Why did Sauron die when the ring was destroyed?

[Meneldil]

Why did Sauron die when the ring was destroyed, this may sound like a stupid question but did have some link with the ring, could Morgoth have stayed alive if the ring was destroyed?

[Fat middle]

Sauron had passed to the Ring a great deal of his power (of his own being) in order to make it a more useful way to control men, elves and dwarfs. So when the Ring was destroyed it was destroyed that part of his entity. The remaining was to little to be able to rise again. You can see more of this in this thread

Melkor had not put his power in a simple object: he has passed it to all the material that Arda was made of (perhaps not that of Valinor, but the rest of Arda). So Tolkien said that all the Middle Earth was Morgoth's Ring: you had to destroy ME to destroy Morgoth. That's why the Valar were so renuent to attack him even at the early ages: because the attack would spoil their work. And that's why Beleriand disappeared after the War of Wrath, i think.

[Meneldil]

So how exactly did Morgoth 'die'???

[Ben]

Morgoth didn't die, he's being kept prisoner by the Valar until the Last Battle, or something like that.

[Elenna]

Yes, Morgoth was cast into the void to spen eternity alone and in the dark.

I hadnt heard about the last battle thing, kinda cool

[Ben]

It's entirely possible I made that up and I'm mixing it up with some other mythology

I'll need Inoldonil or someone like that to confirm/reject that .

[Elenna]

I just thought that it made a little sence. Very often Tolkien did have a religious undercurrent to his writing. Casting Morgoth into the void sure does sound familiar and then if he followed religious suit he would also be released at the last battle.

But go ahead and ask, I'll be the first to admitt that I dont know.

And, yes, I know that not everything Tolkien wrote had a purposeful religious undercurrent, just seems to me that sometimes, in strange little ways you can catch small twisted glimpses.

[Ñólendil]

The old Last Battle idea was that Morgoth would return and be slain, and the World with him, (before being remade again, without a Melkor ingredient) but that's not exactly what happened to Morgoth (the prisoner thing, I mean). According to Morgoth's Ring he did die. Námo (Mandos) executed him.

[Elenna]

I've yet to read Morgoths ring.

Thanks Inoldonil

[Meneldil]

But then, was the world not destroye, im getting terribly confused

[Genemeddler]

Announcing the debut post of Genemeddler :

ahem.. well, i'm confused too. Sauron - Ring = destruction of his material form for ages and ages, so he doesn't need to be worried about. or at least i thought so...

hey, both sauron and saruman (both maia, or is that valar..?) made a big shadowy cloud thing when they died.. just realised that..

[galadriel]

The Silmarillion states that Morgoth was chained up and put outside the universe, where he is constantly watched, but that the seeds of hate he has planted in the world cannot be destroyed. That definitely sounds in variance to what you've said takes place in "Morgoth's Ring". If only Tolkien was immortal, maybe he would have had time to fix all of these inconsistencies! Of course, if he had, we wouldn't have the fun of discussing them on the boards.

[Ñólendil]

Meneldil, I was responding to two different parts of bmilder's post, I wasn't being very clear. The two parts were 1)What would happen in the Last Battle and 2)What actually happened to Morgoth after the War of Wrath (at the end of the First Age).

Welcome Genemeddler! Sauron and Saruman were indeed both Maiar.

Galadriel, I thought someone might mention that. Actually it's not at variance, I omitted to mention the full passage. If you think about what is said in The Silmarillion, it doesn't make too much sense. Morgoth was cast out into the Void with a body? I don't know about you, but I think it would be pretty weird to see a feetless ogre-sized man floating around the dew of Telperion with a surly expression on his face. He couldn't have been thrust out into the Void (actually I think the Void is outside Eä altogether) with an incarnated form. He must have lost his form somehow, i.e., his form must have been destroyed. I should mention this passage occurs in Myths Transformed, when Tolkien wanted to make his legendarium more believable, more scientific:

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, though 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 Eä 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.

* [footnote to the text] Since the minds of Men (and even of the Elves) were inclined to confuse the 'Void', as a conception of the state of Non-being, outside Creation or Eä, with the conception of vast spaces within Eä, especially those conceived to lie all about the enisled 'Kingdom of Arda' (which we should probably call the Solar System).

I suppose this remark would be more closely in accord with the legendarium we're familiar with if you simply omit the footnote (and the word 'Space' in the main body).

[UnStashable]

I though that when they said Melkor was cast into the void it was the same (general) place where Illuvatar and the spirits that remained with him dwelt. Also i thought his servents where cast into the void with him. I think the Simmarilon (sorry for spelling) implied that after the ring was destroyed Sauron was "cast" into the void as well. "But in years after Morgoth he (Sauron) rose like a shadow of morgoth and ghost of his malice and walked the behind him on the same ruinous path into the Void"

[galadriel]

Ok, I'll agree that he was killed in the sense that he lost his body, so maybe the texts aren't in variance. As long as it's understood that Morgoth's soul is still hanging out somewhere in limbo outside of the universe.

[The Eye of Fangorn]

Somebody mentioned something like "Read Morgoth's Ring."

Is there a book named like that?

I've never heard of it. I believe that some day there will be the last battle for Arda. Though the end of it is not decided in the song of Ainur. The minions of Morgoth will arise and try to take back the whole Arda. Men will be slain and perish. The only ones that will stand will be dwarves and elves. Fighting balrogs and orcs and other beast created by Morgoth's twisted mind, they will free the world from all the evil. Elves will then fall asleep and dwarves will help Aulë remake Arda.

That's what I believe might happen.

[Ñólendil]

Unstashable, that quote about Sauron has indeed puzzled me for a long time. For that is not what is said in the Lord of the Rings. I suppose it could have happened. In Of the Istari published in Unfinished Tales it says of Saruman's spirit (after death) that it 'went whithersoever it was doomed to go' (a phrase I like). Perhaps the quote from the Silmarillion may offer some clue. But I don't care to dare an explanation!

In any case, it does say in the Silmarillion that he was cast out into the Void. But if you consider what is said in the Ainulindalë and also briefly (I think) in The Beginning of Days, you will find that Arda is but one minute Realm (if important) set amid the vast spaces of Eä, and outside Eä is the Void. So I ask you, how could Melkor have been thrust out into the Void from the Doors of Night on the edge of Aman? Aman is a part of Arda, which is within Eä, and the Void is outside that. Doesn't make sense.

Tolkien explains it though, either the passage in The Silmarillion is an obscure reference of an intervention of Eru, in which Melkor's spirit was extracted from Eä altogether, or else it refers inaccurately to the extrusion of his spirit of Arda only.

Eye of Fangorn, yes Morgoth's Ring is indeed a book. It is Volume X of the History of Middle-earth series, and together with Volume XI (War of the Jewels) chronicles the creation by JRR Tolkien of the Later Silmarillion.

It also contains some texts not intended to be a part of the Silmarillion, but inevitably related.