It's been 15 years since I last readl LoTR and the Silmarilion. I just re-read all books recently...

It's been 15 years since I last readl LoTR and the Silmarilion. I just re-read all books recently, and even after 15 years, I can't shake the feeling that Sauron somehow was mightier than Melhor.

I know that he isn't, being a Maia while Melkor was a Vala and all... but doesn't Sauron feels... "smarter" than Melkor?

For instance, the first thing Melkor did was incarnate himself within Arda and attain a physical body. That means that for all intents and purposes the forgone his spiritual form and powers and bound himself to the limitations of his physical body.

Second, Melkor wanted to corrupt and destroy and pretty much seemed to have ADD, or at least some obcessive compulsive disorder, because while Sauron was busy commanding his armies and running Melkor's stuff, Melkor was obcessed with obtaining these shiny gems made of pure good that would also burn the fuck out of him (which is kinda idiotic.)

Yeah, Sauron wasn't so great in the Silmarillion. He got owned by a dog, got sung to sleep by an elf and suffered other blows, which never really affected him because he was never bound to a physical body (thus, not affected by physical damage) before the Fall of Numenor.

Melkor brute forces his way into everything, and out of the two (Melkor and Sauron), Melkor is the one getting permanently scarred and mauled over and over again (getting stabbed in the foot by an elf, getting owned by Ungoliant, getting owned by the other Valar, getting thrown in the Void).

Sauron on the other hand seems to be more aware of his lack of power. Dude plays the long-con when it comes to world domination, and is a master at cloak-and-dagger, to such a degree that he:

1) Fooled the same elves that had been fighting Melkor for ages and were weary and experienced in detecting evil.

2) Fooled men in the same way, AND manipulated the Valar into destroying Numenor.

3) Fooled the dwarves, but fuck dwarves

And the few times Sauron actually has to come out and whip ass, he does so magnificently (We can all agree Isildur could NOT take on Sauron 1on1 and the cutting off the finger was a 1 in 100 thing) , in comparisson with Melkor who only shows up to battle with a royal entourage of Balrogs and whatnot. And even without the ring Sauron was able to hold his own against the white council (even when he fleed it was to juke them). If we consider the films, he stood up to Elrond, Galadriel, and goddamn THREE Maiar of the same order as him (Gandalf, Radgast and Saruman).

So my question here is, did Tolkien actually go out of his way to portray Sauron in a more competent light as Dark Lord over Melkor? Or am I totally reading all of this wrong and Melkor is actually the GOAT Dark Lord.

nerd

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>intelectual talk
>nerd
pick one plebbitor

Sauron was greater with the ring (1v1) than Melkor by the War of Wrath.

Also.
Sauron wished to rule over the world.
Melkor was a super sadistic nihilist who wished to just destroy all of the universe, or at best enslave everyone.

You'd get a lot of response to this on Veeky Forums.

Sauron was more smarter than Melkor
While the first wanted to rule and reshape the world at his image, Melkor wanted just to destroy it for his own lust for chaos

>more smarter

Melkor is straight incompetent.
>army of dragons and balrogs that cant defeat treehuggers and neanderthals for hundreds of years
>impenetrable fortress without anyone properly guarding it
>cant enjoy music
>waaaah i hate my dad

Sauron
>patient (waits a millenia for his fag master to fall so he can rise in the next gen)
>cunning (Uses manipulation of races passion for power to gain his own)
>industrious(heralds forth a new age of nation building)
>shown to be magnanimous (his entire plan in the end was to test the race of men and bring about their true strength)

>Fooled men in the same way, AND manipulated the Valar into destroying Numenor.

That was Eru and not the Valar. This is why Sauron got scared.

Morgoth was the alpha when compared to Sauron. He was much more industrious than Sauron, plus he was more evil: he wanted to destroy the fucking universe in the name of pure chaos, and I would personally argue that's more evil than sadism and enslavement. Not to mention the fact that Morgoth WAS objectively more powerful than Sauron regarding the fact that Melkor was (arguably) a Valar while Sauron was a step down, being a very powerful Maiar. ALSO not to mention that Morgoth DID enslave and torture millions, arguably billions of individuals from all races, and he was so good at it, and was so fucking powerful, that Eru Himself had to intervene and send Morgoth to whatever the equivalent of hell is in Tolkien's literary universe. AND to top this all off, it's implied that Morgoth is so fucking powerful that the end of the world will come about by his escape. Morgoth is literally the most evil character in all of fiction, even moreso than Sauron.

>>shown to be magnanimous (his entire plan in the end was to test the race of men and bring about their true strength)
Where the fuck is this ever stated, or even implied? 100% of Sauron's power was taken away from him and at best he was reduced to a meaningless ghost.

It was a joke.

>We can all agree Isildur could NOT take on Sauron 1on1 and the cutting off the finger was a 1 in 100 thing
Doesn't he cut off his finger after Sauron's defeated in the book?

In terms of cunning and evilness, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears in the First Age really does show Morgoth knew his shit.

He got key players to betray their own side, fooled Maedhros, and even dealt with the unexpected appearance of 10,000 elves from Gondolin. Remember that the people Morgoth had to deal with here were a calibre above the guys that Sauron bested in the Third Age.

Maedhros (a son of Feanor), Hurin, Huor, Turgon, Fingon... could Sauron have handled all of that? I'm not sure.

Also, remember that Morgoth pretty much WON his first age war, he dominated after this battle completely. He won so completely that the rest of the Valar had to team up and fuck his shit up.

Sauron loses his war. Against hobbits. Never forget.

And another thing,

Morgoth "creates" the dragons, 'great worms', the orcs, and all that.

