Sauron's lack of Death...

[Pitchwife]

Interesting topic, Hookbill, and fine discussion, everybody!

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

So often in an adventure of this kind (evil tyrant seeks to destroy / take over world), the antagonist is killed by the hero. This is another way in which The Lord of the Rings differs itself from many others.

I'd have thought the typical fate of Evil Overlords was to be destroyed by their own secret super-weapon (or alternatively, to fall to their death in one of those bottomless shafts that seem to have been built into their abode/fortress/space station expressly for this purpose). If we take the Ring to be an externalization of (part of) Sauron himself, we see both versions combined in LotR.

Originally Posted by Hookbill

Or His Dark Materials where god is killed

If I remember correctly, he more or less died of old age. Unless you mean Metatron the impostor - didn't he fall into some abyss too (with a little help from Asriel and Mrs Coulter)?

(OK, getting serious now)

Originally Posted by Hookbill

There seems to be a very personal angle to killing in the book, I've noticed. Those who the main characters kill are done so in close proximity. Gandalf's main point to Frodo is that he has not 'seen' Gollum. And when Frodo does, he has much more pity for him and spares his life. Whenever there is death in the story, they at least see the victim, it seems.
[...]
Is there something about seeing, or meeting someone that Tolkien hold important in these instances?

Good observation. I have the impression Tolkien held that for killing to be at all ethically justifiable, you had (among other things) to face the reality of the act. When you read his WWII letters to Christopher (who was serving in the RAF at the time), you gather that he considered anonymous killing by dropping a bomb from a plane on people you don't really see assignable to Mordor (which got its own Special Flying Corps in the book) and was deeply concerned about the possibility of his son being spiritually harmed by taking part in this kind of warfare, even though he was realist enough to see that it was necessary under the given conditions.
Anybody want to guess what he would have thought of nuclear weapons, which make it possible for a politician to unleash outright genocide by simply pushing a button? (Can't remember if there's anything about that in the Letters - if someone has them at hand and can post a quote, I'd be grateful.)

As for Sauron (or other Ainur) being killed - I think while they were incarnate (whether by their own choice or by increasing attachment to the matter of Arda), they could be 'killed' (in the sense of having their hröa destroyed) just like any other Incarnate. IIRC Morgoth's Ring says that Morgoth himself was 'executed' = 'killed' by the Valar at the end of the First Age, and something similar happened to Sauron at the hands of Elendil and Gil-galad.
Only that wasn't the end of them (but then again, neither is it for Men and Elves), and for Arda to be rid of Morgoth (if not of his marring) for good, his spirit had to be banished to the Void. But my feeling is that the more an Ainu had busied themselves with and grown attached to the matter of Arda as such, the less would their spirits be able to survive the separation from the hröa and still be able to do anything effective - which applies not only to Morgoth and Sauron, but also to Saruman (and is it coincidence in this context that the latter two were both Maiar of Aule the earth-smith?).

[Faramir Jones]

Shadowfax, it was Gandalf who said 'something about solving the problems of now, and that future generations will have to solve their own problems', in 'The Last Debate', after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields:

'Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.'

You may have confused this with the debate in the Council of Elrond, when it was suggested that the Ring be sent over the Sea. Elrond dealt very quickly with this idea, saying, 'they who dwell beyond the Sea would not receive it [the Ring]: for good or ill it belongs to Middle-earth; it is for us who still dwell here to deal with it.'

Regarding the Queen of Underland in The Silver Chair, her identity is left unclear by Lewis. In Chapter 15 of the book, after the Queen is killed, and Prince Rilian, Eustace, Jill and Puddlegum escape to the surface, the Prince discusses who she is with 'the older and wiser Beasts and Dwarfs':

And now they all saw what it meant; how a wicked Witch (doubtless the same kind as that White Witch who had brought the Great Winter on Narnia long ago) had contrived the whole thing, first killing Rilian's mother and enchanting Rilian himself.

