Sauron's loyalty after the First Age

[Zigûr]

Hello, having introduced myself in the Newcomers thread I thought I might bring up an issue which I have been musing upon for a while. The gist of it is this: what are your opinions on Sauron's loyalty after the First Age? Was he still devoted to Morgoth or was he pursuing his own agenda?

The reason I ask is that I see a lot of threads on forums around the internet with notions like "why Sauron stayed loyal after Morgoth's defeat", "would he try to bring Morgoth back somehow" and the like, but I felt that a lot of these rely on the assumption that Sauron particularly cared that his former master was gone. The confusion seems to primarily lie with Sauron's establishment of the Melkor-worshipping religion in Númenor.
I personally have always viewed Sauron as a complete opportunist. He was, according to Morgoth's Ring, seduced to Morgoth's side because of Morgoth's apparent efficiency and decisiveness (compared to the Valar). By the Second Age, in Númenor, this ruthless pragmatism of Sauron's which Morgoth exploited had effectively gone full circle; it would seem to me that his establishment of Melkor-worship derived not from any genuine sense of reverence for his exiled master but purely out of convenience: "Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound himself; but as the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the worship of Melkor will raise him from hostage to high priest." (Morgoth's Ring again)

What do you think? While I do believe that Sauron's pursuit of his particular agenda caused him to ultimately, subconsciously, propagate the cause of the ongoing malice of Morgoth imbued as it was in the very substance of Middle-earth itself, I believe this was in the purely conceptual, metaphysical sense of "Morgoth" as it had come to exist as the general presence of evil potency in Arda, not in the fulfilment of the deliberate will of Melkor-Morgoth in actuality as a person or individual. Nor do I believe that any of his schemes, including the destruction of Númenor, the forging of the Rings or any of his other policies were enacted out of any deliberate continued loyalty on Sauron's part to Morgoth the person, who was exiled seemingly permanently from Arda and whose absence elevated Sauron from second-in-command to potentially complete primary lordship. How do you view the matter?

[Boromir88]

Hello Zigur, welcome to the Barrow-downs. A highly interesting thread topic, and much of what you say is what I think as well.

"Opportunist" is a good word to use for Sauron. I can't track down the precsie reference at the moment, but Sauron first was drawn to Melkor's service because of Melkor's power and the expediency he was able to enact his plans. Morgoth seemed the "I want this now" Dark-Lord, where Sauron was more calculated and thoughtful:

Sauron, however, inherited the 'corruption' of Arda, and only spent his (much more limited) power on the Rings; for it was the creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to dominate. In this way, Sauron was also wiser than Melkor-Morgoth. Sauron was not a beginner of discord; and he probably knew more of the 'Music' than did Melkor, whose mind had always been filled with his own plans and devices, and gave little attention to other things.~HoME X: Morgoth's Ring; Myths Transformed

Sauron, no doubt, joined Melkor's service because they essentially had the same designs. But it was an opportunistic move, much like Saruman's "we can join with that Power (Sauron)" speech to Gandalf was Saruman being an opportunist. Saruman expresses the same goals as Sauron, but feels to achieve them, the easiest way is to get on Sauron's good side, and then backstab him when the chance presented itself. I'm not saying Sauron ever wanted to backstab Morgoth, but he joined Morgoth to further his own ambitions.

Eventually, Morgoth starts slipping into nihilism, where all he cares about is complete and utter destruction. Morgoth, being unable to control becomes like an 8-yo having a temper tantrum. "Fine, if I can't have it my way, I'm just going to trash the place." He recklessly throws in armies and spends resources, because all he wants total destruction. On the other hand, Sauron never falls to nihilism:

"He [Sauron] still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and co- ordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. (It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.)"~ibid

And take care of two points with one quote, since I also found the reference to why Sauron first joined Morgoth. Anyway, Sauron loved order and co-ordination. His plans were to dominate and control free will. He wanted slavery and obediance to his will. Morgoth wanted to burn the world. It's hard to rule over others if you're destroying/killing everything.

