Speculation has ever surrounded the real appearance of The Lord of the Rings’ villain under his armor, but one little-known source points out the truth — or as near as possible to it. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the masterpiece The Lord of the Rings and released it in three parts between 1954 and 1955, offering tantalizing glimpses of its тιтular villain but never really confirming his visage by his final iteration. Lord of the Rings’ Sauron has a “black hand,” according to Gollum, which burns torturously to touch. But the moviemakers took this clarity a step further.

By the end of the Third Age, Sauron was no longer looking his best. In Lord of the Rings’ Second Age, he attempted an infiltration of the island state of Númenor. This resulted, ultimately, in permanent damage to his shapeshifting ability. When his body drowned in the tidal waves along with Númenor, he was left without the ability to take a “fair” form ever again. His next form was “Terrible,” used to fight Elendil and Gil-galad. But after they killed that body, Sauron’s final form before the One Ring’s destruction took a seriously nasty turn, according to Wētā Workshop.

Wētā Workshop Planned Some Concept Imagery For Sauron’s Appearance Under The Armor

The Lord Of The Rings Movies Planned Sauron’s Appearance

While Tolkien’s Sauron remains something of a mystery, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies made Sauron’s facial appearance clear in a guide. The incredibly impressive Wētā Workshop worked with director Peter Jackson across both of his trilogies to bring his vision to life through prop, costume, and character design. In the concept art book for The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, workshop designer Andrew Baker describes Sauron as “a demonic, physical presence“ next to an image of scary concept art that showed his haggard, deformed features (via Reddit).

Sauron Was Like A Voldemort From Another World In The Lord Of The Rings Concept Art

Sauron’s Movie Design Bore A Striking Resemblance To Another Supervillain

Sauron’s facial features appear almost reptilian in the Wētā Workshop concept art, with slit-like eyes and a flattened face. His pallid flesh is different from the charred, black skin imaginable from the description of Sauron’s body in the Lord of the Rings novel. However, this exploration of Sauron’s idenтιтy in the Lord of the Rings movies recalls one other famous fantasy villain. The armored Sauron of The Lord of the Rings was fiercely original, impacting moviemakers everywhere. But Baker’s concept art was done after the original trilogy and had clearly been impacted by Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort.

The Warner Bros. Harry Potter movies began the same year as the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and they influenced each other as they went. Voldemort is Harry Potter’s nemesis, and his deformed features reflect the continuous mutilation of his own soul, chopping it into pieces and spreading it throughout Horcruxes. Sauron’s canonical soul-splitting is not too dissimilar from Voldemort, but he poured his soul only into the Ring. In this sense, Wētā’s Sauron is a contemporary reimagining of The Lord of the Rings.

Source: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Chronicles: Art & Design