LotR -- Sauron

[Quickbeam]

While watching my new widescreen DVD last night, my lovely wife asked me an interesting question. She wanted to know why Sauron appeared to be so HUGE. It's quite clear that as depicted in the film, the Dark Lord must stand over ten feet tall.

Now I've always considered Sauron to be human -- although I'm not sure Tolkien ever tells us what race the Dark Lord belongs to. And while other wizards (Gandalf & Saruman) are depicted as very tall humans, they aren't abnormally large. So here are my questions:
1) Is Sauron human by your reckoning? If not, then what?
2) Is he shown in a larger-than-life manner to more thoroughly convey his awesome might and terrible power?
3) Did anyone else puzzle over this? For my part, I just accepted the movie depiction as a bit of poetic license being taken for the visual effects.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

While watching my new widescreen DVD last night, my lovely wife asked me an interesting question. She wanted to know why Sauron appeared to be so HUGE. It's quite clear that as depicted in the film, the Dark Lord must stand over ten feet tall.

Now I've always considered Sauron to be human -- although I'm not sure Tolkien ever tells us what race the Dark Lord belongs to. And while other wizards (Gandalf & Saruman) are depicted as very tall humans, they aren't abnormally large. So here are my questions:
1) Is Sauron human by your reckoning? If not, then what?
2) Is he shown in a larger-than-life manner to more thoroughly convey his awesome might and terrible power?
3) Did anyone else puzzle over this? For my part, I just accepted the movie depiction as a bit of poetic license being taken for the visual effects.

1) Well, Tolkien does tell us Sauron is a Maia in the Silmarillion. It may also be alluded to somewhere in the Trilogy. A Maia is something akin to an angel or demon, depending on whether they're good or evil. The Balrog is also a Maia, less powerful than Sauron.

2) I don't know. Maybe. At one time Sauron could pass himself off as an Elf, or something like an Elf, but he could change his form very easily until he was defeated and the Ring taken from him. Then he was stuck in a very fearsome form, which Tolkien only describes vaguely - mostly just dark, missing a finger, and the red eye. Perhaps he still has the form from that great battle; I'd guess he may have taken a large, demonic form to better scare his enemies in battle.

3) Not really. I just assumed he took a particularly nasty form for scare tactics - and being really big would be scary.

 

[Quickbeam]

Thanks for the reply Colonel.

I never finished The Silmarillion, and don't recall seeing the Maia reference in the trilogy. Now I can go home and give my wife a satisfactory answer .

 

[Storminator]

Re: Re: LotR -- Sauron

<SNIP>
2) I don't know. Maybe. At one time Sauron could pass himself off as an Elf, or something like an Elf, but he could change his form very easily until he was defeated and the Ring taken from him. Then he was stuck in a very fearsome form, which Tolkien only describes vaguely - mostly just dark, missing a finger, and the red eye. Perhaps he still has the form from that great battle; I'd guess he may have taken a large, demonic form to better scare his enemies in battle.

<SNIP>

He lost his "fair form" when Numenor was destroyed. So by the time of the Last Alliance (scene in question), he can't look nice, just mean. And that he does.

PS

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Re: LotR -- Sauron

He lost his "fair form" when Numenor was destroyed. So by the time of the Last Alliance (scene in question), he can't look nice, just mean. And that he does.

PS

D'OH! Absolutely correct! Failed my Knowledge (Middle Earth History) roll on that one.

 

[ReignofGeekaos]

Well my artistic interpartation of how he looks goes directly to what Gandalf and Elrond called him the Necromancer, and the fact he was apparently phyiscally formless at the time, lead to me thinking he was like a Ringwraith, clad in a cloak to give him a form the only thing visiable within a single burning red eye.