#sauron

elamarth-calmagol:

undercat-overdog:

There is no evidence that Maedhros and Sauron ever met; Sauron torturing Maedhros in Angband is pure fanon. (And honestly fanon that I don’t think is the best supported, given that Maedhros was stapled to Angband as soon as his brothers refused to parlay further with Morgoth, and so fairly early in his captivity.) There is no evidence that Feanor even knew who Sauron was.

Which is to say, Morgoth is the chief enemy in the First Age. The only elves who fight Sauron in the First Age are Orodreth, Finrod, and their followers. He shows up as the villain of the story only in the Leithian (and when he assaults what was then Tol Sirion, though that doesn’t really get full-on story status, more a Leithian prelude). He’s really not the first villain most First Age elves are going to think of. He’s the opponent of the Arafinweans and the Second and Third Ages. He’s not the opponent of Feanor and his sons: that’s Morgoth (and the Oath).

Who named Sauron “Thauron” then?  Galadriel didn’t lisp.

(I’m all for destroying fanon, I just liked the theory that Maedhros came up with the name.)

Oh, this is an interesting question! Short answer, the name appears to originate pre-First Age, and the earliest forms we have are actually a form of Quenya that is pre-Feanorian - pre-Valinorean actually!

Thauronas a form kinda shows up in Tolkien, in PE17 and the Letters (it actually appears as Thaurond-,notThauron,which as best I can tell doesn’t show up anywhere). However, it appears in the context of the etymology and we’re given the earliest form of Sauron as Thauson, which is not Feanorian Quenya and is a form of Quenya that well predates the First Age.

The adjective saura, from which the name Sauron is formed, comes from the proto-Quendian root thaw- and the resulting word thowa, from which thausa>thauza > sauza/thauza > saura: the ‘s’ becomes ‘z’, then in Noldorin Quenya ‘r’.* The ‘s’ > ‘z’ shift occurred before the invention of writing (probably on the Great Journey) and well before the thorn became ‘s’ in Noldorin Quenya. Thausonis a form that is pre-Feanor; at his birth it would have been Thauzon. So the fact that Thausonexists as a word would indicate that it was a name used before the Elves arrived in Valinor (which has interesting implications wrt what Sauron was up to, but besides the point here).

However, the fact that the “older” forms of Sauron exist is not imo dispositive proof that the name is that old. Tolkien would show the ‘evolution’ of words not as they actually happened but to show how the languages evolved, giving the hypothetical earlier form to show the evolution of the root, and in the case of the ‘th’ > ‘s’ shift he quite often notes when an ‘s’ in (Noldorin) Quenya was originally a ‘th.’ So I don’t think that the existence of pre-Sauron forms of the name is not 100% proof that the name is that old.

Also - the Feanorians keeping the thorn in the First Age is debatable (see Shibboleth footnote 15). Certainly it would not have been used post-First Age and certainly certainly not by Elrond who canonically uses Sauron.

From PE17. Sorry, just PE, my only copy of the Letters is paper.

(Note that the Sindarin etymology of Thû was later rejected; in Tolkien’s final conception it’s not cognate with Sauron.)

*There was a ‘z’ > ‘r’ shift in Noldorin Quenya, so Thauronand not Thauzon, but it seems to have happened very late in Valinor (and post-th > s); the Vanyar didn’t make the change. Hence Ezellohar,which would have been pronounced circa the death of the Trees and after (and perhaps a little before) as Erelloharby the Noldor. Had Maedhros named Sauron, the form of the name would have been Thauron most likely, not Thauzon,though a Vanya would have used the latter.

khorazir:

My fifteen watercolours depicting Tolkien’s Second Age. They’re for a book which I’ll post more info on soon. From tomorrow evening, A4 prints (10 copies per motif) will be up for preorder at my Storenvy. They’ll be ready for shipping in a fortnight. https://khorazir.storenvy.com/

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The prints are up for preorder now. For those who want all of them, two complete sets are available at a reduced price. If there is more demand, I will offer more, so let me know.

https://khorazir.storenvy.com/collections/1230396-tolkien-artprints

Tolkien artprints from khorazir

My fifteen watercolours depicting Tolkien’s Second Age. They’re for a book which I’ll post more info on soon. From tomorrow evening, A4 prints (10 copies per motif) will be up for preorder at my Storenvy. They’ll be ready for shipping in a fortnight. https://khorazir.storenvy.com/

Home from khorazir

uncensored picture in “keep reading”