Sauron

You don't read much, do you?

I reread the Silmarillion recently and I think I recall something to the effect of the concept of distinct genders in the Ainur existing in Eru's mind nearly from the beginning, but I don't have my copy on hand to check

I was just wondering that about you and your lack of argument.

That implies that you wouldn't bang male Sauron. And that's pretty gay.

She looks like smugfu from Game of Thrones

>not an argument
Not an argument.

>female_sauron.jpg
That's a male.

Well, there's Skuld and Medb, two mythological examples right off the top of my head.

That's nice, dear. Here's your last (You), now run along and post in /b/.

Zeus was also in a constant power struggle with Hera.

>A female Sauron might be more benevolent.
>female
>more benevolent

Shelob was depicted as female and desired to devour all of Middle-Earth and produce utter darkness.
To claim that one trait is more masculine or feminine, simply based off the depictions of Humanity on Earth and our fantasy is foolish when attempting to apply those same standards to a world like Middle-Earth which isn't bound to our modern association, or attempted association, of certain personality traits to gender.
It should be mentioned that, regardless of the gender of Sauron, they were still under the command/influence of Morgoth who is an Ainur and the principle evil of the Tolkien-verse. You would need to apply a gender to a primordial principle and reason how a change of gender strengthens/weakens the tie of an absolute principle on that of a celestial being(s), like the Valar/Maiar.
TLDR; I don't believe gender changes anything due to a variety of factors that need to be changed to accommodate such and would render the Tolkien-verse largely changed from its baseline, thus rendering it no longer the original Tolkien-verse.

"The Silmarillion" is considered an IC work of that of the Eldar and having genders there, as I mentioned in the first post, is likely a result of narrative interpretation. You would need to find a letter from Tolkien on the discussion of gender among the Ainur to have an affirmative OOC conclusion.

>dear
I came into this thread just to say you literally killed the thread.

Good.

Were Mordor Uruks better than or equal to Isengard Uruks?

>How many female characters in fantasy are there that are evil and have the same motivations as Sauron?
Right from memory I can recall Salome and Belit from Conan stories, but admittedly I don't actually read that much fantasy.

>His thirst for power is a fairly masculine trait.
That hasn't stopped women in real life from wanting power and doing morally questionable things to hold onto that power.

Even just disney films have a pretty even spread of women villains.

He does explicitly say that they can cloth themselves in whichever form pleases them, but most if not all of them choose a gender according to their nature. It's in his letter to Waldman from 1951, my copy of the Silmarillion starts with it.

Then nobody would have accepted the rings from Sauronette. Not the elves, nor the dwarves in their halls of stone, nor the men.

They'd have dodged her like she was rabid, because no man is foolish enough to trust a woman who wants to put a ring on his finger.

one bait to rule them all,
one bait to find them, one bait to bring them all together and in the darkness bind them

...

It seriously wasn't b8, I just had an observation that in hindsight I realize was wrong.

...

She seems to be enjoying that ice cream. Very wholesome. I hope she doesn't get nearly broken i half with demon/orc cock.

Orcs are nice.

Sauron was more concerned with numbers than power, so their uruks were more misshapen and monstrous (like Gothmog), but Saruman was a perfectionist and conjured up only 10 thousand uruks, but they had a fury like none other.

Saruman also employed half-orcs (I have no idea), trolls and other things, and Sauron had a host of hundreds of thousands of orcs, men and lesser critters.

So 1 to 1, Isengard wins. But in overall value, Mordor won.

I haven't read the books in forever, but I was recently playing the Third Age Total War mod.

Did Saruman have Dunlendings in Isengard-made armor too?

No. I don't even remember reading up that Saruman had men under his employ. He obviously had the guards of Orthanc (they are mentioned in the books), but I don't think there were enough there to constitute a military force, much less a population. Now, I do know for a fact that Saruman paid and coerced many wild men in the western plains to raid and pillage for him, but they weren't under Isengard.
I know the mod you are talking about and it is very good. Super detailed and quite close to cannon, but they still took some liberties here and there.

There was a sizeable force of Dunlendings at the Battle of Helm's Deep, which I would think means they were under Isengard, but I don't recall anything about their gear

If elves werent so sexy then orcs wouldn't have to rape them, innit.

Raping elves is like killing a unicorn.

You don't do it, m'kay?

The whole thing would be more believable. Evil bitches are standard.

I don't see a whole lot of Unicorns in Middle Earth.

...

If you don't rape elves how can you know they exist? Tell me that einstein.

Tell me Annatar isn't a name of a girl.

That's a movie meme. In the book we don't even know what race Gothmog is, let alone what he looks like.

I think Gothmog was a human

Where there's a whip...

>Did the Nazgul act as generals or just exceptional agents and warriors?
The Witch King acted as a commander already in the Second Age and after Sauron's defeat, he founded an entire kingdom, Angmar, to destroy Arnor over 1000 years before the events of the bools and he also was the commander of Mordor's armies during the War of the Ring. The second-highest of the Nazgul was a dude named Khamul who supposedly was in command after the Witch King was slain. No idea about the other ones, they're just desribed as spreading terror and things.
>Did orcs command his armies? Or Black Numenoreans?
Orcs and Uruks also acted as commanders, I don't think Black Numenoreans are ever mentioned as commanding Mordor's armies (apart from the Mouth of Sauron), they used to hold power in Umbar, but most were slain in the wars against Gondor and ended up mixing with the Haradrim and other natives.
>Was the Mouth of Sauron a Numenorean?
He's a Black Numenorean, pretty sure.
>Did the men of Harad and Khand follow Sauron out of fear or worship? If it was fear, is there any truth to the rumor they sent as few troops as they could to hid cause?
The Haradrim never were on good terms with Gondor and had waged war against them constantly. They willingly allied with Sauron.
The encyclopedia I have here says that the Haradrim were among the most numerous of Sauron's servants on the Pelennor Fields.
It's pretty much the same with the people of Khand, also called Variags, they were under Saurons influence for a damn long time.

