Fuck, what? I don't want to watch three god damn movies about one story, I didn't even know there were already two. How hard can it possibly be to fit such a small book into one movie?

Somehow this angers me far beyond anything in the last few months.

The Necromancer was basically Sauron while he camped out in Mirkwood. He fled some time after Bilbo went through, although I fail to remember why. I think he was trying to regain some semblance of strength and power (it's also because of him that the Wood Elves are dying off, and the spiders are in such great numbers at the time of the Hobbit).

Syd Lexia wrote:

I thought Sauron was just a giant floating evil eye?

You know, I was confused on that part as well.

However, I read the Silmarillion. So I apologize for this, but I'm going to go full nerd mode for a minute or two. Don't worry, there's a too long; didn't read at the bottom.

[SPOILER:d11f26e64d]Sauron was the chief lieutenant of Morgoth, which was one of the Valar who were created by Eru, the Supreme Being of everything in Tolkein's universe. The Ainur were responsible for creation of Middle Earth, singing it into existence. Morgoth was the most intelligent of the Ainur and became proud, to the point where he thought himself superior to the others. He began to ruin the song of the earth, and the dissonance created disaster and evil (the singing was basically the foretelling of all history on Middle Earth, and every wrong note Morgoth made caused various disasters and discord on Middle Earth). Others joined him out of confusion, and these people would become his allies. As history played out, Morgoth and any other Valar who wanted could go into Middle Earth to become Ainur, similar in stature to Greek gods and goddesses. Doing so, he became the main proponent for evil and injustice. Sauron was one of the Valar who joined him in Middle Earth, although significantly less powerful than Morgoth.

Anyway, Sauron was his chief lieutenant, and would often complete tasks and missions that Morgoth was too hasty to do himself. Time passes, and he hatches a scheme to bring the elves into his (and by extension, Morgoth's) service. He changed form into a being called Annatar, "Lord of Gifts". He befriended the elven smiths led by Celebrimbor, teaching them magic to help with their smithing. Using their skill, he crafted the rings of power (minus the One Ring). Later he created the ring to rule them all in Mount Doom, bestowing it with the ability to control all who wore the other rings of power, hence the name. This ability required the transfer of most of his native power into the ring itself, becoming a sort of amplifier of his abilities while he himself wore it. The elves noticed his plot when he began to wear the ring, so they removed the rings, saving themselves. The ringwraiths were the human kings that received rings, and the dwarves will could not be bent to Sauron's end.

A great war raged throughout Middle Earth at this time, with Sauron emerging the loser for the most part. He wasn't defeated entirely, but the power of Numenorians in Middle Earth was so great that he couldn't leave Mordor for some time. He instead focused on regaining control of Orcs and Trolls (which had served Morgoth for millenia, but abandoned them when he lost the war), and won over most of the Men east and south of Mordor, becoming a god-king of them.

At the time of Isildur, the last great armies of men and elves came to defeat him, which they did. He lost his physical form and spent subsequent centuries as a formless cloud of evil energy, camping out in Mirkwood where he gradually became known as The Necromancer. The eye seen in the films is the greatest manifestation he could manage, as he was unable to regain a corporeal form without the One Ring. I believe (but I'm not sure on this) that he built the tower of Barad Dur (destroyed at the end of Return of the King) as a fall back in just such an emergency. The tower provides a great vantage with which to spy on the happenings of Middle Earth.[/SPOILER:d11f26e64d]

In case you're not interested or just didn't want to deal with reading all of that shit, he invested most of his power in the One Ring when he made it, and after he was defeated (lost the ring), he lost his physical form, having to grow power back naturally in Mirkwood. After he gained enough power to do so, he became the Eye you see in the films. He would have needed the ring to become a humanoid again.

EDIT: There are some inaccuracies, I'll clarify if anyone wants to know.

Syd Lexia wrote:

Apparently Sauron did have a physical body in the time of the LOTR trilogy, and it was destroyed once and for all when the ring fell into Mount Doom.

Actually, I was wrong, and this is true. But the body he made for himself was very weak (at least, in comparison to the one he had before), so he didn't use it very much. Instead he manifested a lot of his will and thought into the eye you see. I think that was an actual part of Tolkienian literature, but it wasn't seated at the top of Barad Dur. It was just a part of him, as usual. The eye is just a great way to portray his constant vigilance and far reaching vision, and influence.