[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

So if we understood it the way that this would also apply to Sauron, it would actually be some sort of "revelation moment" for Sauron, when he would finally also understand his own purpose, which he himself had not been aware of before. I think that's quite a nice and hopeful idea.

I find this an interesting thought. We know that Morgoth is doomed to die at the hand of Turambar, which presumably means that he is completely annihilated - not imprisoned, not exiled, not simply divested of his incarnate body, but totally destroyed in spirit at the most fundamental level. We know that Sauron was "only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself." (Valaquenta) Given that Sauron was only a propagator, and not the originator, of Evil, does that put himself in a different position to his old Master? The destruction of Morgoth in absolute terms (rather than the previous compromises), which includes remaking all of Arda free of his taint, means the destruction of Evil in totality, and Sauron was only one of the symptoms, if apparently the worst after the cause himself. What about other Úmaiar? Saruman? Orcs? Would they be "healed" of the taint of Melkor along with everything else?
It's one of those questions which I have always found curious regarding the theodicy of Eä and the ultimate consequences for evil deeds. How much responsibility is there in the final balance between one's own will to action and the ever-present 'Morgoth-element' putting an evil tendency into all matter? If anyone has read Professor Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle-earth he discusses this as a Boethian-Manichean tension in Professor Tolkien's work, suggesting mediation between one's own potential evil and Evil as an external force. But we can't know how Eru weighs this matter. Were all Men treated equally after death? After passing beyond the Circles of the World would someone like Aragorn or Elros be given the same treatment as, say, The Lord of the Nazgûl? Given that not even the Valar knew I suppose it can only be left to the imagination. Considering, though, that Professor Tolkien did not support the concept of Absolute Evil, though, I can imagine it following that no one was necessarily irredeemably evil either. But had Sauron already had his chance at the end of the First Age?