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The Terrifying Truth of Sauron's Fate After Mount Doom

Tolkien's Legacy

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When the One Ring was cast into the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord of Mordor fell. But in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, Sauron did not die. In fact, for an immortal Maia, death is an impossibility. So, what truly happened to Sauron's spirit when his power was unmade?

In this episode of Tolkien’s Legacy, we delve deep into the metaphysical laws of Middle-earth. Discover the terrifying truth about the fëar and hröar of the Ainur, and how the destruction of the Ring condemned Sauron to a fate far worse than death: an eternity of impotent malice, gnawing at himself in the shadows of the world.

Explore the darkest secrets of the Unseen World and uncover the true aftermath of the War of the Ring.

#Sauron #LordOfTheRings #TolkienExplained #MiddleEarthLore #TheOneRing #Silmarillion

20 Comments

@TolkiensLegacy Creator 5 months ago Pinned

Which fate is truly more terrifying — a definitive death, where everything simply ends... or Sauron's actual fate: eternal consciousness, eternal memory, eternal hatred — and absolutely zero power to act on any of it?
A being that remembers everything it once was. That watches the world move on without it. That can't even disturb the flame of a candle. Forever.

Drop your answer below 👇 I'll be reading every single one.

@skytyme7721 5 months ago (edited)

What sauron received was perfect infinite punishment an immortal consciousness doomed to forever exist as nothing

@ZenRhinoReborn 5 months ago

Essentially, it sounds like the concept of "I have no mouth, and I must scream."

@Svensk7119 5 months ago

He didn't "back-up" his soul to the Ring. He uploaded it.

@Smytus-01 5 months ago

"Eventually, Sauron stopped thinking."

@mashokaise6881 5 months ago

Morgoth still has great power and agency, yet absolutely nothing to act upon; Sauron has everything to act upon, but absolutely no power or agency. Which fate is worse?

@KurtisC93 5 months ago

This is actually more or less exactly what I'd imagined happened to Sauron after the destruction of the ring—he basically just became a specter, floating around aimlessly in a world he once held in the palm of his ruthless, tyrannical hand.

@brettshaff8772 5 months ago

For a split second my mind imagines him suddenly appearing in the Ghosts cast. "Yeah, that's Sauron. He has no ghost powers. Can't even speak. Look, he's even a ghost to us! (waves hand through Sauron)"

@thoso1973 5 months ago

Sauron's fate is straight out of cosmological horror and existential dread. Tolkien knew exactly what he was doing.

@nilsalmgren4492 5 months ago

Sauron simply gets reduced into an impotent spirit.

@Abracadabra208 5 months ago

Basically, J.K. Rowling swiped the idea of a Horcrux from Tolkien.

@valuedhumanoid6574 5 months ago

When you consider the amount of anguish, suffering, pain and chaos he inflicted on Middle Earth, a punishment that dark and that meaningless existence...almost sounds like our version of Hell. But a Hell for a Godlike entity. It's hard to hold the thought of nothingness in your head. We really don't fully grasp the meaning of nothing.

@ZakhadWOW 5 months ago

Both sauron and saruman, originally known as Mairon and Curumo were Maia spirits incarnated, but because both fell to darkness, at the end of their physical forms their spirit was just left to wander aimlessly until the end of the world as the eru God made it.

We know what happened to gandalf / mithrandir, originally known as olorin, but we never did get a firm answer about what happened to the two blue wizards and of course radagast originally known as aiwendil.

It's important to remember that the spirit that inhabited the ballrog was also a Maia spirit.

@scottcardon5222 5 months ago

Most don't know that Sauron is the servant for someone worse.

@jrsimeon02 5 months ago

I'll bet Sauron regretted letting his ring get cut off in the 2nd age.

@cerberus6654 5 months ago

I always assumed that Saruman too ended up the same way. When he died his spirit rose up but was blown away by a wind from the west just like Sauron.Clearly he wasn't going to the Halls of Mandos. Did Tolkien specify what his fate was? Maybe the specters of Saruman and Sauron hung out together afterwards, like Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in 'Death Becomes Her'.

@johanbertilsson2213 5 months ago

Saruman experienced the same fate, a shadow looking towards the west and a wind blowing it away.

@NiranjanNanda 5 months ago

Fate of Sauron is very similar to fate of a character in the epic of Mahabharata. The character is Ashwatthama - he was cursed to linger without any power, treated with hate: disgrace from people…

@mijbril8330 5 months ago

While Rowling might come to mind as another instance of this sort of thing. The other immediate one is Neil Gaiman with The Sandman. Dream placed so much power into his jewel that when he lost it, his power was diminished and the possessor (John Dee) of the jewel went insane. But when John Dee destroyed the jewel thinking he was destroying Dream, what it did was release the power contained in the jewel which Dream re-absorbed and he was restored.