/lit/ - Literature

>get to live in luxury and shape the world in your vision
>decide to chimp out and have to be on the run for the rest of your existence
Why bother?

Is the real message of lord of the rings that you should never trust engineers?

All of the main villains of LOTR were Maia of Aule the smith god.

>villain is called "The Dark Lord"
Bravo George

In The LOTR,Tolkien drew upon the language and themes found in the old Medieval hero-tales in order to construct a kind of new mythology. The brilliance of Tolkien was in his departure from the Pagan modes of conduct and morality of these old tales, his creation of a synergistic fusion between Christian thought and Pagan language, and so his work achieved a deep resonance with all who read it.

We find this passage at the conclusion of The Return of the King:

>The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare.

Adversaries in the stories that Tolkien drew upon, Grendel, Mordred and the like, often served as obstacles that the heroes could overcome through feats of strength and cunning. Sauron is not like them. When He is defeated, it is not because Aragon is stronger than him or because Gandalf is wiser. They are not. It is only that his hubris was so great that it never occured to him that anyone would want to destroy the thing he held so dear. It is not until the final few seconds of his existence that he realizes his mistake.

I think that I Am Jazz displays a similar moment. In the pictured scene, Jazz's journey to what he believes is womanhood is almost complete. He is resting after surgery, a triumphant smile on his face, his rotting groin held together by a labyrinthine patchwork of stitches and grafts. But as Eru Ilúvatar nudged Golum over the Crack of Doom into the fires beneath, so too does the God of our world intervene in this.

>Pop!

In a second, the follies of men are undone and Jazz's crotch explodes, a meaty froth of blood and pus pouring out of the hole where his penis used to be.

In that moment of blind panic and terror, Jazz is Sauron. All triumph and victory is gone. Only the Void remains.

It's been 15 years since I last readl LoTR and the Silmarilion. I just re-read all books recently, and even after 15 years, I can't shake the feeling that Sauron somehow was mightier than Melhor.

I know that he isn't, being a Maia while Melkor was a Vala and all... but doesn't Sauron feels... "smarter" than Melkor?

For instance, the first thing Melkor did was incarnate himself within Arda and attain a physical body. That means that for all intents and purposes the forgone his spiritual form and powers and bound himself to the limitations of his physical body.

Second, Melkor wanted to corrupt and destroy and pretty much seemed to have ADD, or at least some obcessive compulsive disorder, because while Sauron was busy commanding his armies and running Melkor's stuff, Melkor was obcessed with obtaining these shiny gems made of pure good that would also burn the fuck out of him (which is kinda idiotic.)

Yeah, Sauron wasn't so great in the Silmarillion. He got owned by a dog, got sung to sleep by an elf and suffered other blows, which never really affected him because he was never bound to a physical body (thus, not affected by physical damage) before the Fall of Numenor.

Melkor brute forces his way into everything, and out of the two (Melkor and Sauron), Melkor is the one getting permanently scarred and mauled over and over again (getting stabbed in the foot by an elf, getting owned by Ungoliant, getting owned by the other Valar, getting thrown in the Void).

Sauron on the other hand seems to be more aware of his lack of power. Dude plays the long-con when it comes to world domination, and is a master at cloak-and-dagger, to such a degree that he:

1) Fooled the same elves that had been fighting Melkor for ages and were weary and experienced in detecting evil.

2) Fooled men in the same way, AND manipulated the Valar into destroying Numenor.

3) Fooled the dwarves, but fuck dwarves

And the few times Sauron actually has to come out and whip ass, he does so magnificently (We can all agree Isildur could NOT take on Sauron 1on1 and the cutting off the finger was a 1 in 100 thing) , in comparisson with Melkor who only shows up to battle with a royal entourage of Balrogs and whatnot. And even without the ring Sauron was able to hold his own against the white council (even when he fleed it was to juke them). If we consider the films, he stood up to Elrond, Galadriel, and goddamn THREE Maiar of the same order as him (Gandalf, Radgast and Saruman).

So my question here is, did Tolkien actually go out of his way to portray Sauron in a more competent light as Dark Lord over Melkor? Or am I totally reading all of this wrong and Melkor is actually the GOAT Dark Lord.