what happened to sauron when the ring was destroyed

Q: Did Sauron Die When the One Ring was Destroyed?

J.R.R. Tolkien's ain illustration of the spirit of Sauron after he died for the last time.

Answer: Yeah, Sauron died a physical death of the body, the aforementioned as any Elf, Man, Hobbit, Orc, Troll, Oliphaunt, horse, or other creature died in Middle-earth. At that place are people who argue in semantic quibbles, attempting to distinguish between Sauron's death and any other death in Eye-earth, but these arguments are based on false logic and in some cases deliberate attempts to reimagine the story.

I of the worst arguments is Helge Fauskanger's statement that "Sauron did non actually 'dice' when the Ring was destroyed, but he was so horribly maimed and reduced that he could never once again be whatsoever threat."This is complete and utter nonsense.

J.R.R. Tolkien himself speaks of death within Center-earth in many unlike terms and contexts, merely he never distinguishes between the decease of any living animal from the expiry of any self-incarnated animate being.  The author establishes in no uncertain terms that:

1. Valar and Maiar "clothe" themselves in organic bodies
2. Maiar practise feel physical death
3. Sauron's torso was destroyed multiple times
4. He was reduced to a spirit (bodiless)

The determination that Sauron died several times is inescapable when you examine the facts cited below unless you lot autumn back upon the "Uzi Rule", which is a fake logical argument predicated on the absence of a deprival from the author using specific words (due east.yard., "Tolkien never said the Orcs did not carry Uzis so they must have all been armed with submachine guns").

For instance, in Letter of the alphabet No. 156 (a draft) Tolkien wrote to Robert Murray, SJ:

Gandalf actually 'died', and was changed: for that seems to me the only existent cheating, to represent anything that tin can be called 'death' as making no departure. 'I am G. the White, who has returned from death'. Probably he should rather take said to Wormtongue: 'I have not passed through death (not 'fire and flood') to bandy kleptomaniacal words with a serving-human being'. And then on. I might say much more, only it would simply be in (perchance tedious) elucidation of the 'mythological' ideas in my mind; information technology would not, I fright, go rid of the fact that the return of G. is as presented in this book a 'defect', and i I was aware of, and probably did not work hard enough to mend. But G. is not, of course, a human being existence (Man or Hobbit). At that place are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate 'affections'– strictly an γγελος:2 that is, with the other Istari, wizards, 'those who know', an emissary from the Lords of the West, sent to Middle-earth, as the great crisis of Sauron loomed on the horizon. By 'incarnate' I mean they were embodied in physical bodies capable of pain, and weariness, and of afflicting the spirit with concrete fear, and of being 'killed', though supported by the angelic spirit they might suffer long, and but show slowly the wearing of care and labour.

As he quotes himself from the book, even Gandalf tells other characters that he died ("passed through death") without saying the verbal words "I died".

In Alphabetic character No. 200 addressed to Major R. Bowen in 1957 Tolkien wrote:

I note your remarks virtually Sauron. He was always de-bodied when vanquished. The theory, if one can dignify the modes of the story with such a term, is that he was a spirit, a minor one but still an 'celestial' spirit. According to the mythology of these things that means that, though of course a creature, he belonged to the race of intelligent beings that were made before the physical earth, and were permitted to assist in their measure in the making of it. Those who became about involved in this work of Fine art, as it was in the offset case, became then engrossed with it, that when the Creator fabricated it real (that is, gave it the secondary reality, subordinate to his ain, which we phone call main reality, and so in that hierarchy on the aforementioned plane with themselves) they desired to enter into it, from the beginning of its 'realization'.

They were allowed to do so, and the great among them became the equivalent of the 'gods' of traditional mythologies; but a condition was that they would remain 'in it' until the Story was finished. They were thus in the world, but non of a kind whose essential nature is to be physically incarnate. They were cocky-incarnated, if they wished; simply their incarnate forms were more coordinating to our apparel than to our bodies, except that they were more than are clothes the expression of their desires, moods, wills and functions. Noesis of the Story as it was when composed, before realization, gave them their measure of fore-cognition; the amount varied very much, from the fairly complete cognition of the mind of the Creator in this matter possessed by Manwë, the 'Elderberry King', to that of lesser spirits who might accept been interested only in some subsidiary matter (such equally trees or birds). Some had attached themselves to such major artists and knew things chiefly indirectly through their cognition of the minds of these masters. Sauron had been fastened to the greatest, Melkor, who ultimately became the inevitable Rebel and self-worshipper of mythologies that begin with a transcendent unique Creator. Olórin (Vol II p. 279) had been attached to Manwë.

