Sauron and the will of Morgoth

[Finmandos12]

How much influence, if any, do you think Morgoth had on the actions of Sauron.

[Ñólendil]

Luckily, I recently typed out passages from Morgoth's Ring (Vol. X of History of Middle-earth) and sent them to HOBBIT for his class, I even used Bulletin Board codes. So I have it ready for you:

Notes on motives in the Silmarillion
(i)
Sauron was 'greater', effectively, in the Second Age than Morgoth at he
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. And later after things had
become more stable, Melkor was more interested in and capable of
dealing with a volcanic eruption, for example, than with (say) a tree.
It is indeed probably that he was simply unaware of the minor or more
delicate productions of Yavanna: such as small flowers.*

Thus, as 'Morgoth', when Melkor was confronted by the existence of
other inhabitants of Arda, with other wills and intelligences, he was
enraged by the mere fact of their existence, and his only notion of
dealing with them was by physical force, or the fear of it. His sole
ultimate object was their destruction. Elves, and still more Men, he
despised because of their 'weakness': that is their lack of physical
force, or the fear of it. His sole ultimate object was their
destruction. Elves, and still more Men, he despised because of
their 'weakness': that is their lack of physical force, or power
over 'matter'; but he was also afraid of them. He was aware, at any
rate originally when still capable of rational thought, that he could
not 'annihilate'** them: that is, destroy them being; but their
physical 'life', and incarnate form became increasingly to his mind the
only thing that was worth considering.*** Or he

*If such things were forced upon his attention, he was angry
and hated them, as coming from other minds than his own.

** Melkor could not, of course, 'annihilate' anything of
matter, he could only ruin or destroy or corrupt the forms given to
matter by other minds in their sub-creative activities.

*** For this reason he himself came to fear 'death' -- the
destruction of his assumed bodily form -- above everything, and sought
to avoid any kind of injury to his own form.

became so advanced in Lying that he lied even to himself, and pretended
that he could destroy them and rid Arda of them altogether. Hence his
endeavour always to break wills and subordinate them to or absorb them
into his own will and being, before destroying their bodies. This was
sheer nihilism, and negation its one ultimate object: Morgoth would no
doubt, if he had been victorious, have ultimately destroyed even his
own 'creatures', such as the Orcs, when they had served his sole
purpose in using them: the destruction of Elves and Men. Melkor's final
impotence and despair lay in this: that whereas the Valar (and in their
degree Elves and Men) could still love 'Arda Marred', that is Arda with
a Melkor-ingredient, and could still heal this or that hurt, or produce
from its very marring, from its state as it was, things beautiful and
lovely, Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his own
mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of others: even left
alone he could only have gone raging on till al was leveled again into
a formless chaos. And yet even so he would have been defeated, because
it would still have 'existed', independent of his own mind, and a world
in potential.

Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not
object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he
liked with it. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that
descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been
his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his
relapse) that he loved order an coordination, and disliked all
confusion and wasteful friction. (It was the apparent will and power of
Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first
attracted Sauron to him.) Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman,
and so still understood him quickly and could guess what he would be
likely to think and do, even without the aid of the palantÃ*ri or
of spies; whereas Gandalf eluded and puzzled him. But like all minds of
this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of
other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though
the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and
planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even
admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his 'plans', the
idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his
will, and an end, the End, in itself.*

Morgoth had no 'plan': unless destruction and reduction to nil
of a world in which he had only a share can be called 'plan'.
But this is, of course, a simplification of the situation. Sauron had
not served Morgoth, even in his last stages, without becoming infected
by his lust for destruction, and his hatred of God (which must end
nihilism). Sauron could not, of course, be a 'sincere' atheist. Though
one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru,
according to his measure. He probably deluded himself with the notion
that the Valar (including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply
abandoned Eä, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with
it any more. It would appear that he interpreted the 'change of the
world' at the Downfall of Númenor, when Aman was removed from the
physical world, in this sense: Valar (and Elves) were removed from
effective control, and Men under God's curse and wrath. If he thought
of the Istari, especially Saruman and Gandalf, he imagined them
as emissaries from the Valar, seeking to establish their lost power
again and 'colonize' Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated
imperialists (without knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism,
which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwë as precisely the same
as his own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not
understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and therefore
stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply
to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. He was only
a rather cleverer Radagast -- cleverer, because it is more profitable
(more productive of power) to become absorbed in the study of people
than of animals.

Sauron was not a 'sincere' atheist, but he preached atheism, because it
weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God's action
in Arda). As was seen in the case of Ar-Pharazôn. But there was seen
the effect of Melkor upon Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor's own
terms: as a god, or even as God. This may have been the residue of a
state which

*But his capability of corrupting other minds, and even
engaging their service, was a residue from the fact that his original
desire for 'order' had really envisaged the good estate (especially
physical well-being) of his 'subjects'.

was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron at least to
admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself. Melkor,
and still more Sauron himself afterwards, both profited by this
darkened shadow of good and the services of 'worshippers'. But it may
be doubted whether even such a shadow of good was still sincerely
operative in Sauron by that time. His cunning motive is probably best
expressed thus. To wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it
is best to propound another unseen object of allegiance and
another hope of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what
he desires and not forbid it. Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for
world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound himself; but as
the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the worship of Melkor will
raise him from hostage to high priest. But though Sauron's whole true
motive was the destruction of the Númenóreans, this was a particular
matter of revenge upon Ar-Pharazôn, for humiliation. Sauron (unlike
Morgoth) would have been content for the Númenóreans to exist, as
his own subjects, and indeed he used a great many of them that he
corrupted to his allegiance.

[IronParrot]

You know what?

That passage relates so well to the essay I'm working on. Thanks for digging it out!

I'll post a more detailed response to the topic at hand here when I have time.

[Selwythe]

You people study Lord of the Rings?

Lucky.

I'm stuck with Animal Farm and Romeo & Juliet.

And Inoldil's theories still never fail to explode my brain.

[Ñólendil]

Thank you! I enjoy a good brain-exploding every now and then.

[Finmandos12]

Thanks for all the info, but what I meant was did Morgoth have any contact with Sauron after he was thrust outside the world?

But all that was interesting to know, Inoldonil.

[Ñólendil]

Oh. Well, no, I don't see how Sauron could converse with Morgoth when the latter was outside Arda or Ea (depending on which you believe). But of course the will and evil of Morgoth is always at work, seeing as how the whole of Arda was his Ring.

[UnStashable]

Treebeard could be profession wrestler, At least untill he looses a torch match that is.

[Ñólendil]

UnStashable made a further 'oops' post about placing the above post in the wrong thread. I deleted the 'oops post' and tried to fix the mistake, but found I could not. I can move your post, UnStashable, to a new thread, but that won't help you. Cut and paste your post to the correct forum, I'll delete the one in this one.

[Captain Stern]

Thanks Inoldonil I enjoyed reading that very much

[Kirinki54]

When reading this quote from Morgoth´s Ring, it is hard to imagine how this weakened Melkor can be the main challenger in the final battle to come. (As I have picked up from debates this is also written in HoME).
Is it also said that Melkor will use the power that he spread and "stored" in Arda in that battle?

[galadriel]

I think that's right. If Morgoth *does* use the Earth, "Morgoth's Ring", to try and fight Manwe, that means that the Earth will have to be destroyed so that Morgoth can't use it, like the One Ring was destroyed. Which, if I'm correct, fits in very nicely with all the other available information about the final battle and the end of the world. Cool.

[Ñólendil]

You're welcome Captain