“The Lord of the Rings” presents Sauron as the ultimate evil. However, his master Morgoth was the supreme evil being before him. This article explores which Middle-earth villain is more powerful.
Amazon’s series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is currently in full swing. In the new episodes, Sauron is becoming increasingly powerful. As the epitome of evil, he seems invincible in Middle-earth, but Tolkien’s works reveal that there is someone who could challenge him.
Those who have seen the “The Lord of the Rings” films know Sauron as the worst enemy of the free peoples of Middle-earth. The villain wants to subjugate Elves, Humans, and Dwarves, and in the prologue of “The Fellowship of the Ring,” we learn that he almost succeeded, if he hadn’t been defeated in the Battle of the Last Alliance.
What is only known to book readers is that Sauron is not even the original villain in Tolkien’s legendarium. His former master and predecessor as Dark Lord is Morgoth, who plunges Middle-earth and all of Arda into darkness in the First Age.
What is Arda? Arda is the world where Middle-earth is located. Middle-earth itself is a continent. Other continents on Arda include Aman, where the land of Valinor is located. However, Aman is removed from Arda at the end of the Second Age so that no human can enter the immortal lands. Only the Elves can still reach Valinor.
While Sauron is much more well-known in pop culture than Morgoth, and the latter has not appeared in any film or series yet, Tolkien experts know that the question of which of the two Dark Lords is more powerful cannot be answered by popularity alone. We investigate whether Sauron is more powerful than Morgoth!
Maiar vs. Valar – the battle between Sauron and Morgoth is unfair from the start
Although Sauron is an extremely powerful and intelligent villain who can manipulate Elves, Humans, and Wizards through his machinations, he still falls short of his former lord in several ways. This is about what kind of beings the two are.
While Sauron is a Maia, Morgoth is a Vala. The difference is as follows: The Valar were created by Tolkien’s god, Eru Ilúvatar, to shape and rule Arda. The various Valar have different abilities; for example, one can control the winds of Arda, another the seas.
The Valar even helped Ilúvatar sing Arda into existence. Due to their role in the larger universe, assigned to them by Ilúvatar, the Valar are very powerful and can be considered deities themselves. The Maiar, on the other hand, of which Sauron is one, are subordinate to the Valar.
They were created to support the Valar and often have similar abilities to their masters, which is why there are many parallels between Sauron and Morgoth. Before his fall, Morgoth had the ability to curse his enemies, was the physically strongest Vala, and immensely large.
His sheer aura could manipulate the surrounding people. Considering Tolkien’s parallels to the Bible, a connection could be drawn here to God and the Devil, with Ilúvatar as God and Morgoth as the fallen angel in Tolkien’s legendarium.
The fact that Sauron naturally has no chance against Morgoth is basically obvious. Nevertheless, Sauron, through his resourcefulness, hid in Middle-earth even after Morgoth’s fall until he had enough power to strike again.
Who ruled over Middle-earth longer, Sauron or Morgoth?
- Morgoth: Rule from the Age before the Days and First Age: approx. 15,500 years
- Sauron: Rule in the Second and Third Age: approx. 3,500 years
One difference between Sauron and Morgoth is that Sauron aimed to rule over Middle-earth. Morgoth, on the other hand, simply wanted to bring destruction to Arda. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true that Morgoth’s reign of terror and his troublemaking lasted much longer than Sauron’s.
The Ages of Middle-earth: The chronology of Middle-earth is divided into four ages as well as the Age before the Days. The events of the “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” films take place in the Third Age, while the Amazon series is set in the Second Age. We have an overview of all four ages!
Morgoth already existed in the Age before the Days, which began even before the First Age and the creation of the Moon and Sun. The time calculation was different then, but converted to our time, Morgoth’s ongoing destructive rage in the Age before the Days alone amounts to at least 15,000 years.
In the First Age, the war against Morgoth really begins, as he creates the Orcs. Morgoth is brought to trial by the Valar and banished to the Halls of Mandos in the west of Valinor for three centuries of Valian time reckoning.
After serving his sentence, Morgoth is released and first seduces a group of Elves, the Noldor, causing discord. Finally, Morgoth flees from Valinor and strikes back together with the giant spider Ungoliant. All of this happens even before the creation of the Sun and Moon.
After the creation of the Sun, Morgoth continues his mischief for another 590 years before Eru Ilúvatar intervenes and banishes Morgoth to the Void once and for all. In total, we come to at least 15,500 years of reign of terror. Sauron doesn’t have much to counter that.
It’s not until about 1000 years into the Second Age that he begins building his fortress Barad-dûr, and 500 years later he seduces the Elves to forge the Rings of Power. It’s a gradual process in which Sauron tries to take control of Middle-earth step by step.
If we take the construction of his fortress as the starting point, we come to a reign of 2,500 years in the Second Age, during which Sauron was also in captivity of the Númenóreans for a while. After his defeat in the Battle of the Last Alliance (seen in the prologue of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”), it takes another 500 years before Sauron begins to gather his hordes again.
If we count this as the starting point of his new reign, which admittedly is generously interpreted since Saruman speaks of peace 60 years before “The Lord of the Rings” in “The Hobbit,” we would come to 1,000 years in the Third Age, giving Sauron a total reign of 3,500 years, which is just over a fifth of Morgoth’s reign of terror.
Did Sauron have the larger army or Morgoth?
Both Middle-earth villains have enormous armies to show for. In numbers, Sauron’s army strength during the “The Lord of the Rings” films is about 825,000, consisting of Orcs, Uruk-Hai, Haradrim, Easterlings, Oliphaunts, Cave Trolls, Nazgûl, and Fell Beasts (the winged mounts of the Nazgûl). In “The Hobbit,” he has gathered about 375,000 minions in Dol Guldur.
Sauron’s army reached its peak at the end of the Second Age in the Battle of the Last Alliance. There he has an army that exceeds a number of 1.2 million (via Stack Exchange).
No guarantee on the numbers. The numbers are estimates based on the films. Statements from animators were also used, who sometimes revealed numbers when it came to how many digital Orcs had to be animated for a battle scene.
Since Morgoth’s army was never seen in a film and only briefly at the beginning of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” it’s hard to estimate how large his army was. Tolkien himself doesn’t mention numbers in his works, but it can be assumed that Morgoth’s army during the War of Wrath was significantly larger than Sauron’s at its best times.
Had Eru Ilúvatar not intervened to stop Morgoth, he would have won the battle against the Elves and gained dominion over Middle-earth. Besides Orcs and Trolls, Morgoth also had Balrogs and Dragons in his army, powerful beings that not even Sauron had in his army.
It’s unlikely that we will see Morgoth in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” as the Dark Lord is already banished at the time of the series. With luck, there will be flashbacks. Currently, new “The Rings of Power” episodes are released weekly!