on the battlefield. Isildur, cut the ruling ring from Sauron’s hand after striking him down. Unfortunately, Isildur kept the ring for himself, having been seduced by it.
Isildur was co-ruler of Gondor and Arnor along with his brother Anarion. And strictly speaking, it was Elendil (Isildur and Anarion’s father) and Gil-galad who defeated Sauron, at the cost of their lives. Isildur cut the Ring off the defeated Sauron’s hand using the hilt of Elendil’s broken sword.
