Sauron

[Dark Lord Sauron]

I have some questions about Sauron, if I may.

Firstly, I believe most of you know that Sauron was defeated at the end of the Second Age when Isildur cut the One Ring off his finger. Sauron then was forced to pass into shadow as a spirit, and could not find the strength to regain a body for himself afterwards, without the Ring. This would suggest that he invested so much of his power into the Ring, that he could not survive without it, at least in physical form. After all, if he could, then he still would have had a body after his finger was cut, and he also would have still been able to use the powers given to him as a Maia.

However, the Simarillion states twice that Sauron, indeed, after he forged the One Ring, was able to be completely independent of it.
Page 280: "There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-d^ur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malace and hatred made visible..."
Page 292: "There now he brooded in the dark, until he had wrought for himself a new shape; and it was terrible, for his fair semblance had departed for ever when he was cast into the abyss at the drowning of N'umenor. He then took up again the great Ring and clothed himself in power..."

This would disprove the theory that without the Ring, which he had put so much power into, Sauron would be powerless. In fact, he reserved much of his power in himself, as he was still able to make himself fair when he was captured by the forces of N'umenor. Therefore, I cannot see why Sauron was forced to depart into shadow when the Ring was separated by him, and why he could not continue the fight. The text only suggests that he needed the Ring to create for himself a new being, which would keep the whole point of the Lord of the Rings valad, but it does not suggest that if the Ring was destroyed, Sauron would depart forever.

There is one other question, more so than a discreprancy. Both quotes from above have ends, which are as follows:
Page 280: ", and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure."
Page 292: "; and the malace of the Eye of Sauron few even of the great among Elves and Men could endure."
So, the Eye of Sauron was indeed made before the Third Age. My assumption, before reading this text, was that he had built the Eye in order to increase his power, during the Third Age. Still, this raises some questions. For example, how, then, did Sauron see when he accrued a physical form during the Second Age? Were his own eyes blind and useless, and he only used the Eye to see? If so, could he see his enemies from miles away, and ambush them himself? Or did he have some messed up form of double vision? Did Tolkein ever discuss this?
And one other thing: after a seven year seige, Barad-d^ur was defeated, and it was destroyed, although its foundations did remain afterwards. Barad-d^ur had taken Sauron six hundred years to build. By the year 3318 the reconstruction of the Dark Tower had only commenced a little more than fifty years ago. What happened to the Eye in between? Surely it could not have survived, for it had lain at the top. And how was it destroyed the first time, anyway? Did Sauron have to recreate the Eye? Even if he did, how could it possibly have rested on the Dark Tower, if Barad-d^ur was still, for the most part, uncompleted?