Myth-ing the Big Picture

by their music. He was the servant of Aulë who, as an Aratar, one of the eight most powerful Valar, was the master of crafts and the creator of the dwarves. Sauron shared in that prodigious power.

However, Sauron was corrupted by Melkor, the Vala who rebelled against Ilúvatar by singing his own discordant strains in the Music of the Ainur. Melkor was the progenitor of Evil. He set about destroying and debasing the wondrous works of the Valar and their servants. Sauron, seduced by the Evil of Melkor, became his lieutenant. Clearly, Sauron was more than a wizard gone wrong like Saruman or a power-hungry militaristic sorcerer such as those characterized in lesser works of fantasy fiction. Sauron was a god-like virulent malefactor of incomprehensible might who had been under the cruel tutelage of an even more demonic entity.

The substantiality of the protagonist is in direct proportion to that of his antagonist. And vice-versa. Sauron has a Maiar of great wisdom and strength set against him from the end of the first millennium of the Third Age. Olórin (i.e. Gandalf) who we first learned of in The Valaquenta, is sent in the company of four other Maiar, the Wizards, to assist the free races of Middle-earth in their struggle against Sauron's domination. Upon arrival in the Grey Havens, Gandalf was given an Elvish ring of power, the Red Ring Narya, by the Elvish Lord, Círdan. Indeed, this most certainly was not a conjurer of cheap tricks.

Now, consider the object central to Tolkien's tetralogy, the talisman into which Sauron poured all of his might and malice - the One Ring. Without one knowing the provenance of the over-arching power of primal Evil which was forged into this object, and so, come to realize that the Ring embodies an intrinsic Will, older than the world itself, to corrupt, control and destroy with grim, ruthless malevolence every creation of the faithful Ainur, can a reader comprehend the scope of the story or fully appreciate the ponderous doom which rests on the shoulders of one young Hobbit?

Can a reader grasp the source of power which brought about the flood at the Ford of Rivendell, saving the woefully wounded Frodo and sweeping the Nine from their mounts? Would one be able to ascertain the true power and majesty of Gandalf, Saruman or Tom Bombadil without first knowing something about the Ainur? Might not a casual reader

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