Sauron <3

[Findegil]

Sorry, Dark Lord, that other had to clear up my posting. Looking back at it, I see now that it must have been very cryptic for you.

Legat gave as good an explainantion of its background as might be possible.
I would just add one bit of information to his discription of what went wrong during the music of the Ainur: Melkor, who was later know as Morgoth, did not introduce 'evil' as an idea or concept into the theme given by Eru (the Allfather, allmighty and omnipotent God). Melkor did only add a theme of his own that was unlike and in disharmony with Eru's theme that the other Ainur played around him. Some other Ainur, like Mairon, who later was called Sauron, and the Ainur later called Balrogs and Boldogs, did harmonise their music to that of Melkor instaed of playing the theme of Eru. Evil arose from the resulting disharmony not from Melkors theme directly.
Melkors theme was not evil. It is discribed as simple and boring compared to the one of Eru, but not as evil in itself.
The evil dead that Melkor and the Ainur that follwoed him did, was to stick to Melkors theme and not to follow the correctiv action that Eru introduced (twice) when the disharmony arose.

I do not believe that Melkor was nihilated in the Dagor Dagorath.
One reason is that spirits in Tolkiens univers are driven directly from Eru and are undistructable, even if we speak about the relativly small spirits, compared to Melkor, of Elves or Men. If nihilation of spirits was possible at all, it would be an akt of Eru. But speaking about the Ainur in special this seems to me impossible as well. They are discribed as the ofspring of Erus thoughts. To eliminat one of them would be like changing your own history, so that you never had have this particular thought. This is atleast beyond my limited understanding, so it might be that an omnipotent God is able of the deed.
A second reason is this speech by Eru at the end of the music of the Ainur, when he promissed to show the Ainur what their song had been about in pre-vision of the history of Eä (the univers):

Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

What he said too Melkor at the end sounds much more like redemtion then like nihilation, at least for me.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Sarumian]

Originally Posted by Findegil

What he said too Melkor at the end sounds much more like redemtion then like nihilation, at least for me.

I've got quite similar ideas in response to Dark Lord's post. And that reminds me about one ancient philosopher who Tolkien was, no doubt, aware of:

Origen (pron.: /ˈɒrɪdʒən/; Greek: Ὠριγένης Ōrigénēs), or Origen Adamantius (184/185 – 253/254),[1] was a scholar and theologian of early Christian interest in Alexandria, and one of the writers regarding the early Church. During the fifth and sixth centuries, his orthodoxy was questioned, largely because he believed in the pre-existence and transmigration of souls, and apokatastasis, or universal reconciliation, ideas which were discussed among some patristic writers but which were later rejected as heretical... However, in recent years the idea has found some reconsideration[4] especially among Restorationist Christian groups. [...]

As in the beginning all intelligent beings were united to God, Origen also held out the possibility, though he did not assert so definitively, that in the end all beings, perhaps even the arch-fiend Satan,[7] would be reconciled to God in what is called the apokatastasis ("restitution").

The words of Eru quoted by Findegil could be interpreted in different ways, thus we cannot say if the universal reconciliation is Eru's design but there might be such possibility and in that case Sauron is not excluded - presumably, after the end of Arda and Middle Earth. Before that, as Tolkien himself stated somewhere else, Sauron (and Saruman too) was sentenced to be present in the world until its end as a powerless spirit. May be we can imagine future adherents finding their way around to communicate with these spirits, obtaining some kind of important knowledge... Why not?