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Old 04-10-2006, 05:59 PM   #3
littlemanpoet
Itinerant Songster
 
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
Posts: 7,066
littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
I think Celuien has answered rather well. Sauron's domination would have been complete, and long. Given Sauron's propensity for causing suffering in others, it would only have been a matter of time before he had thoroughly ruined the former Free Peoples and would have found it necessary to turn upon those who would have thought themselves relatively safe by having sworn allegiance to him.

Gandalf the White is an interesting case in point. Incarnated rather than free Maiar, he would have been subject to a fleshly death had his power been overcome. Had Frodo never gotten near the Crack of Doom, or had Gollum not fallen in, the Ringwraiths would likely have recovered the Ring there, and Sauron, his power redoubled, would have found Gandalf rather easy prey unless the Eagles rescued him.

The Eagles. These birds are understood as the Servants of Manwë, even in the Third Age, I believe. I can imagine that Gandalf and Aragorn and an assorted odd group of survivors might have been whisked off to some far flung place of impermanent and relative safety. Could they have done anything about Sauron the Dark Lord with the Ring? Doubtful.

And the Valar and Eru are correctly understood by Celuien, I'm thinking. A Dark Age it would have been.
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