[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Farael

Well, first of all he would have to use a part of his will to mantain his physical shape, as it is not his "natural" state and therefore he has to spend at least some of his will not to go back to his abstract form. Also by having a body you are more susceptible to other kinds of temptations which could corrode your will... even innocent stuff like food and drink can afect it, yet while he was just a creature of will he had no need for such thing.

Sauron was beyond this. At the end of the Third Age he had become truly incarnate, in that he required a body to operate. He could no longer change his appearance or reclothe himself at will. If the Ring had not existed, his "death" at the hand of Elendil would likely have been the true end of him.

Originally Posted by davem

Actually, its a pretty good strategy - its as near impossible to destroy the Ring as it can be. The mistake Sauron makes is to think 'nearly impossible' is the same thing as impossible.

I don't think this confusion ever entered into it. The idea didn't even occur to him that someone would want to destroy the Ring. If it had, he probably would've been camping out at Mount Doom himself. Or maybe he'd have collapsed its opening, or sealed it with some invisible barrier.

Originally Posted by davem

So, to incarnate makes a Valar/Maiar physically more powerful - they can slap you around for instance, but it also isolates the individual form other beings, & makes them dependant on the physical - from a need for food, clothing, shelter to having increasingly to rely on physical forms of communication (writing: the Ring verse, & speech).

You mean to be clothed makes an eala--in a sense--more powerful. In Tolkien's work the difference between these terms is essential, so I don't believe it's a minor quibble to point out that to incarnate implies a weakening of the being's spirit. Incarnation of an eala is never a willful act in Tolkien's work, and to be incarnate brings the possibility of being slain as an Incarnate (capital denotes those whose nature is incarnate). Meaning that the spirit that is released is greatly depleted and may never be able to take physical form, which it now requires to have any effective existence.

Originally Posted by davem

The creation (or should we say 'manufacture' of the Ring is kind of the ultimate form of incarnation: rather than incarnating his fea in a living body, Sauron incarnates a part of it at least in an object: Sauron is pushing 'incarnation' to its extreme.

I don't think the same word or principle applies. When an eala incarnates, what he becomes is the physical manifestation of his "spiritual self". That's why Tolkien mentions the dark lords finally being unable to look fair and ever after appearing terrible. The Ring is not a physical incarnation of a portion of Sauron's power, it's an object infused with his power. As an aside, I believe that the will that is attributed to the Ring itself is not, in fact, due to any will put into the Ring, but is due to Sauron's will imposed on the Ring from afar. After all, he is said to 'always be in rapport with it.'

I think your analogy of the giant's heart fits well.