Sauron and Istari

[Sarumian]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

...the fact you are referring to (that Gandalf did not claim the Ring, even though he had had plenty of time for that) would perhaps have further convinced Sauron that whether the guys he is facing are Maiar or not, they are just weak fools. For example (this is pure speculation, but it is one possible way Sauron could have looked at the thing), Sauron could have told himself: okay, Gandalf is a Maia. However, he did not take the Ring. Instead, he possibly wants to give it to Isildur's heir. Why? Answer: obviously, because he feels himself too weak to claim it for himself! Ergo, he must be SO limited by his body, that he's somehow totally weak! Therefore, useless and not dangerous. End of debate, for Sauron. I think such kind of thinking is exactly what we know Sauron to be prone to.

Well, I would argue that Maiar post a grave threat due to this particular reason - they have more potential to master The Ring than anyone else apart from, possibly, Galadriel. Sauron had already had an experience of what an embodied Maia could do - Melian. Even foolish and somewhat weak they could get an understanding of The Ring's potential quicker than anyone else and highly likely to find shortcuts to mastering it as they had dealt with that enormous power potentials back in Aman.

Sauron could hardly consider Gandalf weak after him killing a Balrog (or the Balrog was also weak and there was some contagious weakness that pursued Maiar in Middle Earth). He probably was very happy to find out that The Ring slipped between two Maiar killing each other (may be instigating the fight), and then Galadriel was (he might have thought this) deceived by Aragorn and Frodo. But later Gandalf The White, as we remember, struggled with Sauron (so they had a personal encounter!) sitting at Amon Hen. As I can remember, Gandalf was distracting Sauron from Frodo, thus he should have employed a formidable power to attract Sauron's attention and keep struggling for a long time.

It could, however, happened that Sauron was able to pull all confusing bits together only after Gandalf had appeared in Minas Tirith repelling Nazgul from Faramir's troops and it was really too late to make amendments.

I'd say that thinking someone weak would not take the Ring to himself is (in my opinion) going to contradict everything Sauron implied about the nature of the Ring and people. NO-ONE who sees it can resist its charm, that's how he designed it...