Gothmog vs. Sauron

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

They can exist in Arda without a body, though. An elve's fea would not be able to do that. When it is separated fro the body, it goes straight to Mandos.

Not necessarily - it's not like Mandos has some great spiritual vacuum-cleaner that sucks all bodiless fëar into his halls willy-nilly. He summons them, but while most elvish fëar will obey the summons, they all have the freedom to refuse it, and some do, roaming Middle-earth in their disembodied state. It can be speculated that at least some (maybe most?) of the spirits Sauron conjured and misused in his necromany were such 'houseless' elvish fëar (probably of Avarin origin).

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

When Isildur chopped off the Ring, he lost almost all of his power and was not able to take a physical form again (it is possible that he would regain that power if he got the Ring back, but I'm not sure about this).

That's one of the many popular misconceptions spread by the movies. According to the book, Sauron had regained his physical form at the time of the War of the Ring. Gollum met him in the flesh and told Frodo and Sam that 'He has only nine fingers on his black hand'.

[Galadriel55]

You are probably right, Pitchwife, but for some reason I always thought that Sauron needed the Ring to get back the power to create a body for himself. I don't trust the movies one jot; that idea of mine came from the books. A long time ago I decided for myself that Gollum didn't really see Sauron's body. According to me what really happened is that what remained of Sauron's power and will was still so great, that Gollum saw a vision of how Sauron would look like when he was brought before him. Since the missing finger was a big part of who Sauron is (cause he wore the Ring on it, etc), Gollum would have seen only 9 fingers. Sauron's Eye doesn't really exist, like it does in the movie. It is Frodo's metaphor for Sauron's power when he's searching, because that is when Frodo felt it most before he came close to Mordor.