What Happened to Sauron’s Monsters When He Died?

Q: What Happened to Sauron’s Monsters When He Died?

ANSWER: In May 2017 a reader submitted an interesting question about the Barrow-wights and “the Dead in the Dead Marshes”. It was actually a two-part question: “I’d like to know if there was always any deep comment on the nature and objective of the Barrow Wights and the Dead in the Dead Marshes, if they were in any way serving Sauron or had other purposes, and if so, if they were released with the downfall of Sauron.”

Sauron’s downfall occurred when the One Ring was destroyed. Sauron, in fact, died three times:

1. He died in the drowning of Numenor
2. He died after attacking Gil-galad and Elendil
3. He died after the One Ring was destroyed

Each death diminished Sauron and he returned with less strength than he had before. But because he had imbued the One Ring with most of his power the ring anchored him in Middle-earth and gave him the ability to “take shape” (self-incarnate) again.

We don’t know how many monsters Sauron made, or how they were all made. In the story of Beren we learn that Sauron was a master of phantoms and that he used one to trick Gorlim the Unhappy. Gorlim’s ghost came to Beren to warn him of the ambush that had been set for Barahir and his followers. Although some fans believe that Gorlim’s ghost was just another phantom, Tolkien appears to have used the word in its older sense of an illusion or an unreal vision. Sauron’s phantoms were probably not ghosts.

During the Second Age the only Sauronic monsters we know about are the Ringwraiths. These are mortal men who are trapped by the stolen Rings of Power Sauron gives them. Sauron used the rings to enslave the men and keep them bound to Middle-earth in an unnatural state. Fans disagree on whether the Ringwraiths were truly dead or trapped in some state between full life and full death. The Ringwraiths are a type of Undead monsters to be sure. And they would not exist but for Sauron’s will. And yet, when Sauron was slain the first two times the Ringwraiths remained loyal to him and apparently capable of action. That, presumably, is because they were bound to the One Ring through their rings.

One Ringwraith, the Lord of the Nazgûl, was completely defeated before the One Ring was destroyed. He met his end when Merry struck him from behind with an Arnorian sword that broke the spell that gave him control over his “unseen sinews”. Eowyn then struck him in the face, sending his weakened spirit howling back toward Mordor (and we don’t actually know where the spirit went after Frodo and Sam heard it wailing above them).

The only other monsters that appear to be products of Sauron’s power are the Barrow-wights, the phantoms of the Dead Marshes, and possibly the Wargs. Tolkien doesn’t explain where the Wargs came from. A group of demonic wolves that appear to be Wargs attacked the Fellowship of the Ring in Hollin. After the battle the Fellowship found no trace of the wolves’ bodies the next morning. Readers sometimes disagree on whether these were true Wargs or phantom wolves. And who sent them, Sauron or Saruman? That is never made clear in the story.

The corpse-candles and phantom bodies that Gollum, Frodo, and Sam see in the Dead Marshes don’t appear to be true corpses. Sauron seems to have conjured them at some point after his return during the Third Age. If these were merely projections of Sauron’s thought then it seems logical that they would have vanished when the One Ring was destroyed; for he would have been too weak to continue projecting his power into Middle-earth. But perhaps they were something else and might have survived Sauron’s Downfall.

The Barrow-wights are said to be spirits that Sauron sent to inhabit the bodies of the dead in the ancient barrows of Arthedain and Cardolan (formerly parts of Arnor). But if that is the case, whose spirits were they? How did Sauron enslave them? Were they always evil creatures or did he corrupt them? Tolkien provides no information on the origins of the wights. They are simply monsters who serve the Dark Lord. In an draft of The Lord of the Rings, or in notes he made at the time, Tolkien indicated the wights were connected to or “related” to the Nazgûl. Some people speculate they could have been minor Ringwraiths, enslaved by the “lesser rings” that were only “essays in the craft” (as Gandalf described them).

The Uruk-hai and the Olog-hai Of course, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that Sauron bred new types of orcs and trolls. These would certainly fall under the definition of “monsters” but they were not constructs of his power. They were living creatures whom he coerced to do his bidding. Many of the orcs slew themselves after Sauron’s downfall, but Tolkien seems to imply that at least some orcs survived. In fact, the orcs were able to survive Morgoth’s defeat at the end of the First Age and Sauron’s defeat at the end of the Second Age. Their existence was therefore not directly dependent upon Sauron’s power.

The same may be true of the stone trolls, whom we encounter in The Hobbit. Contrary to what some readers believe there were other types of trolls during the First Age as well. Hurin slew seventy such trolls in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, while the sun still shone in the sky. I think therefore that at least some trolls could have survived Sauron’s downfall.

We cannot definitively say that Sauron created anything other than phantoms. Even if it was by his power that the wights animated dead bones, we don’t know whose spirits those were or where they came from. I doubt they would have ceased to exist after Sauron’s downfall. Maybe they would have been freed of his control but that doesn’t mean they would have become good spirits or stopped animating dead bodies. Perhaps they did that all along.

My Conclusion I think these creatures probably all survived Sauron’s downfall. Even the Nazgûl had to continue existing, even if they were only rendered into fully powerless “ghosts” of men. Now, it may be a cheat for me to say that the Nazgûl survived Sauron’s downfall. Were they still Nazgûl if they were finally allowed to completely die? I don’t have an argument either way. They would still have been the same spirits that were formerly enslaved by Sauron. So maybe once a Nazgûl always a Nazgûl, even if only in name. Of all Sauron’s monsters, the Nazgûl would be the ones most people would remember.

# # #

Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?