Two of the most fascinating super-villains of epic high fantasy and children’s literature are the mysterious Sauron and the enigmatic Lord Voldemort. The legend of Sauron, the chief antagonist of the Tolkien classic, The Lord of The Rings, takes us back to Middle Earth with its grim, perilous landscapes and creatures most vile lurking in every corner. On the other hand, J. K. Rowling’s popular children’s fantasy takes us on a mind-bending ride through the captivating world of the eponymous boy wizard, Harry Potter.
Both the villains, in their own ways, are dark, demented, evil and possess powers that are terrible and beyond the realm of imagination. Let us see in what ways they might be similar and how they differ from each other.
10 Similar: The Dark Lords
Both the villains are called the Dark Lord by the people, and especially by their followers. While both have a medley of other names by which they are known, the very evil that defines these two entities is signified by referring to them as the Dark Lord.
Sauron the Deceiver is the Dark Lord of Mordor over which he rules and plans to conquer the whole of Middle Earth. Voldemort is the dark wizard who wishes to cleanse the wizarding community of Mud-bloods, that is wizards or witches born out of Muggles, and Half-bloods.
9 Different: Sauron Is A Much Older Evil Than Voldemort
Sauron is an ancient evil; his powers originate in a different timeline, much before the First Age when he came to be the trusted lieutenant of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, a primeval source of power created by Eru, the creator.
Voldemort is a much younger villain with a relatively contemporary timeline. His ascent as the dark wizard went rogue begins sometime in the early twentieth century of the modern world and his final destruction in the hands of Harry happens in the last decade of the 20th century.
8 Similar: Both Sauron And Voldemort Lust For Power
One fundamental thing that both these antagonists share is their profound lust for power. They use their vast powers to destroy, conquer and enslave. Both are corrupted from within and have no trace of morality left in them.
Sauron is the evil that presides over Mordor, a dark, withering land, a barren wasteland riddled with fire and ash and dust. The sinister landscape of Sauron’s den signifies the ancient evil that lurks in the shadows here. Voldemort too is the epitome of cruelty and can go to any lengths to achieve complete supremacy over the entire wizarding world. He dabbles in magic that is dark and distorted and has even ripped apart his own soul in his greed for power and immortality.
7 Different: Sauron Is Probably More Powerful Than Voldemort
While both wield enormous power, Sauron is probably a force beyond Voldemort’s reckoning. Voldemort might have descended into the depths of darkness, but Sauron is an entity from another time, possibly with powers that even Voldemort cannot imagine.
Sauron is essentially a Maiar, a cosmic entity that existed before Middle Earth itself. His knowledge of the universe—that is, the Tolkien universe—comes from the fact that he helped bring order in it at the time of creation and his powers are not acquired partly by laboring through schoolbooks, like Voldemort, who, despite being an immensely powerful wizard, had to train himself in the art of dark magic.
6 Similar: Both Arch Villains Lurk Without Physical Form
Both Sauron and Voldemort lost their physical form and had to spend years biding time until they were able to hop back into their bodies. Voldemort was ripped from his body when he tried to murder little Harry. From then on, for well over a decade, Voldemort’s soul lay in wait until it could reclaim its body during Harry’s fourth year at Hogwarts.
As for Sauron, he is represented as the Necromancer in The Hobbit, and as the flaming, ever-watchful Eye of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. Canon says that Isildur cut off Sauron’s finger which bore the ring, leading to the destruction of his corporeal form. From then on, like Voldemort, Sauron lay dormant.
5 Different: Unlike Sauron, Voldemort Had No Mentor
Sauron had been the right hand of Morgoth, presumably in the First Age. Before this, Sauron is said to have been concerned mainly with bringing order out of chaos and ensuring discipline in the Arda. However, it was Morgoth’s corrupting influence that twisted him from within and made him obsessed with power.
Voldemort, though, was self-made. Unlike Sauron, he did not come endowed with powers of a cosmic scale, nor was he mentored by any other wizard with unimaginable expertise in the dark arts. Although he was the heir of Salazar Slytherin, the latter was never evil per se and lived centuries before Voldemort’s time.
4 Similar: Both Had Their Life Force Attached To Objects
This is probably the most intriguing similarity between the two. Voldemort committed unimaginable acts of horror to split his soul into seven Horcruxes—objects that were made to hold a portion of his soul by means of extremely dark magic. To kill him once and for all, Harry and his gang had to destroy all the Horcruxes to ensure that no part of his soul survived.
The One Ring was forged by Sauron in the fires of Mount Doom to bring under control the other Rings of Power and eventually all of Middle Earth. He thus poured the extraordinary force of his own soul into the ring thus getting bound by its fate forever. Once he lost the ring, he lost his powers and his physical form, and was finally vanquished when the ring fell into the fires of Mount Doom along with Gollum. Moreover, the One Ring was cursed, like all of Voldemort’s Horcruxes had powerful curses attached to them.
3 Different: One Ring Vs Seven Horcruxes
Sauron, just like Voldemort, had made sure that a major part of his soul remained attached to an artifact. However, although both ensured that their souls were preserved outside of their bodies, Sauron had only one Horcrux as opposed to the seven that Voldemort made.
Both the arch-villains wanted to attain immortality, and both wanted absolute power. The difference is that Sauron, whose divine Maian spirit was already endowed with unusually long life, made just one ring to further enhance his malevolent powers thus getting attached to its fate. And Voldemort, who was human, after all, had to split his soul seven times to make seven Horcruxes—one of them a ring—to ensure he couldn’t be killed.
2 Similar: Both Built Armies
Voldemort had an army of Death Eaters, along with giants, dementors, werewolves, who fought with him in the Battle of Hogwarts. He gathered the army for his much-anticipated confrontation with The Boy Who Lived, who happened to be aided by members of Dumbledore’s Army, powerful witches, and wizards of the Order of the Phoenix, and students and professors of Hogwarts.
Sauron’s orc army was assembled steadily over millennia through the First and Second Ages. In the Third Age, he needed an army to seek out the ring-bearer, Frodo Baggins, and go after the Fellowship of the Ring. In the first part of the movie trilogy, it is mentioned that Saruman was breeding a cross between orcs and goblins to fight for Sauron when the time came.
1 Different: Did Sauron Ever Have A Corporeal Form?
Sauron is never actually seen in his physical form although there is mention of his fingers; it was because he lost a finger that he lost the One Ring. There are debates regarding whether or not he ever had a full-fledged physical body. Some say that being of cosmic origins, he could take forms as he wished, an ability that he lost completely after losing the ring.
However, Voldemort, petty human that he was, had a body until he was blown out of it. It was only after he reclaimed his body that he was able to confront Harry and return to full power.
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