Does Sauron do anything similarly impressive? He just uses what is already there, the only thing I can think of is the One Ring, but the elves came up with rings of power first

You forget that literally all that is wrong with the world, from the most obvious evil to the most subtle, is Melkor's doing. In all his deeds, Sauron is the dwarf standing on the shoulders of Melkor.

>Melkor brute forces his way into everything, and out of the two (Melkor and Sauron), Melkor is the one getting permanently scarred and mauled over and over again (getting stabbed in the foot by an elf, getting owned by Ungoliant, getting owned by the other Valar, getting thrown in the Void).
>Sauron on the other hand seems to be more aware of his lack of power.
The circumstances are entirely different, though. I don't think Melkor had too many subtle options for achieving his goals, and again, he's responsible for evil and corruption in the world from the beginning. His very existence doesn't allow for a cloak-and-dagger approach. Whereas Sauron is so much lower in the order of things he has a wealth of options available to him. He was also "brute forcing" everything back when Melkor was his daddy. Once he's on his own, he couldn't really do it the same way if he wanted to, as he's aware of his lack of power, as you said. He would be utterly powerless against the Valar if he chose to engage even one of them directly, as opposed to Melkor, who is, or used to be, the most powerful of them all. He does, however, use similarly brute tactics, in trying to take over the world of Men with armies of orcs. Is that not brute?
Their situation and approach is really quite incomparable, though. I think it's a silly claim that Sauron is better at anything. The scale of any conflict in the Third Age is microscopic in comparison to what came before.

>And the few times Sauron actually has to come out and whip ass, he does so magnificently
The army of Numenor made him shit his pants.
And finally, he was defeated by his own arrogance and lack of foresight. A *hobbit* walked into his volcano with the Ring. I bet that would've made him shit his pants as well, had he had the time.

>If we consider the films
Don't go there, please.

I can't contribute to this discussion having not read LOTR but let me congratulate you on being one of the few people to write a proper fucking post on this board. Your bump was well earned.

>know better than any of the Maia that Eru is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient
>go up against him anyway
"Cunning" my ass, Melkor was incredibly stupid if he thought he had a chance of outwitting God.

You still wouldn't be able to contribute to it had you read LOTR. But you should read it.

Would first age Glorfindel have been able to defeat Sauron?

Why First Age? He was actually more powerful in the Third Age.
Probably not. Third Age Glorfindel? Maybe?

Who was in the wrong here?

>He was actually more powerful in the Third Age.

Why do you say that? In the first age he defeated Gothmog. Morgoth's lieutenant, captain of Morgoth's armies.

Third age Glorfindel faced down Angmar.. which is less impressive imo

Basically because daddy Tolkien said so, I believe

Melkor was more an "idea Ainu". He it was that first had the thought to differ from Eru's original theme and teaching in the Music of the Ainur.
But his vast creativity was also one of his weakpoints, in that he did sort of have ADD, and before he finished one of his evil projects he was already working on a new.

It was Sauron that had the patience and focus to actually carry out Melkor's plans. Sauron was less creative than Melkor, and more of a logistical/management tier with god-like organizational skills.

Melkor initially wanted all of the Light for himself, he initially entered the universe as "an Ainu of exceeding brightness". Very soon, however, he wanted to dominate all aspects of the universe, and willfully changed his form to that of a giant mountain/volcano or something along those lines.
By the time of the Elves and the silmarils, he had chosen the form of a giant Dark Lord, and had lost the ability to change his form (perhaps due to his diffusing of his essence into the physical realm of Arda). By this time he didn't want to just control Arda/Ea, he wanted to destroy it.

Sauron just wanted to control the minds of the various races, perhaps finding it easier and not requiring as much expenditure of his essence. To this effect, he made the One Ring, which he poured 99.9999% of his essence into. This is why Arda is sometimes referred to as "Melkor's Ring". This may have been Tolkien's attempt to explain the concept of original sin, or the idea that the world is corrupted despite being made by God/angels.

As far as how Melkor seemed to have a more difficult time against the Elves than Sauron did, it should be noted that in the First Age the Elves were stronger than they were in later Ages (though their beauty did increase in the later ages). Melkor had to go up against the greatest of the Elves (the Noldor and Sindar) at the height of their power, while Sauron only went up against mainly Silvan and a smaller remnant of Noldor and Sindar who had lost many of their greatest warriors and craftsmen in the First Age.

There's a reason why Sauron "adored" Melkor. Melkor was, by far, more powerful than Sauron. Sauron himself was far more powerful than Olorin/Gandalf, Curumo/Saruman and Aiwendil/Radagast. It should also be factored in that at the time of the confrontation at Dol Guldur, Sauron was not in possession of the One Ring, which is why he fled.
Even after Melkor was banished to Outer Darkness, Sauron still adored/worshiped Melkor, building temples/pyramids to him where human sacrifice took place (as in latter day Numenor, but even the Orcs sacrificed to Melkor).

None of this is meant to say I admire Melkor, or Sauron, but Melkor is by far the greater.

Sauron had the idea of the Rings, and taught the Elves of Eregion how to make them, but he didn't really take much of a part in their making, especially of the three "Elven" rings ("Elven", because they were ALL "Elven" rings, aside from the One).
You're right though, Sauron merely improved on the orcs and troll blueprint that Melkor originally "created".
Sauron wasn't even strong enough to attain the allegiance of the remaining dragons or balrogs. He could only exert his influence on lesser beings, like orcs and trolls, and a handful of lesser maiar.

>more smarter

>t. iluvatar

People here love LOTR, how long have you been here?