And in Alphabetic character No. 245 Tolkien responded to Rhona Beare'south question "What happened to Elves when they died in boxing?" by writing:

As for the Elves. Even in these legends we see the Elves mainly through the eyes of Men. It is in any case clear that neither side was fully informed well-nigh the ultimate destiny of the other. The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Homo 'immortal'. Just they were non unageing or unwearying. Their ain tradition was that they were confined to the limits of this world (in infinite and time), even if they died, and would go on in some form to exist in it until 'the cease of the earth'. Only what 'the end of the earth' portended for information technology or for themselves they did not know (though they no incertitude had theories). Neither had they of class whatsoever special information apropos what 'decease' portended for Men. They believed that information technology meant 'liberation from the circles of the world', and was in that respect to them enviable. And they would indicate out to Men who envied them that a dread of ultimate loss, though it may be indefinitely remote, is not necessarily the easier to bear if it is in the end ineluctably certain: a burden may become heavier the longer it is borne.

Hither he casually says "fifty-fifty if they died", and yet yous'll find many people who argue that Elves exercise not truly "die" because their spirits remain within Infinite and Time.

In Tolkien's fiction death has nothing to do with where the spirit goes subsequently the body dies. Decease is what happens to the body, non to the spirit. In his long letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien said "The Second Historic period ends with the Last Alliance (of Elves and Men), and the great siege of Mordor. It ends with the overthrow of Sauron and destruction of the second visible incarnation of evil." And also "Isildur, Elendil'southward son, cuts the ring from Sauron's hand, and his power departs, and his spirit flees into the shadows." At this betoken in the story, Sauron was dead. He also died when Numenor was destroyed. Each time his body was destroyed he died, and only when the Band was destroyed was he reduced to such a weakened state that he would never be able to self-incarnate again. Sauron could never "live" in Infinite and Fourth dimension once again. And we can wait at Letter No. 200 again, where Tolkien wrote:

Information technology was because of this pre-occupation with the Children of God that the spirits and then oft took the grade 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 earth and non a vision transferred from mind to mind, information technology took some time to build up. It was and then destructible like other physical organisms. But that of class did not destroy the spirit, nor dismiss it from the globe to which it was spring until the terminate. After the boxing with Gilgalad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done later on the Downfall of Númenor (I suppose considering each building-up used upward some of the inherent energy of the spirit, which might be called the 'will' or the constructive link between the indestructible mind and existence and the realization of its imagination). The impossibility of re-building after the devastation of the Band, is sufficiently clear 'mythologically' in the nowadays book.

Finally, in Letter No. 211 Tolkien addressed the point again where he wrote:

Sauron was first defeated by a 'miracle': a straight activeness of God the Creator, changing the fashion of the globe, when appealed to by Manwë: encounter III p. 317. Though reduced to 'a spirit of hatred borne on a nighttime air current', I do not think one need boggle at this spirit conveying off the One Band, upon which his ability of dominating minds now largely depended. That Sauron was not himself destroyed in the acrimony of the 1 is not my mistake: the problem of evil, and its apparent toleration, is a permanent one for all who concern themselves with our world. The indestructibility of spirits with costless wills, fifty-fifty past the Creator of them, is besides an inevitable feature, if one either believes in their existence, or feigns it in a story…

Many of the same people who fence that Sauron did not really dice also cite extensively from Tolkien's word of the Elvish fëa (spirit) and hröa, in which he speaks at corking length nigh how Elves experienced (physical) death (of the body) and what it meant for them. But he never leaves an exception for the death of whatsoever character. There is only one type of death in Heart-world, where the body is slain or expires, but there are many different types of spirits, of which those of Men (and Hobbits) depart and "seek elsewhere".

You cannot be reduced to a mere spirit, equally Sauron was, without first experiencing a physical death (of your body).

# # #

Have y'all read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?

Follow The Middle-earth Blog
Manage your ONCE DAILY DIGEST subscriptions here A confirmation email will be sent to new subscribers AND unsubscribers. Please look for information technology!	Click here to follow The Eye-globe Blog on Twitter: @tolkien_qna. The Middle-globe Blog'due south RSS Feed (summaries merely)

shieldsleme1971.blogspot.com

Source: https://middle-earth.xenite.org/did-sauron-die-when-the-one-ring-was-destroyed/