My view of this is that these Narnians are speculating that she may be similar to Jadis, due to her appearance, considerable magical powers, and being evil. No indication is given if they know that Jadis came from another world, as told in The Magician's Nephew. Even if they did, it would be reasonable, from the information available to them, to place both her and the Queen under the heading of 'Witch'.

[Sarumian]

Originally Posted by Hookbill

So often in an adventure of this kind (evil tyrant seeks to destroy / take over world), the antagonist is killed by the hero. This is another way in which The Lord of the Rings differs itself from many others.

This observation leads us to the exciting and complicated question of what is death in the Tolkien's universe. Not going into details we can state that death there means separation of a soul from a body; in case of Men it is irreversible, though Elves theoretically could return to their bodily shape. Anyway even for Men death never meant elimination of spirit, but rather the departure from Arda and return to Eru (the Creator). Moreover, the separation can be either voluntary (elves) or compulsory (men).

Dealing with ainur makes it quite a tricky matter. Valla Melkor, the first Dark Lord, surrendered to Vallar's Great Host, wasn't properly killed, as it seemed to me, but rather made motionless and was cast into Void in his physical body. Sauron's destiny could've been something similar, had he surrendered, but that was never the case; thus the fight continued to the point where Sauron was unable to perform any physical act or to force any living creature to do something by his will. Sauron's capacity of living and acting was tied to The Ring since he had forged it. Sauron's counterparts had two options for winning: to use The Ring against Sauron (which would have left him alive, though enslaved) or to destroy The Ring (that led to the destruction of Sauron's body and diminishing of his spirit).

To sum up, Sauron died several times during the First and Second Age, but was able to restore his physical presence till his defeat in the War Of The Ring. On the other hand, his spirit had never died as any other spirit in Tolkien's universe. Neither Saruman's spirit was dead after he was murdered by Grimma, nor Gandalf's soul perished after the battle with Balrog. But it looks that fallen spirits were sentenced to stray in the world, suffering their own misery with no chance to influence anything.

What I am not sure about is the exact way of dying for

embodied Ainur;
elves;
men;
dwarves;
ents;
orcs

What happened to them?

[Dakêsîntrah]

That Sauron and other spirits cannot die is a problem Tolkien fails to deal with, either because he doesn't realize it, or he can't work it into his history, to meet with fair consistency.

Here is the crux of the problem: Iluvatar seems to be less and less involved in the plight of Arda as Tolkien's history goes on.

Tolkien obviously derives his mythology from the Biblical elohim. If Illuvatar is eternal "God," he ought to be able to destroy the lesser "gods" of Melkor and Sauron. They are created beings, thus, they are not eternal. Hence, Iluvatar is able to destroy them like Arda Beings. You see, it doesn't make sense for Iluvatar to let Melkor or even Sauron float around in the Void or wherever for eternity.

Just like the Biblical council of elohim (gods), there is an existing hierarchy of lesser gods. Melkor was a lesser Eru (elohim) "like unto Eru," while Sauron was a lesser Ainur, "like unto Melkor" (Maiar, angel, messenger, i.e, lesser elohim). Gandalf is also a Messenger, of that lower tier of gods. And this is where I believe Tolkien, either by misunderstanding Biblical narrative, or by not realizing it, departs from similarity. Gandalf is *not* a parallel of Christ, because Christ as the Son was not a simple messenger, i.e, a lower tier of elohim. I would see Gandalf as more of a parallel to Moses than anyone. Tolkien obviously derives his Ainulindalë from the Council of El in the Bible.

The question must be asked instead: We know after Sauron is defeated there ushers in the Fourth Age, the age of Men. Yet, there is really no fulfillment of redemption for Arda itself. The Men still live on a corrupted plane of existence. Hence, from all of this, I believe Evil was still not defeated after the Third Age. I think it's a pity that Tolkien died before having completed the mythology, because we do know how there arose yet another evil in the Fourth Age.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Dakêsîntrah

Tolkien obviously derives his Ainulindalë from the Council of El in the Bible.

