[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Belegorn

I'm not sure who among his servants are speaking as Melkor himself, but at least in this lore from Andreth it appears that Men were really only set on the road to rebellion, and not used much or amalgamated into Melkor's forces. Some of the Men were given power, but otherwise I don't get the idea that there was some grand plan here to put Men to use other than to delude them about who was who.

Yes it seems more like the objective achieved was to turn Men away from Eru, whereas that of amalgamating Men into a force Morgoth could bring crashing down on Beleriand in great numbers was, to judge by what actually happened, an objective which failed. It's worth noting that the corrupter of Men simply refers to himself as the "Lord" and is referred to by Men as the "Master," not by any particular name. It might be argued, then, that the Men under the Shadow did not have a very well-established idea of the identity of their "god," just that he was the Lord or Master. In that sense I can see why it was easy for Sauron to take advantage of this in the Second Age, where he appeared as Morgoth's representative, and in the Third as Morgoth returned. It must have been easy to just show up, put on a bit of a show and convince people that you were acting on behalf of or were the same person as this nebulous "Lord." Then again Sauron himself could not have come among Men in splendour in the Third Age, but they were probably used to being in fear of their "god" rather than admiring him by that point.

We know, however, that Sauron did not always play-act the "representative" even in the Second Age. Among Men in the east and south he was "both king and god." The Black Númenóreans "worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge." The worshippers at the Temple in Armenelos when Manwë sent lightning against it called him a god as well. But I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for Sauron to set himself up as both representative and god in the process of establishing his dominion. Sauron "desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants; if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures." This suggests to me that Sauron wanted Men to think of him, Sauron, himself as "god." He didn't want to control people by pretending to be Morgoth or setting himself up as their old "Lord" or "Master," but actually wanted to be perceived in himself as "god." This might be an arrogant relic, perhaps, of his "positive purposes": perhaps this impulse derived, in an extremely corrupt fashion, from seeing himself as the "saviour" of Middle-earth from disorder and chaos (although I daresay by that point such a motive had completely devolved from "I want power to save Middle-earth" to just "I want power because I'm proud and vain.")

I wonder how much the Númenóreans knew at the end of the Second Age. Did they know at the time that "Zigûr" was the same person as Sauron, the old servant of Morgoth? Did they know who "Sauron" was? When Ar-Pharazôn asked Sauron "Who is the Lord of the Darkness?" did he know (or at least suspect) what the answer would be, but was afraid to ask because the name of Melkor was forbidden? When Sauron said "It is he whose name is not now spoken; for the Valar have deceived you concerning him," he seems to be implying that even at the end of the Second Age the Númenóreans were still somewhat familiar with Morgoth's identity.