There is a scene in the first episode of the second season of The Rings of Power that still haunts me. It happens after Sauron has reconstituted himself as Halbrand (and what a glorious manifestation of the abject that entire scene was; for some reason it also reminded me of Nahadoth in N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms!). He is walking towards the conflict when Diarmid, a Southlander on his way to the Ocean with the rest of the escaping Southlanders convinces him to follow them. But the reason why Sauron was convinced had nothing to do (or did it?) with what Diarmid was saying. It was because of the crest that Diarmid was holding. He says the same thing to Diarmid on the ship that he has expressed to Galadriel more than once, “You don’t know what I have done”, which suggests that there is still a semblance of guilt and self-recrimination on his part. But instead of this sliver of “good” in him putting him on the path of redemption, it heralds his spiral back into darkness.
The scene I am talking about comes on the ship before the undersea leviathan attacks it. Sauron tells Diarmid that he has done evil, and Diarmid says he can still make it right. He says that being good is a decision you must make and it is a decision you make every day of your life. It is a kind of stoic philosophy and one that I as a person adhere to. I believe being “good” is a conscious choice, because none of us are perfect. And being “good” is never an easy choice. It is a choice that requires patience and is not for people who want easy fixes. We see that Sauron is given this choice at that moment. He could have saved Diarmid, and Diarmid could have mentored him onto a path of redemption, or he could have died anyway. Or, he could have saved Diarmid and the rest and had a good life. If we see the leviathan as coming from the Valar it is almost as though it is one of those Eru-testing moments. But ultimately, Sauron chooses opportunity, and grabs the heraldry before the entire ship is deluged. From there, he moves from one happenstance to another. During the whole of season 1 we see Halbrand tortured by conflict. So many assumptions could be made about the conflict but I’m reading it from the perspective of the intrinsic dilemma at the heart of Mairon. Because Sauron was initially Mairon, the fair one, one of the Maiar who worked with Aule (Saruman being another one). He loved all things of order and wanted a quick way to get those things. Melkor (then Morgoth) gave him a way and a quick fix. Thus Mairon was ensnared into darkness.
The funny thing about Sauron in the legendarium was that he was almost always failing and then landing on his feet, recouping and given so many chances to do good and make things right. For example, with the fall of Morgoth he could have found his way back through penance. But penance would take too long. Thinking on his feet but not really succeeding could be seen in various versions of Beren and Luthien as well. I really enjoyed that these bits of his personality came through in The Rings of Power. His missteps, and how his self-image caused him to eventually become gaslighter extraordinaire — I suspect many gaslighters want to hold on to the idea that they are good, which is why they say things like “Look what you made me do”, as Sauron/Annatar says in more than one form when he is tormenting Celebrimbor. He wants to keep this image of himself as righteous and right, even as he commits unspeakable acts. In short, he really is Middle Earth’s middle manager and therefore always doomed to failure. There is also his inherent cowardice but I feel that requires another blog post, about how cowardice is one of the ways this middle manager spirals into evil. Because he’s always sabotaging himself and always taking the most opportune way out (or into) any situation, with extremely bad consequences for himself. Hence Numenor. Hence Dol Guldur.
There are so many ways to read the moral struggle at the heart of Sauron’s persona; I feel he only toys with the idea of Good but is always too impatient to want to work towards it. Hence the tragedy of Diarmid’s words which also encapsulate the moral failing at the heart of Sauron’s psyche. That scene between Diarmid and newly reconstituted Halbrand to me perfectly encapsulates where both Good and Evil stand within his psyche. In a sense, there’s always a part of Sauron wanting companionship and craving the light. Sadly, he always sabotages those connections and is always pulled back into the darkness.