Few villains in The Lord of the Rings were feared as much as Sauron. Although he is one of the most powerful beings in Middle-earth, there are beings and characters that even stand above him.
How was this list created? We looked at which characters or beings in the long history of Middle-earth managed to defeat the evil ruler. We also included battles or events in which Sauron himself did not directly take part. As a small bonus, there is a character at the end who does not even originate from Tolkien’s universe.
As a former Maia, Sauron is a quite powerful being that cannot be easily defeated, but 4 characters (or teams) show that it is still possible. This is not only about killing Sauron (which isn’t really possible), but about driving him away.
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Gollum – The Indirect Cause of Sauron’s Defeat
This position seems a bit absurd, but at the time of the The Lord of the Rings
films, Sauron could no longer be simply defeated in battle. The only option was to throw the One Ring into the volcano of Mount Doom. Frodo set out on this journey together with Samwise. Just before the end, however, Frodo became corrupted.
Gollum, obsessed with the Ring, leaps at Frodo and bites off his finger in the scuffle. Together with the Ring, Gollum then falls into the volcano, and the Ring and Sauron are destroyed. If Gollum had not been there, the heroes would not have been able to win, as even Samwise could not protect Frodo from corruption.
Here, the letter 192 from Tolkien is also interesting, which was published in a collection by his son in 1981. There he writes regarding Frodo’s failure to throw the Ring in: Frodo deserved all honor, for he consumed every drop of his willpower and physical strength, and that was just enough to get him to the intended point – and no further. Few others, perhaps no one from his time, would have gotten that far. Then the other power took over: the author of the story (and by that I do not mean myself)
(Source: lore-master.com)
It implies that Eru Ilúvatar, the divine being that basically created everything, intervened so that the Ring and ultimately Sauron would be destroyed. However, Eru Ilúvatar finds another place on this list.
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