Sauron's hair colour

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

Thinking about Tolkien's hair colours more generally, I'm happy the tradition of having blond heroes and dark villains isn't there (granted, everything that is a fantasy cliche became so way after Tolkien), especially if Sauron's fair means not dark.

That's true. But then fair could also simply mean beautiful (but not necessarily blonde). It's so complicated with all the meanings of fair, even taken just as an adjective and not a noun or verb! I remember that somewhere else on the Downs, most likely on one of the translation threads, I mentioned that in my Russian translation Frodo calls Galadriel "wise, fearless, and just", and someone - I think it was Lommy but my memory is very hazy - said that in their translation Frodo says "wise, fearless, and beautiful". In English the last word is fair. Now how do you tell which is right? And for all we know both Sauron and Galadriel could have simply been blonde.

At least it's pretty clear that Sauron wasn't just in any fashion!