>I realize was wrong.
That's how I know you're not from /pol/ - they're *never* wrong. Snicker.

Presumably primordial beings don't have to worry about sexual reproduction having reached the apex of hypothetical evolutionary limits.

>Thirst for power is male trait alone
>Females are more benevolents

This is good bait.

you missed the fun already

Excuse me, Divine Valar, but how did Gimli think Moria was still active? It was inactive long enough for the corpses inside to turn into skeletons. He should have known that there'd been no communication from it for years or even decades. Gandalf obviously knew something was wrong, why did he not warn anyone? Also, how did the orcs inside eat? Maybe they ate the dwarf bodies I guess, but there's no way that lasted them over a month even discounting putrification.

Gimli was deluding himself, The way was shut behind them, so whilst something was obviously off (something Gandalf knew everyone, even Gimli, deep down inside knew) they had to press on through the mountains, and sometimes ignorance is the saving grace of Morale up until it isnt.
The orcs inside would have eaten the food the Dwarfs had stored up. Because Dwarfs eat too

>fattening sweets
>wholesome

There's no postal service, Gimli was used to not hearing anything for years or decades.

Ok

Maleficent, the White Witch, The Wicked Witch, Lady MacBeth, Ursola, Hela, Mama (Dredd), the Evil Queen

Word travels as fast as the trade caravans. There should have been plenty of talk via merchants that Moria was suddenly closed up.

There were no trade caravans from Moria. Balin's expedition was never secure enough to establish contact with other places.

Of course in the books not having contact from Moria is the whole reason why Gimli came to Elrond's council.

Kathleen Kennedy comes to mind

The way Saruman feels completely authentic in that picture is fucking creepy.

In place of the Dark Lord she would be a Queen. Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All would love her and despair.

>Shelob
don‘t you mean Ungoliant?

It wold hav bn 19 cockrings nd 1 finger-ring ofcourse!
HUEHUEHUEHUEEEEEEEE!!!!!1

Well sort of semi-related question, what if there'd be a male elf named Arwen? Not in a Tolkien setting, but as in a different fantasy setting one would meet up an elf dude named Arwen, obviously borrowing his name from a notible Tolkien character.

After all alot of elves these days have their names derived and based from Tolkien, plus Arwen's name does honestly sound unisex at best and would also fit for an elf dude.

What's the question exactly? Does the name Arwen sound gay, what?

>lighting on the wrong side
>completely authentic
Not to say the shop isn't well done but it's still an obvious shop.

Shit, I was going to post that.

I'm not talking about the quality of the shop, I'm talking about the feel of the picture. He looks like he completely belongs with them.

It's alright matey, you'll make it one day.

In the book we don't even know of a Gothmog during the War of the Ring.

Look up Arwen on the Tolkien gateway site, it probably has an etymology section that will explain what the name means.

>In the book we don't even know of a Gothmog during the War of the Ring.
Sure we do.
>There they had been mustered for the sack of the City and the rape of Gondor, waiting on the call of their captain. He now was destroyed; but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray;

ROTK, The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

Oh fuck, I completely mis-remembered that. I thought it was a movie thing and that's why the name had been reused.

Thank you.

Ironic pic considering it was Clinton who recieved millions in campaign funds from oppressive middle eastern states.

What does it mean?

It's alright matey, you'll make it one day.

Did Sauron have any named human followers during the War of the Ring besides the Mouth?

Galadriel reliving her power trips.

Wasn't that the thing in that soviet and spider propaganda fanfic?

The one where orcs are the true men all along and easterlings wasnt on saurons side after all.

Erwen the dark skinned elf nerd who worships an evil but fair Goddess who hates him and wishes he really wouldn't.

Sauron assumed genders as needed. That makes him transgender by definition.

That's actually really interesting and progressive.

That's to be expected when you are the lord of vampires and werewolves like some twilight selfinsert

Sauron never changed gender. To my knowledge no one in Tolkien's writings ever did.

Sauron lost his hers body several times and came back. You are just mincing. Annatar is a female name.

What does Annatar mean? Is in Sindarin?

Lord of Gifts or something.

"Antaa" means "to give" in Finnish (anna is the imperative, apart from being a female name), and -tar is a feminine profession suffix, so Sauron was definitely female.

Weak bait brah.

are you implying men cant have feminine names you fucking bigot? god, just go back to /pol/, or back to the 19th century with your outdated notions of gender roles in naming

>A female Sauron might be more vindictive and callous.
FTFY

In the books Saruman never used trolls, to my knowledge.

Nor were therer any visual or qualitative differences between the Uruks. They were simply following different masters and, given orcish nature, were prone to squabble over that.

He had Dunlendings in his service, yes.
And since Isengard is depicted as an industrial site, I assume at least some of them had gear supplied by Saruman.

...there is a way.

Galadriel too.

He took the form of a male.

A male Galadriel would be hella swole.

>"The Silmarillion" is considered an IC work of that of the Eldar and having genders there, as I mentioned in the first post, is likely a result of narrative interpretation. You would need to find a letter from Tolkien on the discussion of gender among the Ainur to have an affirmative OOC conclusion.
The Ainur who live in the Timeless Halls are different than those who entered Middle Earth. They manifest in a physical form that are male or female. Melkor and Sauron were both male, Yavanna and Melian were female. Melian even had children.