b492bbf4   
   XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: no.spam@no.spam   
      
   On 11/3/2011 10:25 AM, Noel Q. von Schneiffel wrote:   
      
    > I have always believed that at the downfall of Sauron, a similar thing   
    > could be seen, and that the "huge shape of shadow... was actually   
    > Sauron's spirit   
      
   However,   
      
      "If [the Ring] is destroyed, then he will fall; and his fall   
      will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again.   
      For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native   
      to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun   
      with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever,   
      becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows,   
      but cannot again grow or take shape."   
      
   IOW, Sauron was reduced to a malicious spirit abiding in the "shadows"   
   but without the power to gnaw anyone except himself.   
      
   The psychological significance of this seems to be that a person   
   who works malice on others ends up harming himself as well. And if   
   he is defeated in his works that he becomes his own last (and only)   
   continuing victim.   
      
   Where the spirits of "slain" Maiar actually "go"; that is, where   
   these shadows may be located in the physical world (if anywhere)   
   I'm not sure. But if Sauron can't "take shape" then presumably   
   he can no longer manifest in our world; his existence would be   
   only in the shadows on the "other side".   
      
   SQ   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)