There are many villains in Tolkien’sLord of the Rings, including the Mouth of Sauron who antagonizes Aragorn at the black gate, the dark and looming Nazgul who chase the hobbits through The Shire, and the Barrow-wights, who nearly kill Frodo and his friends on their way out of Bree.
But the most notorious of all of the villains in the trilogy is Sauron himself, who has been slowly infesting Middle Earth with his spreading darkness for the last several thousand years.Sauron is a maiar, like the 5 wizards, a powerful being who is able to tap into magical forces beyond the understanding of mortal men. He is the villain that the fellowship is tasked with defeating during the War of the Ring, and it can only be done by throwing his master ring, the source of his longevity, into the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged.
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Despite Sauron being the almighty villain of the tale, was there a villain before Sauron? In fact, in the earliest days of his creation, Sauron had a mentor of sorts, someone who helped show him the path towards corruption and devastation. This being was Melkor, one of theValar who are referenced inRings of Power, the recent Amazon Prime series.
Melkor was created good, alongside the other Valar, but quickly became jealous of the powers of creation that Eru Illuvatar possessed. He wished to destroy Valinor and Middle Earth, the beautiful worlds that Eru had created for the elves and men, and so he started by joining forces with Ungoliant the spider demon toextinguish the light of the trees of Valinor.Melkor is the villain in Tolkien’s workThe Silmarillion, which details the moment that beings first awoke with the sound of song, thrughout the First and the Second Age, all the way up until the middle of the Third Age, whenThe Hobbitand theLord of the Ringsare set.
During the First and Second Age, Melkor turns evil and steals the Silmarils, the most precious and beloved creations ofthe elven-craftsmith Feanor.He is thereafter known as Morgoth, and is the most feared villain throughout the First Age of the world. He essentially brought cruelty and death into a world that had been created pure, and started the War of Wrath, which wiped out hundreds of elves. During this time, he was secretly imparting his treacherous ways upon Sauron, whose desires for perfection and control made him the perfect understudy.
TheRings of Powerrepresentation of the evil maiar, disguised as a human by the name of Halbrand, suggested thatSauron actually wanted to heal the world, not destroy it, and in some ways this was true, as Sauron wanted to create total organized order. But in a sense, this would have destroyed all free will, and taken away the parts of Middle Earth that were the most beautiful, the parts that allowed change and growth.
Morgoth fostered this evil within Sauron, whilst at the same time wreaking duplicitous havoc upon the other beings of Middle Earth. He began by taking Illuvatar’s most precious and beloved elves, and twisting them into something darker. They became orcs, which Sauron would later replicate and use in his army against the fellowship and their alliance, but in Morgoth’s time, they were knownthroughout history as the Moriondor. But aside from the Moriondor, Morgoth also had many other creatures under his command, including s bat-like species that are akin to vampires, and a pack of werewolves, who helped to guard his castle and who eventually killed Galadriel’s brother Finrod as he tried to escape captivity with a brave human warrior named Beren.
Both Sauron and Morgoth used cursed beings to do their bidding, because both Sauron and Morgoth were more of an ethereal evil, a pervading presence in the world rather than a physical person made of flesh and bone, despite theRings of Powerattempt to humanize the latter. In fact, it was their all-knowing omniscience that made them so terrifying and so difficult to defeat, despite the fact that Sauron did at one point have a physical form, and was known as one ofthe ultimate warriors of Middle Earth. As for who was a better villain, it’s hard to say.
Both committed terrible acts of pure vengeance in their time, and both had their own skills and followers that empowered them. They had a strong allegiance until Morgoth was captured by Tulkas and cast out into the void. And fans of Tolkien have wondered in thefall of Morgoth weakened or actually strengthened Sauron. But ultimately, many believe that Sauron remained, to the moment he was defeated, a servant of the evil Valar, his mentor, his master, and the villain who taught him everything he knows.
