However, already Thû, and even more so Sauron, have completely lost all traces of being associated with cats. On the contrary, as Thû is a werewolf.
That is, at any rate, Christopher's analysis:
Quote:
"The monstrous gormandising cats, their kitchens and their sunning terraces, and their engagingly Elvish-feline names (Miaugion, Miaule, Meoita) all disappeared without trace. Did Tevildo? It would scarcely be true, I think, to say even that Sauron 'originated' in a cat: in the next phase of the legends the Necromancer (Thu) has no feline attributes. On the other hand it would be wrong to regard it as a simple matter of replacement (Thu stepping into the narrative place vacated by Tevildo) without any element of transformation of what was previously there. Tevildo's immediate successor is 'the Lord of Wolves', himself a werewolf, and he retains the Tevildo-trait of hating Huan more than any other creature in the world. Tevildo was 'an evil fay in beastlike shape' (p. 29); and the battle between the two great beasts, the hound against the werewolf (originally the hound against the demon in feline form) was never lost."
(HoME II, i)
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