Sauron: the adaptive power of evil

An analysis of evil in "The Rings of Power"

Warning: spoilers for “The Rings of Power”

At the beginning of the new second season of The Rings of Power, we see an apparent flashback. In the dark rocky depths of a Mordor palace, Sauron is ready to claim his title as the Lord of Mordor. He is surrounded by hideous Orcs and their leader, Adar, as the latter lifts a spiked crown and raises it high to mark the beginning of Sauron’s rule over Mordor.

A long, quiet pause follows. As I watch, I get a feeling that something unexpected might occur. And ironically, just as I expected, a plot twist occurs.

The “father” of the orcs places the pointed crown not on Sauron’s head, but into his neck. After he stabs Sauron, the Orcs rush toward him like a mob. They use their weapons to stab Sauron repeatedly until he seems to die.

Apparently they would rather be governed by Adar than by this phony Maiar thingy.

However, the future Dark Lord can simply cheat death through his supernatural nature. You see, although humans and other mortals die once and then go to the afterlife, Maiar (i.e. spirits) such as Sauron can basically reincarnate themselves.* Even if you kill Sauron, you can’t truly send him into the afterlife; he will simply come back in another form.**

So after being slain by the Orcs and their preferred leader, we see evidence that Sauron’s spirit lives on. His black blood fluid drips down into the deep caverns underneath the infernal Mordorian palace. And in this place, a new organism seems to form: a black mess of strings or a shapeless slime.

First it swallows a poor lonely rat, like a ravenous octopus grabbing a little clam. Then it finds its way out of this mountainous cavern, like Bilbo Baggins escaping from the dark Misty Mountains. But unlike Bilbo, this nasty creature, apparently possessed by Sauron, has a darker journey to fulfill.

The blob of life wanders along a small road outside the mountains. Happening across a random horse-drawn cart, it slithers inside the cart and apparently eats the journeying woman inside.

Afterward, the camera slowly pans upward to reveal a new figure standing before the cart. He turns to reveal a face just like the woman, but in a male form.***

Sauron has become Halbrand.

And so it is demonstrated that evil can take many forms. Even when killed, evil takes another form.

For evil is not just one person. It’s not limited to the individual. Selfish ambition, the desire to dominate, and material greed will often have its way in many place, and manifest in many people. It’s like a virus that spreads from person to person.

And like a virus, or a super intelligent monster, evil knows how to adapt. You can slay it with a pointed crown or a broken Elf sword, but it always comes back, displaying resilience and even a dark intelligence. Darwin would almost have to admire its adaptibility!

But just as evil can take many forms, and survive amidst adversity, so can good. And it takes the form of Galadriel, Gil-galad, Isildur, Frodo Baggins, and Aragorn.

*(t least some of them can; it’s not clear whether Gandalf reincarnated himself after dying to the Balrog in The Fellowship of the Ring, or whether Eru Iluvatar raised him from the dead, similar to Jesus Christ’s resurrection.

**Is this what Gandalf meant when he said, “The Shadow never truly goes away. It merely takes another form”?

***I’m reminded of Rimiru Tempest from “That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime.” As the title suggests, Rimuru is reborn as a slime after his death and later comes to inhabit a human female’s body. Although Rimuru is not as nefarious as Sauron, Rimuru’s habit of changing bodies is similar to Sauron. As a side note, both characters also want to rule huge kingdoms, and are quite skilled are doing so, perhaps owing to their inability to die at the hands of angry enemies and rivals to the throne.

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