Sauron was already corrupted when he chose to put much of his power into the Ring to gain further control of Middle-earth. Some other characters are of an earlier time, and are unaffected by the Ring; the giant spider Shelob is unquestionably evil but uninterested in the Ring.
Sauron was once a wise Maia who valued order but was corrupted by Morgoth and became his first lieutenant wishing to assist Morgoth in order to create the world he saw fit.
Sauron himself suffered the destruction of his physical body at the hands of Gil-galad and Elendil while wearing the Ring. As it contained the better part of Sauron's native power, it seemed to exhibit a malevolent, but limited, form of sentience.
Sauron, using the power of the Stone of Minas Ithil, had already turned the other Stones to his will. Saruman long sought lore of the Rings of Power, and pried into the Enemy's arts (Silmarillion 301). His desire for knowledge led to his corruption.
While Sauron is indeed one of the evilest entities in Middle-earth history, he wasn't always so, as The Rings of Power's premise states that "nothing is evil in the beginning." In fact, there were moments in the Second Age, after the fall of Morgoth, and even during the War of the Ring (depicted in The Lord of the ...
While the book version of Sauron is Pure Evil, due to being a manipulative sadist, which was shown in The Silmarillion, his lack of personality and motives in both the Ralph Bakshi and Rankin-Bass movies renders him not even close to qualifying in those versions.
Sauron seemed to genuinely feel a connection to her, and part of that came from sensing the darkness inside of Galadriel. In that regard, his offer was really a seduction to the dark side.
Galadriel, one of the greatest Elves of Middle-earth, could resist the temptation of the One Ring because of her exceptional strength of will, wisdom, and awareness of the Ring's corrupting influence.
Fortunately, Aragorn avoids the corruption of the Ring in the only way possible… by refusing to take it in the first place. He doesn't crave power, except what is his by right, and he doesn't fear death. He also knows what happens to those who accept Sauron's gifts.
Sauron was severely weakened at that point in time, and they still barely defeated him. So, a fully-powered Sauron with the One Ring to boot would likely have been too much for them.
Because feeling when someone uses the ring isn't something Sauron does. Why doesn't Sauron become invisible when he puts the one ring on? Because the ring doesn't make you invisible. The ring draws you into the wraith-world, something like a spirit world.
In Sauron's case, as he imbued the One Ring with a significant part of his soul, his spirit would remain in Middle-earth until the Ring was properly destroyed.
Bloodlines are very important in Tolkien's stories, and it makes a lot of sense that Sauron would fear the great-grandson of the man who cut off his hand. Aragorn carried the blood of Numenor with him. His genetic connection to the heroes of the Second Age established him as a dangerous opponent of Sauron.
Morgoth is the more powerful of the two. Morgoth was the mightiest of the Valar, a group whose weakest member would outpace Sauron. However, there are some circumstances and eras in which Sauron would win the day. Morgoth was born far beyond Sauron but lost and surrendered much of his power.
Except for Tom Bombadil, nobody seemed to be immune to the corrupting effects of the One Ring, even powerful beings like Gandalf and Galadriel, who refused to wield it out of the knowledge that they would become like Sauron himself.
Some external factors kept Sam from succumbing to the One Ring's corruption. The most important was that he carried the One Ring for less than two days; it did not have time to wear down his body and spirit like it had the other Ringbearers. Additionally, the One Ring probably wanted Sam to give it back to Frodo.
The One Ring had the power in The Lord of the Rings to corrupt the beings of Middle-earth just from being in close proximity. As a powerful wizard, Gandalf wasn't affected in quite the same way.
Additionally, while he was in his weakened state, Galadriel could hold him off through the power of will alone. However, if Sauron had his One Ring and faced off in a battle against Galadriel, it's unlikely that there would be much she could do.
Thus, Galadriel's dark form in Jackson's The Lord of the Rings personified what would have occurred had the Lady of Lothlorien given in to temptation and taken the One Ring for herself. She would have succumbed to evil because the Ring was indomitable, even with her power.
In the final minutes, Sauron confesses that he's been manipulating Galadriel since they first met — using her as a way to get back to Middle-earth to fight back against his enemies in the Southlands and indirectly form the land of Mordor but also to get closer to Celebrimbor and the Elven smiths.
Sauron did desire Galadriel... He desired to make her his puppet-Queen. He didn't have any romantic feeling for her. He didn't want to marry her or have romance with her.
In his notes, Tolkien remarks that Sauron saw Galadriel as his equal. Add that to the fact that she's untrusting of Sauron (yes, even when he's in his Annatar guise) and an unwavering, single-minded force, and it's more likely than not that Sauron feared Galadriel — or the potential she held to upend his plans.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Vickers shared why he believes Sauron offered to make Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) his Queen in the Season 1 finale. "I think [Sauron] thinks that if [Galadriel] with him, he can affect his designs faster," Vickers said. "That's why he loved Morgoth.
