Quote:
Notes on motives in the Silmarillion.
(i)
Sauron was 'greater', effectively, in the Second Age than
Morgoth at the end of the First. Why? Because, though he was
far smaller by natural stature, he had not yet fallen so low.
Eventually he also squandered his power (of being) in the
endeavour to gain control of others. But he was not obliged to
expend so much of himself. To gain domination over Arda,
Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical
constituents of the Earth - hence all things that were born on
Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate
spirits, were liable to be 'stained'. Morgoth at the time of the
War of the Jewels had become permanently 'incarnate': for this
reason he was afraid, and waged the war almost entirely by
means of devices, or of subordinates and dominated creatures.
Sauron, however, inherited the 'corruption' of Arda, and only
spent his (much more limited) power on the Rings; for it was the
creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to
dominate. In this way Sauron was also wiser than Melkor-
Morgoth. Sauron was not a beginner of discord; and he
probably knew more of the 'Music' than did Melkor, whose
mind had always been filled with his own plans and devices, and
gave little attention to other things. The time of Melkor's
greatest power, therefore, was in the physical beginnings of the
World; a vast demiurgic lust for power and the achievement of
his own will and designs, on a great scale.
-Myths Transformed, HoME X, Morgoth's Ring
|
[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Mhoram ]