Sauron Wins...Then What?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Nikkolas

The only hope they had to match his power was with the One. I don't think anyone except maybe Galadriel could stand up to Sauron. I can't recall exactly but I think i remember her getting a lot of hype in The Silmarillion... Might be misremembering though. She was never a favorite.

There is also Letter, #246, in which Tolkien discusses the possibility of someone else besting Sauron in a one-on-one contest for the Ring.

Of the others only Gandalf might be expected to master [Sauron]- being an emissary of the Powers and a creature of the same order, an immortal spirit taking a visible physical form. In the 'Mirror of Galadriel', I 381, it appears that Galadriel conceived of herself as capable of wielding the Ring and supplanting the Dark Lord. If so, so also were the other guardians of the Three, especially Elrond. But this is another matter, It was part of the essential deceit of the Ring to fill minds with imaginations of supreme power.

So from that only Gandalf was likely to really have had the power to keep the Ring from Sauron permanently. Keep in mind that even though Sauron's original "stature" as created in the angelic hierarchy was greater than that of the Istari, he had also spent his spirit with the ages-long effort of dominating other wills and commanding his slaves. So Gandalf could indeed have stood a chance against him. And that is without the power of the One, for that power would have been under the ultimate command of the victor between Sauron and the claimant.