[the phantom]

First, as I said above, a physical defeat would have represented a set-back to him, although not a complete defeat. He would have been forced to wait longer for domination of ME.

My thoughts exactly, Saucepan Man. I've always seen Sauron's "fear" like this- he's been trying to take over the world for thousands of years. He doesn't want another setback when he's so close to succeeding.

But an even greater fear for him would have been that a victorious Aragorn, under the influence of Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel, might actually have been able to achieve what Isildur could not and destroy the Ring, thus guaranteeing permament victory over him.

I'm not sure I agree with that however. I thought I remembered from reading that the thought of someone destroying the ring never occurred to him in his wildest dreams.

I believe he never thought of that because he made the ring so perfectly. I honestly think that absolutely no one could WILLINGLY destroy the ring (remember, when it was destroyed it was complete luck, it was accidental, divine intervention basically). That was the entire purpose of the ring.

Sauron never wanted to die permanently, so he made an anchor so he could keep coming back. He did everything he could to make sure that it was fool-proof, and that no one could ever willingly destroy it, and I think he actually succeeded.

The one in this thread who seems to be getting short shift is Sauron. Nobody seems to be giving him the credit as Near-Master of Middle Earth that he deserves.

Exactly right, Kuruharan. Sauron was a talented and powerful Ainu who fell into evil and was tutored for many years by Melkor. The Silmarillion said he learned great sorcery form him. Sauron has been in the game of empire building, power grabbing, and will dominating for thousands of years. That's a lot of practice, and a lot of time to become the BEST at some things, one of which would be the whole will and power thing.

I mean, talk about power, when the ring was claimed by Frodo in the Cracks of Doom and Sauron took his concentration off of his armies, the orcs, trolls, and such stopped in their tracks. He was actually imposing his will on thousands upon thousands of creatures from many leagues away.

I've always thought that destroying the ring was the ONLY way to COMPLETELY defeat Sauron. Other ways could set him back a few years or perhaps a few millenia, but he'd eventually win. I think Sauron's ring plan was PERFECT and FOOL-PROOF in the end no matter which course of action was taken.

And Tolkien never said Gandalf WOULD master Sauron. Maybe it's possible, but I don't think he would have succeeded (maybe he does temporary damage but then Sauron's armies take over everything, or maybe Gandalf causes good to win, but he doesn't destroy the ring and after 20,000 years of being with the ring he is finally subjected by it). Yes, Sauron was in his origin the same as Olorin and Curunir, but as I said earlier, Sauron has had forever to get better at the whole world domination thing. He was in the long run, unbeatable (if not for the luck of divine intervention).

But as long as we're talking about "what ifs", I thought I'd mention that not everyone thought that Elrond wouldn't take the ring. Boromir, addressing him at the council in Rivendell, said "Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!"

Plus, Sauron wasn't always able to discern acts of a good heart. He seemed to assume that everybody would want his ring. I doubt he ever thought "Oh, Elrond is so wise and all, I doubt he'd want my ring". He probably thought "Elrond is powerful, he doesn't like me, therefore he might try to take my ring and use it on me". Sauron was not a good judge of character when it came to "good guys". He couldn't understand them.

And also remember, Elrond not only has the blood of the ruling houses of the Noldor and the Sindar in him, but also has some Maia blood. Don't sell him short. I think he'd be just as good a candidate (if not better) than Galadriel for challenging Sauron (and JRRT seemed to think so too judging from his letter).