I actually really like your post... but this line irks me greatly, and I cannot resist the impulse to respond.

While I agree that there is definitely a good parallel to me made, I am deeply hesitant to ascribe to Tolkien a knowledge of the Council of El from the Bible, which is the sort of Scriptural knowledge that I do not think would have been particularly commonplace in 1920 (to give a later date for the earliest phase of the mythology), and certainly wouldn't have been among Catholics. While the parallel certainly works--and may even have appealed to Tolkien--I think you're on very sketchy ground in terms of saying that this is where Tolkien got it from. Tolkien's own statements would seem to suggest that he was trying to emulate the Greek or Norse pantheons, and then to reconcile this with his own intractable Catholic beliefs, thus producing the hybridised Eru/Valar theological structure.

In this structure, however, the Valar are not "like unto Eru" in the same way that the Maiar are lesser Valar. On the contrary--the Valar are more like the Children, Elves and Men, than they are like Eru. As the Silmarillion says (I paraphrase), "they are like elder siblings" to the Children. Like the Children, they are created beings, whereas Eru is the Creator. To apply the Analogy of Being (which is how a good Catholic would think--even if not articulated thus), the greater the similarity between something in the creature and something in the creator, the greater the difference between them. There is a gulf of distinction between the infinite power of Eru and the finite (albeit vast compared with the Children's) power of the Valar.

My theologising about the nature of Eru may be importing too much "real world" philosophy--though I'm unapologetic--but hopefully my main point that I think it would be ridiculously sketchy to call the Council of El a certain source for Tolkien will come across. Otherwise, as I said, the analogy works (though as my digressions suggest, not perfectly), but declaring that a source seems highly unlikely unless you have evidence that Tolkien was well acquainted with Scripture and scriptural exegesis during the First World War.

[Faramir Jones]

Pitchwife referred briefly to what happened to Morgoth when he was defeated a second time, at the end of the First Age. Fellow fans might be interested to read the relevant passage in full:

The war was successful, and ruin was limited to the small (if beautiful) region of Beleriand. Morgoth was thus actually made captive in physical form, and in that form taken as a mere criminal to Aman and delivered to Námo Mandos as judge - and executioner. He was judged, and eventually taken out of the Blessed Realm and executed: that is killed like one of the Incarnates. It was then made plain (though it must have been understood beforehand by Manwë and Námo) that, although he had 'disseminated' his power (his evil and possessive and rebellious will) far and wide into the matter of Arda, he had lost direct control of this, and all that 'he', as a surviving remnant of integral being, retained as 'himself' and under control was the terribly shrunken and reduced spirit that inhabited his self-imposed (but now beloved) body. When that body was destroyed he was weak and utterly 'houseless', and for that time at a loss and 'unanchored' as it were. We read that he was then thrust out into the Void. That should mean that he was put outside Time and Space, outside Ëa altogether; but if that were so this would imply a direct intervention of Eru (with or without supplication of the Valar). It may however refer inaccurately to the extrusion or flight of his spirit from Arda. (The History of Middle-earth: X. Morgoth's Ring (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994), p. 403.)

[Faramir Jones]

Sarumian talked earlier about Sauron being able to restore his physical presence a number of times, though with increasingly greater difficulty. Tolkien talked about this in a letter he wrote on 25th June 1957, to a Major R. Brown:

It was because of this pre-occupation with the Children of God that the spirits so often took the form and likeness of the Children, especially after their appearance. It was thus that Sauron appeared in this shape. It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was 'real', that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructable like other physical organisms. But that of course did not destroy the spirit, nor dismiss it from the world to which it was bound until the end. (Letters, Letter 200, p. 260.)

Tolkien then spoke of Sauron, after the War of the Last Alliance, taking longer to re-build than he had after the Downfall of Númenor:

(I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit, which might be called the 'will' or the effective link between the indestructible mind and being and the realization of its imagination). The impossibility of re-building after the destruction of the Ring, is sufficiently clear 'mythologically' in the present book. (Ibid.)