"Thoughts" about TLOTR

About the form of Sauron - the impression I have is that Sauron can take a physical shape, if he chooses to, but he's not bound to it. There's no way to recognise him, he doesn't have a body that could destroyed with fire and blade.

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Here Pengolodh adds a long note on the use of hröar by the Valar. In brief he says that though in origin a "self-arraying", it may tend to approach the state of "incarnation", especially with the lesser members of that order (the Maiar). "It is said that the longer and the more the same hröa is used, the greater is the bond of habit, and the less do the 'self-arrayed' desire to leave it. As raiment may soon cease to be adornment, and becomes (as is said in the tongues of both Elves and Men) a 'habit', a customary garb. Or if among Elves and Men it be worn to mitigate heat or cold, it soon makes the clad body less able to endure these things when naked". Pengolodh also cites the opinion that if a "spirit" (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hröa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hröa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving.
"We do not know the axani (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no axan against these things. Nonetheless it appears to be an axan, or maybe necessary consequence, that if they are done, then the spirit must dwell in the body that it used, and be under the same necessities as the Incarnate. The only case that is known in the histories of the Eldar is that of Melian who became the spouse of King Elu-thingol. This certainly was not evil or against the will of Eru, and though it led to sorrow, both Elves and Men were enriched.
'The great Valar do not do these things: they beget not, neither do they eat and drink, save at the high asari, in token of their lordship and indwelling of Arda, and for the blessing of the sustenance of the Children. Melkor alone of the Great became at last bound to a bodily form; but that was because of the use that he made of this in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate and unable to restore himself from the state into which he had fallen. Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed". (Pengolodh here evidently refers to Sauron in particular, from whose arising he fled at last from Middle-earth. But the first destruction of the bodily form of Sauron was recorded in the histories of the Elder Days, in the Lay of Leithian.)

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Originally posted by jallan
Tolkien also there speculates that possibly rebel Maiar who had incarnated in powerful Orc forms might, upon the death of their bodies become poltergeists. He also suggests that some houseless spirits may be able to gain a new home by possessing another existing living body, enslaving its rightful spirit.

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To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one own’s will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.
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Or the Houseless may please for shelter, and if it is admitted, then it will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes. It is said that Suaron did these things, and taught his followers how to achieve them.

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Originally posted by jallan
What happened to Sauron’s (or Saruman’s) we are not told.

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Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.

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Originally posted by ithrynluin
I don't see why the quote should not be taken literally. Sauron did great sins against the Children (the greatest being the Downfall of Numenor I believe), and he would be cast into the Void because of them.
Sauron's fall was so deep that his rise could not be foretold ever again (Gandalf says something to that effect). I myself would banish Sauron to the Void.

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Originally posted by Nóm
Could Morgoth have been thrown to the void, or out of Arda, because it was thought that he could eventually rebuild his spirit?

If this was the primary reason for throwing him out, it might be that there was no reason to throw Sauron out. He is not expected to build himself up again.

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If they do not sink below a certain level. Since no fëa can be annihilated, reduced to zero or not-existing, it is no[t] clear what is meant. Thus Sauron was said to have fallen below the point of ever recovering, though he had previously recovered. What is probably meant is that a ‘wicked’ spirit becomes fixed in a certain desire or ambition, and if it cannot repent then this desire becomes virtually its whole being. But the desire may be wholly beyond the weakness it has fallen to, and it will then be unable to withdraw its attention from the unobtainable desire, even to attend to itself. It will then remain for ever in impotent desire or memory of desire.

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The dark spirit of Melkor's 'remainder' might be expected therefore, eventually and after long ages to increase again, even (as some held) to draw back into itself some of it's formerly dissipated power. It would do this because of it's relative greatness. It did not repent, or turn finallt awat from it's obsession, but retained still relics of wisdom, so that it could still seek to heal itself, distract itself by other thoughts and desires amd devices - but all simply to recover enough strength to return to the attack on the Valar, and to its old obsession. As it grew again in would become, as it were, a sark shadow, brooding on te confines of Arda, and yearning towards it.

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But the desire may be wholly beyond the weakness it has fallen to, and it will then be unable to withdraw its attention from the unobtainable desire, even to attend to itself.

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