As far as the Melkor-religion he was creating in Numenor. Again, this is, I feel, Sauron just being an opportunist:

Sauron was not a ’sincere’ atheist, but he preached atheism, because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God’s action in Arda)..... To wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it is best to propound another unseen object of allegiance and another hope of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what he desires and not forbid it. Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound himself; but as the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the worship of Melkor will raise him from hostage to high priest.~ibid

Sauron never denies the existance of the "Gods" and from the sound of it, never aligned to the belief of Morgoth idolatry. He ceases to fear they will step in and muck up his plans, as they had done with Morgoths, but he always acknowledged their existance. Sauron's Melkor-religion of Numenor, was Sauron wisely recognizing it strengthened his own standing in Numenor, not that he actually believed it:

When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. By the end of the Second Age he assumed the position of Morgoth's representative. By the end of the Third Age he claimed to be Morgoth returned.~Letter 183

Technically speaking, he is following along with Morgoth's work, because Morgoth was the creator of all this discord. However, Sauron was full of pride, and I think we can reasonably say, in Sauron's mind (which is what really matters here), he's not thinking about Morgoth. He's thinking about his own abitions, and setting himself as the "Lord" over Middle-earth.

[Galadriel55]

I second Boro, this is a very interesting topic.

I agree with what has been said, and "opportunist" seems quite a fitting word to describe Sauron.

It's really not that difficult a choice for him: either you work hard to do the near-impossible of bringing your old master back, or you become the big bad bully yourself. Knowing Sauron's lust for power, his choice is clear. I doubt he ever felt any devotion to Morgoth beyond the basic "while he's there he gives me power" feeling. So I doubt Sauron had any great loyalty in the first place.

I like the sound of the idea that Sauron's Morgoth cult is really subconsciously worshiping "Morgoth's Ring", not the individual himself.

[Mumriken]

Read the wikipedia article on Sauron and you would know his loyalty. It's quite obvious actually, obviously he is loyal to Melkor.

[Zigûr]

Wikipedia's articles on Sauron and Morgoth actually contributed to my motivation towards contemplating this topic. Once upon a time (before I edited it actually) the article on Morgoth claimed that Sauron stayed loyal to Morgoth after the First Age but gave no evidence from Professor Tolkien's own writing to support this assertion. Indeed almost all of the evidence which I mentioned from "Myths Transformed" along with the note from Letter 183, both of which were kindly provided in detail by Boromir88, would suggest to me that after the War of Wrath Sauron was pursuing his own agenda. Morgoth had become, more or less, irrelevant beyond being a phantom from Sauron's personal history he could use to corrupt the Númenoreans and other Men he duped into perceiving him as a divinity.
While I believe that Sauron was indeed loyal to Morgoth in the First Age, and was motivated to this allegiance initially due to admiration for Morgoth's ambition and wilfulness and later because being Morgoth's second-in-command was a position of enormous authority he could never have achieved on his own given the circumstances of the First Age, I don't believe that loyalty persisted after Morgoth's exile. This quote from Morgoth's Ring seems pertinent:

While Morgoth still stood, Sauron did not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the beginning he had adored. He thus was often able to achieve things, first conceived by Melkor, which his master did not or could not complete in the furious haste of his malice.

I am noting here words and phrases including "while Morgoth still stood" and "whom in the beginning he had adored". The suggestion seems very much to me to be that Sauron's admiration for Morgoth had gradually eroded, probably due to Morgoth's increasing nihilism, and that after Morgoth's defeat Sauron was seeking his own supremacy.
I think by and large the confusion that his loyalty was more enduring seems to derive from a misinterpretation of the events of the Akallabêth. As for this "bringing Morgoth back" idea, I'm pretty sure that's just a silly notion I read somewhere with no basis whatsoever in the Professor's writing, and possibly derives from a desire some might have for Tolkien's world to be more like the heavily serialised Fantasy sagas of more modern times (the plot of A Darkness at Sethanon is something like that I believe).

[Mumriken]

You know what staying loyal means right? You better edit that wikipedia article again, because you are clearly wrong.