About Sauron – MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive

How the name Mairon possibly affected Sauron’s position in the Fandom

lucifers-cuvette:

ttrtru:

So me and @snakecozies were having a chat about Sauron and how when and how we started to ship him in the first place. We were both affected by @phobso which I think a lot of people can relate to.

The chat then shifted to how Sauron’s popularity seemed to have risen only recently(as in the last 10 or so years, which is not very long compared to how the Tolkien fandom has been around for much longer) and we became interested in the possible factors that affected this.

The points we thought for this sudden rise were:

“Hobbit trilogy” from 2012-2014 bringing in new and old fans back to the Tolkien fandom

effect of Phobs designing a humanised (like having a face) Sauron, (also roughly around 2012)

the popularity of villain characters in general in recent years (2010s onward)

……Then I remembered that the name “Mairon“ only came out rather recently (2007 in a Tolkien newsletter) and we thought of how the name sounded rounder and more precious compared to Sauron or Gorthaur. ~~(personally I thught Annatar sounded more awe evoking than precious-ish but may be that’s just me)~~.

So maybe, just maybe, by having the name “Mairon” come out to the world, Sauron quite possibly gained popularity from it and thus became “Mairon the Admirable“ in the fandom as well as in the stories.

Since names are important factors in the stories, the possibility of the effect of “a name” being significant in real life too gave (at least to me) a strange and interesting thought that I wanted to share with you guys.

~~I’d love to hear about your opinion on this, especially from people who’ve been in the fandom way longer than me who’d have more accurate information on the fandom history.~~

~~I know there were fans of him before the name came out but I still think it did make him more popular.~~

So, the strike out of soliciting opinions from this means that you’re not amenable to such? I do, in fact, have An Opinion™ about this.

HA! A post after my owne heart.

I’ll be honest about this: I have developed a deep dislike of the use of the term “Mairon” as the fandom employs it. For one thing it is used to soften a character whose very charm and likeability stems from his not being soft. “Mairon The Admirable” has become almost like an entirely original, fan-created character at this point, with fic after fic not even mentioning “Sauron”. And let’s be frank here, Phobs drawing of Sauron has been linked to that heavily, even though iF YOU READ HER OPINION she clearly doesn’t like how the fandom has turned him into Middle Earth Zoisite.

For another thing…. It’s pretty much deadnaming. Sauron isn’t just a moniker the Elves gave him. “The abomination” was an identity he himself assumed, as part of the whole “rule by fear”, “going evil”, “all things under the sun are my enemy” thing. It’s not a name he rejects, it’s one he embraces. And it serves him very well when “Sauron” is seen as such a monstrous historical evil that this new “Annatar” fellow what just showed up… well he just can’t be him, no matter what Galadriel says. It’s the employment of his own imfamy to his advantage. The sort of thing you kinda expect from Middle Earth Blofeld.

Removing that angle, that deeply sadistic, cruel elegance that’s like… the one thing LOTR actually bothers to tell us about him in-text, is pretty obnoxious to me. It supplants a seminal villain with… well, with an OC. Something transformative, non-textual, non-canonical. Again, bearing more than a few resemblances to certain 90′s anime boys.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU OH MY GOD Thank You,

In canon, he refers to himself as Thû (Lay of Leithian), and his servants refer to him as Sauron (LotR). If he wanted to be known by a more glamorous title, he’d surely be styling himself as such and enforcing it amongst his allies. From the onset of this blog and all my projects i’ve treated “Mairon” as a deadname; in my roleplays, headcanons, and fics, Sauron actively objects and corrects people who refer to him by this name; the name that was given to him by his old master, for his old life as a Maia of Aulë, a life he rejected.

On the flip side of the coin, Melkor calls himself “Melkor”. The one excerpt we have of him in conversation with Húrin makes it clear that he still thinks of himself as the Mighty Arising, no less powerful or worthy than he was a the start of creation. “I am the Elder King, Melkor, first and mightiest of all the Valar, who was before the world, and made it” (Children of Hurin, chapter 3). He does not style himself as Morgoth Bauglir, the name his enemies gave him; it is Sauron who seems to take delight in the monikers “Cruel” and “Dark”, not his master.

*Also yes, yes DEFINITELY there were fans of Sauron before the name Mairon came out, as @lucifers-cuvette will happily tell you.

