Who was Morgoth/Melkor in Morgoth, Sauron's master.
While Morgoth doesn't appear in The Lord of the Rings or creation of Middle-Earth, but Morgoth's anger would rage for eons to come. Below is a rundown of Morgoth in Tolkien lore, including how he compares to Sauron.
When And Why Morgoth Fled To Middle-earth
Then known as Melkor, Morgoth established the stronghold of Utumno in the far north of Middle-earth. From there, he continued to poison the world with darkness, and his efforts bore fruit. The Valar returned to their home, Valinor, and Morgoth ruled supreme in Middle-earth. Left to his own devices, Morgoth consolidated his forces, including Balrogs and other primordial spirits corrupted by Morgoth's will. Sauron among the latter, serving as his most trusted commander. However, the Valar knew they must deal with their troublesome brother before the coming of elves and men into the world, and this eventually led to a terrible war in which the Valar were victorious, dragging Morgoth back to Valinor with them. These are the roots of the political dynamics between all 15 Valar in Lord of the Rings.
Rather than being the end of Morgoth/Melkor's LOTR story, his villainy was only just beginning. Underestimating the extent of his scheming, the Valar pardoned Morgoth, and he repaid them with one of the greatest acts of evil Middle-earth would ever see. Masquerading as a friend, Morgoth bred division among the elves residing in Valinor - a chasm that would rumble on for generations. Then, conspiring with the spider-like Ungoliant, Morgoth extinguished the light of the world and fled to Middle-earth to reassemble his forces and wage war. For his third trick, Morgoth stole the elves' Silmarils, precious jewels coveted above all else, and this act of theft lit a fire among the entire elvish race. As the First Age began, Morgoth was locked in a seemingly unending war against elves, who were sworn to reclaim the Silmarils, and the early races of men, who had since come into being. As depicted in Rings of Power, Morgoth and the Silmarils have a complex relationship.
After centuries of war, Morgoth — now fully abandoning his Valar name of Melkor — proved victorious, driving the elves to the brink of total destruction. Their final gambit was a lone half-elf named Eärendil, who traveled to Valinor and requested the aid of the Valar. As they did when the elves were first born, the Valar came to Middle-earth and defeated their brother, but this time Morgoth was cast into a void outside of existence, where he remains thereafter. Sauron would continue to spread Morgoth's teachings after his defeat, and ultimately became the new Dark Lord in the Second and Third Ages, but Morgoth himself would never return to the kingdoms of Middle Earth.
In unpublished writings, Tolkien suggested that Morgoth was destined to one day return, breaking free from his prison of nothingness, but this has never been canonized in The Lord of the Rings. It's strange that Sauron would become one of the most famous fictional villains in history when he was merely the servant of a far greater evil whose feats eclipsed those of his Ring-obsessed underling. Sauron never came close to achieving the sheer scale of death and destruction Morgoth committed, for it was the wayward Vala who introduced darkness to Middle-earth in the first place. If Morgoth had returned in LOTR, Sauron likely would've bent the knee to his former lord.
Is Morgoth In The Rings Of Power?
Although The Lord of the Rings' Morgoth/Melkor does not appear in Rings of Power, Morgoth's destined return is the entire crux of the Amazon series' plot, much more so than in the original film trilogy. Indeed, Rings of Power's Valar and Eldar (elves) are crucial to Morgoth's LOTR story arc, as the series encomes parts of the Second Age following Morgoth's defeat. For this reason, Morgoth is mentioned several times in the series, even though he has yet to appear — and, unless the Rings of Power season 2 makes even more radical changes than season 1 to Tolkien canon, he won't. That said, Rings of Power and Lord of the Rings share a few parallels in Morgoth and Sauron's respective rules as their era's Dark Lords, in that both stories begin amid Middle-Earth recovering from their previous wars. With Rings of Power season 2 in production, the show may yet reveal Morgoth onscreen, for example in a flashback.
