Where Have All the Dragons Gone? - Page 8
© Michael Martinez
The primal energy of an Ainurian spirit is an incarnate force. Iluvatar gave will to these forces, but the wills are only aspects. The spirit is a thing unto itself, but Melkor and Sauron showed that they could diffuse their spirits, divide their essence among multiple physical shells. Sauron put a great part of himself into the Ring, but he remained in his self-incarnated form, his body. It was the body where his will resided. And yet Sauron would have been able to perceive events and beings through his Ring, if only in a crude fashion. When Frodo put the Ring on and took the High Seat on Amon Hen, he looked upon Barad-dur in the vision which played before him and Sauron was aware of him instantly. Tolkien notes that Sauron was in rapport with the Ring while it existed, but he wasn't in communication with it. Being cut off from the Ring was like having one's arm go numb, perhaps, while still feeling a prickling in the fingers even though -- in the darkness of night -- one could not be sure of where the hand lay.
In "Myths Transformed" Tolkien explained this process further in an essay which explores the nature of the Valar and Ainur in general:
Melkor 'incarnated' himself (as Morgoth) permanently. He did this so as to control the hroa, the 'flesh' or physical matter, of Arda. He attempted to identify himself with it. A vaster, and more perilous procedure, though of similar sort to the operations of Sauron with the Rings. Thus, outside the Blessed Realm, all 'matter' was likely to have a 'Melkor ingredient', and those who had bodies, nourished by the hroa of Arda, had as it were a tendency, small or great, towards Melkor: they were none of them wholly free of him in their incarnate form, and their bodies had an effect upon their spirits.Tolkien further explains that:
...Moreover, the final eradication of Sauron (as a power directing evil) was achievable by the destruction of the Ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was possible, since this required the complete disintegration of the 'matter' of Arda. Sauron's power was not (for example) in gold as such, but in a particular form or shape made of a particular portion of total gold. Morgoth's power was disseminated throughout Gold, if nowhere absolute (for he did not create Gold) it was nowhere absent. (It was this Morgoth-element in matter, indeed, which was a prerequisite for such 'magic' and other evils as Sauron practised with it and upon it.)
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