Sympathy for the Devil?

[Inziladun]

Nice one, Mithadan!
Sauron obviously wanted the Ring as an instrument of power, but would he have been in thrall to it in the same manner as others who desired it?
After all, it was basically himself, wasn't it? The power and will within the Ring were at first part of him. Gollum, Isildur, Boromir, and even Saruman were striving to attain power that was not native to them in their beginning, whereas Sauron was attempting to regain that portion of his divine ability he had lost.
Sauron certainly never gives any indication that he becomes as pitiful as Gollum in his desire for the Ring. In fact, he was able to rebuild his strongholds and armies , and manage a war quite adequately without it. It is to me beyond argument, however, that lust for the Ring was in the end his undoing, as the thought that Aragorn or someone else might claim it caused him to mismanage things at the end and allow the Ring-bearer into Mordor.

[Hakon]

I cannot have sympathy for Sauron. As Inziladun said the ring is part of himself. He just wants something that is him back. It is like when someone was once in good shape and they are now obese, they want to lose the wait and get back that old body. To Sauron the ring is the old body. He wants it more than anything. I always feel bad for Gollum though, it is like he could not possibly escape the power of the ring and had to give in to it. I also feel sympathy for the Nazgûl.

[radagastly]

The only answer to any question you might have on this issue is, NO! Sorry, but there is no scenario in which Sauron might "come clean!" He never tried to "come clean," he never wanted to "come clean," He never gave a @#*T% about Aman's feelings (Much less, Middle Earth's.) While within Tolkien's Middle Earth, there may be variations of just how evil someone is, but there is no question about just how evil The Dark Lord is, regardless of anything he might do to persuade.

[Hakon]

Well if someone is evil or not is simply perspective. You have to remember that when you are discussing good and evil.

[Morthoron]

Sauron is a cipher -- a faceless blank. There is little to like about him, or anything to feel sympathetic about. He is not an anti-hero on the monumental level of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tolkien did little to flesh out the character; whereas Milton created a Puritan's version of James Dean -- a rebel with claws, so to speak. Clearly Satan is the most interesting character in Paradise Lost (to both the reader and to Milton himself), so much so that the poet William Blake stated of Milton:

"The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it."

We do not sense the rebel in Sauron as we did with Morgoth. Sauron is more Morgoth's accountant, a dry piece of toast who learned much from Morgoth's mistakes, preferring to work his evil through others, and hence the making of the Rings of Power in the first place. We only get hints and snatches of Sauron's character in condensed form in the Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age , and he is a far more intriguing character in the 2nd Age than ever he was in the 3rd.

Simply put, we cannot sympathize with Sauron because we really don't know him. Tolkien never gave us the opportunity.

[Mithadan]

Sauron is more Morgoth's accountant, a dry piece of toast who learned much from Morgoth's mistakes

Morthoron, if we had a Hall of Fame for best qoutes by a poster, I would nominate this one for enshrinement.

Inzildun understands what I am suggesting here. I am not advocating for sympathy or forgiveness for Sauron. Nor am I suggesting he was capable of redemption by the time of LoTR. While Of the Rings of Power suggests that he acted remorseful before Eonwe at the conclusion of the First Age and that he may, indeed, have felt guilt and sorrow for his evils, by the Third Age Sauron was clearly beyond redemption. Compare the death of Saruman with the final fall of Sauron. Saruman's spirit or shade at least goes so far as to look to the West before dissipating. Sauron's, instead, as its last act, impotently threatens the Army of the West. He has no forgiveness left in him at that point.

But what I am really talking about is the torment Sauron must have experienced at the loss and absence of the Ring. If Gollum and Frodo are representative examples, the loss of the Ring is akin to perpetual withdrawal from a physical addiction. It is pure agony. Does Sauron experience this? And if he does, would you have sympathy for him at least as regards his suffering?

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

But what I am really talking about is the torment Sauron must have experienced at the loss and absence of the Ring. If Gollum and Frodo are representative examples, the loss of the Ring is akin to perpetual withdrawal from a physical addiction. It is pure agony. Does Sauron experience this? And if he does, would you have sympathy for him at least as regards his suffering?

I am sure Sauron suffers perpetual torment away from his Ring - it is a part of himself, after all. Moreover, it is the pinnacle of his craft, like with Feanor and the Silmarils.
I have plenty of sympathy for Sauron.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

But what I am really talking about is the torment Sauron must have experienced at the loss and absence of the Ring. If Gollum and Frodo are representative examples, the loss of the Ring is akin to perpetual withdrawal from a physical addiction. It is pure agony. Does Sauron experience this? And if he does, would you have sympathy for him at least as regards his suffering?

First, thank you for the compliment, Mith.

Second, I was aware of the question you raised regarding Sauron's possible suffering. I was inferring that we could in no way sympathize with Sauron in Lord of the Rings, because Tolkien does not allow us. We do not understand Sauron's motivations (save, of course, the basest and most imperialistic). There is a certain empathy we feel for the tortured soul of Gollum, because we came to know him well in The Hobbit and LotR. He is perhaps one of the three or four funniest characters in the books, and we are always captivated by the funny bad guy, aren't we? Sauron, on the other hand, is always looming and omnipotent.

If you are like me, you read the Hobbit and LotR before the Silmarillion was published, and I did not get pertinent information and a fuller picture regarding the Dark Lord until reading the LotR Appendices after completing the story. We meet Sauron with a sense of dread in the Hobbit, where he is simply the nameless Necromancer, and even in LotR he is the faceless great burning eye. There is not much there to get hold of, and literally nothing that resembles aspects of our own lives (nothing gains sympathy more than shared experiences or familiar pains).

Third, did Sauron experience pain having the Ring withheld from him? I don't believe it was the same agony incurred by Frodo or Gollum -- Sauron was of the Ainur and a great Maia, after all, and did not experience the same pains even Gandalf felt because Sauron did not have to bottle his Maiaric power in the mean confines of a human body as the Istari did (Sauron's corporeal manifestions as the beautiful Annatar and the foreboding black Lord of Mordor are more deified than human). What Sauron suffered was nagging doubt, which is a feature Tolkien instills in almost every great villain of his works (certainly Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman). The intense anxiety Sauron suffers seems inordinate to an immortal from a logical sense, but is in line with models in Greek myth. This fear and doubt caused Sauron to 'blow his wad early' on a number of occassions, which is uncharacteristic of a deity who planned patiently over thousands of years the downfall of Numenor, Arnor and Gondor. Though uncharacteristic of his overarching and grandiose multimillenial plan for domination, his sometimes rash, ill-timed and undisciplined actions directly relate to the loss of the Ring or the fear of someone else wielding the Ring. The Ring in essence defeated the maker on several levels.