Did Saruan's spirt still excist after Mordor was defeated?

[Annantar]

Although I love lotr; There is sooo much that I don't know! So when Frodo threw the ring into Mt. Doom and Mordor and Sauran was defeated, was Saruan's spirit still excisting, and he just went off to some where, where he couldn't come back? Or was he ultimitly destroyed? And if he wasn't; were the ringwraiths still spiritly alive?-)(even though they were never really human either.) And same goes for Mordor and it's creatures. So what happened to Saruan? If u know tell me! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] THANX!

[Knight of Gondor]

You'll have to wait for some of the more learned to answer that question for sure, I suppose. It never seems like any spirit is entirely defeated or destroyed in the books, though the way it was portrayed in the books that Saruman's spirit looked to the West to learn his fate, and the wind that blew signaled the rejection from his reentering Valinor, or wherever the Maiar dwelled then. See, I didn't get many of my desired Histories of Middle-Earth books for Christmas! :\

[Earendilyon]

Sauron's spirit was indeed not destroyed but became powerless, because he had put most of his power in the One Ring. He had no power left to rebuild himself or a ruling position. He was doomed to roam Arda as a powerless spirit.
As for the Nazgul: they were humans in origin, who were ensnared by Sauron. After Sauron became powerless, they were subject to the Doom of Man: they really died and their spirits went where human spirits go. [Unless they refused to go; I recall from deep in my memory that it is somewhere told that that is possible, but I'm not sure [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]]


Edit: From Letter 131:

There was another weakness: if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihilated, then its power would be dissolved, Sauron's own being would be diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 4:55 AM January 09, 2004: Message edited by: Earendilyon ]