Since this topic is swiftly becoming essential to several of my threads, I figured I’d put some actual thought into my headcanons for Ainur shapeshifting and bodies.
What we know from canon: 1) Ainur can change “raiments” as easily as one might change a garment, or discard them and walk unclad. 2) They can get stuck in their body if they invest too much of themselves in worldly materials; e.g. Melkor. 3) They can lose those bodies if they’re too damaged, or their spirit is removed by force; e.g. Sauron, on like 5 separate occasions get it together buddy, and also Saruman.
(Side note: In various versions of the Lay of Leithian, Sauron’s wolf-form is described as a “wolf-hame”, a term taken from Icelandic sagas, which (I believe) means something like “hide” or “skin”. There’s equivalent references in the Loki myths about him borrowing a cloak of feathers to take the form of a falcon. Lots of myths have figures that literally wear a skin or cloak to change form– and while I’m tempted to use this mechanic because it’s super cool, I don’t think that full Maiar would need to use a magical totem to change shape, unlike Beren and Luthien with their stolen skin-cloaks.)
Most important take-away from the Lay was that Sauron’s wolf body was physically left behind when he fled in the shape of a Vampire, leaving a big ol’ dead maia-wolf corpse in its wake. We also know that the body he made after Numenor wasn’t very good; he lost the ability to use a “fair form” from that point on.
This means several things for my ‘Verse: leaving aside the idea that Sauron is now “more corrupt” and therefore less able to appear beautiful, because we’ve elected to ignore this association, given that it is gross– he is simply out of juice. He just used a considerable amount of power to make the One Ring, that’s his major tie to the material world now, and he can’t access that power for making himself a new body. But even if he could, it still wouldn’t be as versatile and awesome as his original body, because that body was created by Aulë.*
To get to the heart of the matter, the way I think Maiar shapeshifting works is this: They have their original, Vala-made body that was created to house their spirits on earth. This body is their base body, and it can be taken off if they want to walk unclad, but if they wish to interact with the world, they must return to it.
(Edit: This is further demonstrated by Olorin’s “death” at the hands of the balrog; when he returns to Middle Earth, it is in a new body– still recognizably Gandalf-shaped, but different, because it was made fresh by the Valar in Valinor. It’s a big deal that they made him a whole new body just to continue the war against Sauron!)
What maiar can do, with sufficient power, is craft themselves a “skin” (not a tangible item, but more a blueprint that they keep on file in their mind) to fit over their base form, which transforms them completely into whatever shape is intended (i.e. not an illusion or glamor– which they could probably also do as a low-energy alternative to a full transformation). If that “skin” is damaged irreparably, they can leave it behind. That skin is now essentially “dead”, they can’t fit back into it. Sauron’s wolf body is killed by Huan; he changes into a bunch of different shapes to try and escape, but this uses a huge amount of energy and eventually he’s tired out and reverts back to his base-shape. Luthien threatens to destroy his base body as well, and “send him back to Morgoth sniveling and houseless, etc etc”. When he escapes as a vampire, the “dead” wolf body is left behind, useless to him. If he wants turns into a monster wolf again, he’s gotta make a new one.
Without a base form, transformations are not possible. They need the base form to put the “skin” over, or else it’s like trying to install a program without having a computer. There’s nothing to transform, nothing to put it on.
So when Sauron loses his original body in Numenor, what he has to make afterwards is his own home-brewed base form. It’s not as good as the one Aulë made him, because it can’t be. He’s not a Vala, he doesn’t have the same demiurgical abilities to make a whole new working Maia body. He just does the best he can with scraps and superglue and duct tape; it’s not pretty, it’s not very flexible, or capable of changing shape– but it gets the job done, and allows him to maintain a physical presence on earth. Until he loses that one too GDI SAURON THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.
The reason Sauron can go from shape to shape so quickly, and sneak out of situations by transforming into another skin without endangering his base-shape, is the same reason he’s known as being a mighty Wizard or Sorcerer: he is insanely fucking powerful. It takes a lot of energy to change shape. Most Maiar don’t even do it once. (Some, in Huan’s case, can’t even speak without expending energy permanently– see my Huancanons). Thû does it all the time, rapid fire, without pausing to catch his breath in his real body until he’s practically bled out, and then he takes off flying. What a showoff, right? The first time the Silmarillion mentions him, he’s described as being the most powerful of all Maiar. He’s got a lot of spare power, and he’s smart about how he uses it– UNLIKE Melkor. That’s why he’s still a big deal in the Second and Third Ages. That’s why he’s still kicking even after the Valar slam-dunk him into the Marianas Trench and tell him to stay down.
The One Ring, which in my opinion was a poor move on his part, reduced his flexibility considerably for the sake of having direct sway over people’s minds and bodies. A calculated decision, made by a guy who’d lost all his safety nets, and no longer had a Vala backing him up. He wanted to have all his power accessible to him to use in manipulating armies and enemies– but it came at the expense of using his favorite First Age tactic of changing shape to avoid damage. Third Age Sauron is actually much more powerful than First Age Sauron, but he takes a lot more hits, and is a lot less sneaky and directly involved in the action (something he probably learned the hard way in the Second Age).
Valar, on the other hand, don’t have as much thinking to do about shapeshifting. They’re the original shapers, with direct power over matter. They don’t need skins to alter their bodies’ core shapes, they can manipulated the core directly. But as Melkor demonstrates, they can also deplete their power sufficiently that transformations becomes impossible. For my Melkor, his inability to change shape comes gradually over time– it’s a loss of elasticity; the material he’s made of just doesn’t stretch as far as it used to, and it can’t hold on to different shapes without snapping back into place after shorter and shorter periods of time.
*(In WesleyVerse, all maiar are given their original bodies by the Vala they chose to serve. The body is crafted, then given the sacred fire/life by Eru, and then filled with the unique consciousness that was drawn down out of the collective consciousness I call the Sea of Maiar, which exists in the Halls of Eru. This is my compromise between the Silmarillion canon, and an idea from the early drafts where the Valar behave much more like the Aesir, and the maiar are their physical children.)
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 