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Old 06-28-2006, 02:33 PM   #12
Findegil
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Join Date: Jul 2002
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As I promised I made the research for the death of Sauron. Here is what I found, to have any significance to the question:

QS36; draft text B:
Quote:
Then lest he be forced from the body unwillingly, which is a dire pain to such spirits, he yielded himself. And Luthien and Huan wrested from him the keys of the tower, and the spell that bound stone to stone.
Sil77:
Quote:
But no wizardry nor spell, neither fang nor venom, nor devil's art nor beast-strength, could overthrow Huan of Valinor; and he took his foe by the throat and pinned him down. Then Sauron shifted shape, from wolf to serpent, and from monster to his own accustomed form; but he could not elude the grip of Huan without forsaking his body utterly. Ere his foul spirit left its dark house, Lúthien came to him, and said that he should be stripped of his raiment of flesh, and his ghost be sent quaking back to Morgoth; and she said: 'There everlastingly thy naked self shall endure the torment of his scorn, pierced by his eyes, unless thou yield to me the mastery of thy tower.'
Then Sauron yielded himself, and Lúthien took the mastery of the isle and all that was there; and Huan released him. And immediately he took the form of a vampire, great as a dark cloud across the moon, and he fled, dripping blood from his throat upon the trees, and came to Tar-nu-Fuin, and dwelt there, filling it with horror.
GA:
Quote:
But Huan slew Draugluin, and when Sauron himself came forth in wolf-hame he overthrew him. Thus Sauron was constrained to yield up Tol-sirion, ere bereft of his bodily form he passed away as a black shadow into Taur-nu-Fuin.

LAY:
Quote:
A vampire shape with pinions vast
screeching leaped from the ground, and passed,
its dark blood dripping on the trees;
and Huan neath him lifeless sees
a wolvish corpse for Thu had flown . . . . . (2820)
to Taur-na-Fuin, a new throne
and darker stronghold there to build.
That sounds for me like he was not killed by Huan. I rather see the story running along this line: Sauron was defeated by Huan in a way that he was not able give up his bodily form by his own will. But Huan had still the option to kill him. Since this was a “dire pain to such spirits” and would have hindered the building of a new body, Lúthien could utter the thread she did and so Sauron gave in and delivered the key and the word for the tower. When both had been proved true, Huan relinquished his grip a bit (by design or by being distracted). Not enough that Sauron could escape in bodily from, but enough that he could forsake his body by his own will.
I never thought that in doing so a Maiar would leaf a corpus behind, but it seems that this was an option, and I think that option was only possible at a coast, but granted Sauron a way of early escape.

Since we must not make the text clearer than it was, we need not change anything, but my be we should address this issue in the appendix.

Respectfully
Findegil
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