Commentators have compared Sauron to the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, and to Balor of the Evil Eye in Celtic mythology. Tolkien, while denying that absolute evil could exist, stated that Sauron came as near to a wholly evil will as was possible. Sauron appears most often as 'the Eye', as if disembodied. Tolkien noted that the Ainur, the ' angelic' powers of his constructed myth, 'were capable of many degrees of error and failing', but by far the worst was 'the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron'. The Silmarillion describes him as the chief lieutenant of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. In the same work, he is identified as the 'Necromancer' of Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middle-earth. Sauron (pronounced / ˈ s aʊ r ɒ n/ ) is the title character and the primary antagonist, through the forging of the One Ring, of J.
