A Note On Sauron’s Repentance

⚠️ This section is mostly complete; expect minor updates and revisions.

If Sauron’s hero journey in ROP demands he touch the Light to fully and finally choose Darkness, then by this logic, Sauron’s journey must include sincere repentance: a true, if brief, arc into Light. It’s therefore important to establish some textual basis for this.

The Silmarillion includes a brief mention of Sauron’s repentance following Morgoth’s defeat at the end of the First Age (emphasis mine).

When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West. —Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age, The Silmarillion

What stands out in this text is the ambivalent framing of the sincerity of his repentance. In terms of the history of the First Age, his evil deeds under Morgoth could indicate that he was fully corrupted and without capacity for repentance. Alternatively, both his origin as a ‘good’ Maia and the question of how much agency he exercised in serving Morgoth lend credence to his having a real capacity for repentance. On this, The Silmarillion text is ambiguous: “…some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented….” However, Tolkien addresses Sauron’s repentance more directly, saying:

[Sauron] repents in fear when the First Enemy is utterly defeated, but in the end does not do as was commanded, return to the judgement of the gods. He lingers in Middle-earth. Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth, ‘neglected by the gods’, he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power – and so consumed ever more fiercely with hate (especially of gods and Elves). Sauron was of course not 'evil' in origin. He was a 'spirit' corrupted by the Prime Dark Lord (the Prime sub-creative Rebel) Morgoth. He was given an opportunity of repentance, when Morgoth was overcome, but could not face the humiliation of recantation, and suing for pardon; and so his temporary turn to good and 'benevolence' ended in a greater relapse, until he became the main representative of Evil of later ages. —J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #131

Here, Tolkien clarifies that Sauron does indeed repent, emphasizing that he was “of course not ‘evil’ in origin” and going on to explicitly mention his “temporary turn to good and ‘benevolence’” that preceded a “greater relapse.”

He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. —Notes on Motives, Morgoth’s Ring

He underscores Sauron’s ‘positive purposes’ and repeats the word ‘relapse,’ making clear Sauron’s arc in the legendarium includes an initial fall and a subsequent relapse. A relapse cannot occur without some sort of recovery; a relapse into evil implies a recovery into good.

Tolkien’s own words support a narrative arc for Sauron that includes true repentance. ROP treats this arc with such subtlety that it can be read as pure deception from start to finish as almost as plausibly as it can be read as a journey to and from sincere repentance. I say almost, because deliberate artistic decisions in ROP, including its chiastic structure, convince me of the latter. I’m also inclined to believe that the ambiguity ROP weaves into this narrative arc is an intentional nod to The Silmarillion’s ambiguous framing of this period in Sauron’s history—a lovely touch.

While I contend Sauron’s repentance is (at least briefly) sincere, his repentance does not make him a redeemable figure. Quite the opposite. His repentance underscores his capacity to choose the path of redemption, so when he chooses the path of Power, he does so with full agency and free will, making him all the more evil.

As Elrond says in LOTR, “For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.” Tolkien describes Sauron’s first foray into evil as a fall, implying some degree of passivity. Moreover he describes Sauron has having been corrupted by Morgoth:

Sauron was of course not 'evil' in origin. He was a 'spirit' corrupted by the Prime Dark Lord (the Prime sub-creative Rebel) Morgoth. —Notes on Motives, Morgoth’s Ring

In this view, the agency (i.e. responsibility) motivating Sauron’s initial fall arguably lies at least in part, if not primarily, with Morgoth, who is doing the corrupting, even if Sauron accepts and chooses to serve him. In relapse, however, Morgoth is gone, and the full weight of agency and accountability lies with Sauron himself, making his choice to return to evil one that seals his Doom and sees him become the “main representative of Evil of later ages.” The story of his repentance adds depth and complexity to his character, which is more in keeping with Tolkien’s themes, yet does not paint him as a sympathetic villain.

One last consideration of Sauron’s repentance is time. According to The Silmarillion, Sauron’s repentance occurs after the downfall of Morgoth in the War of Wrath, at the end of the First Age. In ROP, Adar reveals that after Morgoth’s defeat, Sauron attempts to accomplish his “fair motive” of rehabilitating Middle-earth by seeking “power over flesh” and torturing Uruk in this pursuit before Adar’s betrayal. We know from the prologue of Season 2 that Sauron does this early in the Second Age at Dúrnost, the same fortress Galadriel finds later in the Second Age. The Silmarillion states Sauron “did obeisance to Eönwë… and abjured all his evil deeds” …. “[w]hen Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown.” ROP certainly exercises artistic license with the timing, but the storyline they propose makes sense in terms of Sauron’s character: he might not become truly repent until he has utterly failed—not only to achieve a power over flesh, but also to enslave the Uruk. My view is that the events of ROP take place after Sauron has repented to Eonwë. Tolkien consistently states that Sauron repented out of fear, and the powerlessness he experiences from these failures might invoke more fear than simply witnessing Morgoth’s defeat. Morgoth’s defeat revealed only Morgoth’s vulnerability; whereas Sauron needs to fail himself to confront his own. His first gesture of repentance to Eönwë was probably not wholly sincere, but that does not mean that he had no other (unrecorded) moments of repentance.

But at the beginning of the Second Age he was still beautiful to look at, or could still assume a beautiful visible shape — and was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all ‘reformers’ who want to hurry up with ‘reconstruction’ and ‘reorganization’ are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up. —J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter # 153

The perspective I take is that the events of ROP show Sauron engage in genuine moral inventory and become sincerely conflicted (not wholly evil). This inner conflict underscores his agency in ultimately choosing evil.

As with all other characters there must be a trembling moment when [repentance] is in the balance: he nearly repents — and does not, and becomes much wickeder, and more foolish. —Myths Transformed, Morgoth’s Ring

Tolkien’s legendarium provides a clear basis for a truly repentant Sauron, which ROP expands upon by making use of the vague timeline and detail to build out a full story. That Sauron could and did sincerely repent allows for the possibility of a circular hero journey arcing from Darkness to Light and back, and in my view, ROP provides several clues that this is indeed the case (or at least what the show intended). I’ll detail these in Sauron’s character arc.

NEXT: Missing Pieces

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface (Please Read First)

Ring Composition in The Rings of Power

Galadriel and Sauron: Reflecting Narrative Rings

A Note On Sauron’s Repentance

Missing Pieces

In The Sea

Elements of Myth and Symbol

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