What did Sauron want?

[ErikB]

I would speculate that Sauron hoped to grow in power to a point at which he could overthrow Morgoth (Melkor). The Silmarian opens in describing the beginning of the creation of his world.

Those unfamiliar with the book often don't realize that Tolkien describes the creation of the first orcs from captured elves that Morgoth used magic and torture to twist into a ruined form. This was also the justification for an unusual hatred between these species.

It describes Morgoth as the creator of Trolls (the bastardized form of ents). Morgoth creates these and other dark creatures in the pits of Utunamo.

Sauron is sent forth as one of many servants of Morgoth. So presumably even had he overcome the lands surrounding Mordor and recovered the one ring and taken power, ultimately he would still have to face a more powerful enemy in his master.

Given that Morgoth had other servants like Sauron it could be that he might also need to overthrow Bernron, Tathross, Beordag, and Kreshkor. (Just an example.)

 

[Justin Swanton]

Don't forget that Sauron was not his own master. He remained under the sway of Morgoth even after the first Dark Lord had been chained. IIRC Morgoth is plotting his return to Middle Earth (which will happen at the end of the Ages) and Sauron is his tool for paving the way, a kind of dark version of John the Baptist. Of course Sauron has his own motivations but they are suborned, made use of, just as Saruman has his own plans but in reality is under the sway of Sauron thanks to the Palantir. It's a common trait of nearly all evil beings at the end of the Third Age that they serve an evil being greater than themselves. Evil is not free.

 

[Narkalui]

Who are Bernron, Tathross, Beordag and Kreshkor? I've not heard these names before...

 

[aThenian]

I've thought for a long while that one of the strengths of LOTR - the books - is that we see and hear so little of Sauron.

If he actually appeared, then it would almost certainly be an anticlimax. (After all, who particularly cares about the lieutenants who are brought out to represent him in the War on Gondor and at the Black Gates?) As it is, he's a kind of nameless horror. Much more powerful in the mind.

The films obviously didn't feel they could get away with this, and so he appears at the start - and to me was immediately a disappointment. Just not terrible enough.

I think this thread itself also suggests to me that it's a further strength of the book that Tolkien doesn't spell out Sauron's background/rationale/aims in any very definite way either. As we see here, it means that individual readers can fill in themselves to an extent with their own conception of evil (or go and dig around in the Silmarillion if they want to). A more explicitly Christian-based framework, for example, would work for some readers, but repel others (as it does with CS Lewis's Narnia where the Christian overtones are more overt). The ambiguity - the gaps - are actually a strength.