Lord of the Rings

It would be nice if Sauron could then gain power as he corrupts other people

power doesn't work like that in Tolkiens world. power is finite. that's why the wizards don;t do all that flashy magic shit and why Melkor dropped from being the second most powerful being existence to getting crippled by an elf. when you use some of your power, it's gone.

True, but a man can dream

you want a psychotic despot with an industrialistion fetish coming back?

Sauron is the greatest bishie waifu of all time okay buddy?

When he was Tor Mairon, possibly..? someone just dump the damn pics.

Man, he's great. I mean, he only wanted a controlled world. He wanted progress, a controlled progress.

Melkor wanted to be the only voice for creation. Sauron wants other voices, but wants to guide them.

He's cool man

If he could have kept his void sized ego in check sure. But he had to continually wave his dick about in desperate search of attention.

They became wandering night riders, challenging the biggest baddest horse riders in every corners of Middle Earth to horse races, racing at night and outrunning the law and Gandalf by day

bound together by a strong bond of brotherhood they ride across the hills and roads of Middle Earth living on race money and goods delivery to shady places

Spoooooooky pony express? I can dig it, just not for LotR.

That's actually pretty fucking amazing

I miss the alternate universe idea with Begifend the Golden

You know, this got me thinking. How is magic, for lack of a better term, able to overcome the Gift/Doom of Men? I mean, it seems to be Illuvatar's will that the souls of men eventually die and join him, and not remain within Arda, and yet things like the Ringwraiths, or the Dead Men of Dunharrow, or the Barrow wights, seem to imply that a spirit can be held in Arda against its own will, and apparently against the will of God. How the fuck does that work?

Things like honour and outside influences. Besides, they're not remaining permenantly, just longer than normal. The dead of Dunharrow and Wraiths are examples of that. They may have hung around longer than they should have, but they still pass on eventually.

They only pass on in response to certain events; if it isn't for Aragorn releasing them from their oaths, the Army of the Dead would be there permanently; as for the Wights, I don't know if they're ever released.

you're forgetting there's an omniscient god in tolkiens work in the form of Eru. He would have events in place to take any hangers on when the time was right.

Eru only intervened three time after the creation of the world, four if you count the dwarves.

Two times, it was direct intervention to make Sauron lose.

Gotta hand it to Sauron, he got hit by Omnipotence once and still stood up for the second round.

The Wights aren't actually true undead. They're corpses possessed by 'evil spirits' that the Witch King used to hunt down the remaining Dunedain.

As for the Oathbreakers and Nazgul, they aren't so much immortal as they are mortals who've had their lives stretched out razor thin to the point that their physical bodies sort of faded away. It's not exactly a cheerful existence.

The Nazguld don't have physical bodies

Yes, but they didn't start out that way.

>We all know how wrong the Valar were the first and second times...
>Gandalf
>Valar
Hmm

>things like the Ringwraiths, or the Dead Men of Dunharrow, or the Barrow wights, seem to imply that a spirit can be held in Arda against its own will...
I think this last bit is the most important. For a Catholic, the sincere will to be with God was pretty important. It's almost certain that, especially for creatures like the Ringwraiths and the Barrow-wights, those spirits truly did not desire to join Eru. In a Catholic theology, this is exactly how souls wind up in Hell: they choose to go there by utterly rejecting God, as evidenced by their mortal sins. God allows such souls to do what they want, even if it means going to Hell, because Free Will is a Big Deal for Him.

Viewing the Dead Men in this way reveals that their time on Arda after their deaths was almost a bit like a more useful Purgatory. They passed on after redeeming themselves for breaking their Oath.

Gandalf is not a Valar, but they shared the same knowledge (up to a certain point, anyway)

Men leaving the world was something they had the capacity to do, not something they were ordered to do. They can leave whenever they wish and sometimes linger when the care to. The capability to leave is their gift that no other species including valar have. But they have an inborn natural desire to wander and leave places, men who have lived too long get really antsy and weird about it. The spirits of dunharrow wanted to leave real bad too. It's just a natual desire they have built in.

And their spirits can be summoned, Mandos summons them to the halls of waiting. They can decide to go to it or not on their own. Melkor summoned them as well and gathered up a lot of souls for his own use.