All too true. After all, he and his Dark Realm (Nintendo version available at a retail outlet near you in time for christmas) were destroyed by a hobbit. Although I would amend my former comments to note that the Eagles represented a passable (albeit freelance and hard to count on) airforce. And for their part, they could have carried hobbits as ballistic weapons. A hobbit may be small, but quite devastating at terminal velocity... but they had a tendency to show up at the very last moment after most of the damage is done and lots of people are dead. A bunch of Glory Boys (tm).
Arguably, Morgoth used a whole raft of balrogs and dragons against Gondolin, which would have been the first aerial assault. He wasn't such a tactical boogerhead, and basically kicked some Eldar butt for his part (and, all impressions from the Lord of the Rings aside, the elves needed a serious behind-booting in the First Age (tm)). They left the Blessed Realm (available for most platforms, MMX enhanced - requires 3D accelerator) to go "find themselves" (okay, and to find the silmarils). Feanor was a classic manic-depressive.
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Kind of surprising, considering his origins, how long he'd been around, and his training with Morgoth, isn't it?
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That just makes Sauron's oversight that much more of an embarrassment. Here he is, protege of Morgoth, and what did he learn? Nothing! What was he doing during the First Age - too busy pulling legs off elves? Waxing the steps at the old dwarfs home? Sauron ("Bucky" to his friends) is a classic, sad example of one who was just not born to lead. He was great as a Lieutenant, but just wasn't ready for the epaulette. I mean, look at the whole Numenor/Second Age (GameBoy compatible) fiasco. He went from one miserable failure to another -- a long prison sentence, an unfortunate fall into an abyss, a long siege cooped up in Barad-Dur with his least favorite cousin Herbert (the one who liked to stick macaroni noodles in his nostrils and make faces --- a constant embarrassment for the whole family), and then having his Ring and Finger (_not_ the best name for a steak house) ignominiously chopped off. What we have here is a classic case of codependence, and with Morgoth gone, Sauron was at an absolute loss. Clearly, Sauron was the victim in all this.
[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: Thenamir ]