How does Mairon look when he gets fully pissed off? I saw hooorrnnss

Ah yes!

The horns! So, let me explain:

If he is well and truly steamed, it means he’s less likely to be focusing on how his physical shape is manifesting, and more likely that he’s revert back to his raw Maia shape– this is mostly a conceit I use for the purposes of distinguishing what he looks like in a “fair” or human/elven form and the way he looks as a spirit; there’s no particular reason for him to stay in humanoid shape except that A) I like to draw him that way, and B) it’s probably habit for him to look human at this point, since it’s been trillions of years since he was a being of pure energy and spirit.

In my ‘verse, his unmodified Maia shape looks something like this:

The “horns” or head ornaments are sort of how I distinguish Aulë’s Maiar from the Maiar of other Valar. Again, mostly an artistic conceit of mine. XD

This will be easier to showcase once I… uh…. actually draw some more Maiar >__>;; WHICH WILL BE SOON, ACTUALLY.
Here’s Curumo being his usual ingratiating self:

And another, nameless, female Maia:

Later, in the Third Age after he loses his “fair” body in the fall of Numenor, his spirit manifests itself in a very loose, smoky, spectral way that resembles this original form, but more corrupted:

(And missing a finger, naturally).

WOW OKAY THAT WAS PROBABLY A WAY MORE LONGWINDED REPLY THAN YOU WANTED, HUH? :’D ANYWAY, THOSE ARE THE HORNS!

Mairon comes across as a teddy bear considering “evil” and all. What are his ideas of morality? Besides robbing body hair.

If you’re new to this blog, I definitely recommend checking out my tags for a more definitive answer. 🙂 I’ve had this blog a long time and the way I play Sauron (he prefers “Sauron” over “Mairon” for reasons that you can find in the headcanons tag and the character bio) has developed over time, but for the most part I can say he is painfully lawful evil.

-He- doesn’t think he’s evil; he is confident that his actions are justified and fit well within his own criteria of acceptable conduct. He is aware that terrible things happen during war, and he is also aware that he is responsible for many of those terrible things, but for the most part he considers those to be in service of a greater goal (with a few personal indulgences here and there because sometimes shit gets real and vengeance is tasty. Also he’s a sadist and he likes to treat himself.)

Sauron thinks of himself as reasonable, accommodating, and pragmatic. The ends always justify the means, though he does have regrets about avoidable mayhem and deaths. He has a fully functioning sense of empathy and compassion, it’s just that he doesn’t let those things stop him from achieving his, and his Master’s, goals.

He is terribly manipulative, and will stack odds in his favor whenever possible, but he always uses the veneer of truth, the letter of the law, to mask his deceit.

Again, he doesn’t consider himself evil. He doesn’t make grand displays of villainous pomp unless it will gain him something. He doesn’t use force when force is not necessary, he isn’t cruel when it is in his interests to be kind, and he is loathe to waste resources on senseless acts of brutality. (Mind you, this attitude changes by the time he’s a bitter old shadow lurking in Barad-dur in the Third Age). He has seen what stubbornness and pride get you, and he prefers to be flexible– something Melkor had a hand in teaching him.

It’s important to note that his own perception of himself changes considerably once Melkor is imprisoned in the Void. He loses a great deal of his confidence without a definite cause to rally behind. He begins to see himself more as a force of vengeance, with the goal of carrying out Melkor’s wishes in his absence and punish those he views as responsible for his downfall.

And yes, he’s a bit cuddly sometimes. XD
My Sauron is very much a hedonist, and enjoying the pleasures of the material world is something he considers in line with Melkor’s values and his own. He likes bodies, and what bodies can do with other bodies– an attitude that is regarded as distasteful and dangerous by the Valar and most Ainur. Indulging the flesh is an act of rebellion and part of Melkor’s grand vision of freedom. Plus, it’s just dang fun! And he’s got a lot of time on his hands as an immortal. He enjoys pleasing others; he’s still sort of essentially built for service, even if he’s a rebel.
He can be quite romantic and has formed many close bonds over the centuries, some mortal, some immortal, some lasting, some fleeting, some that end in bloodshed and betrayal, some that he will treasure forever– but none that overshadow his abiding love of Melkor and his desire to free him from the Void.

And he will never, never, ever let anyone shave off his body hair. Ever.