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Numenor and the 9 human kings were corrupted directly by Sauron; the Shire is wrecked by Saruman; Théoden withers under the influence of Gríma; Denethor goes mad because of the Palantír.; Boromir is tempted & Gollum destroyed by the Ring.
During the Second Age, Sauron planned to corrupt the Elves and put them under his dominion. In his guise as Annatar, he attempted to seduce the Eldar. Both Gil-galad and Elrond rejected him from Lindon, but the Smiths of Eregion are won over.
Sauron retaliated by attacking Eregion, laying waste to the realm. Celebrimbor was captured in the chaos and was forced, under torture, to disclose the locations of the lesser rings, but he would not reveal the whereabouts of the three greatest of them that he had sent away for safekeeping.
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.
She already feels an outcast after Gil-galad tried to send her back to the Undying Lands, and she fears that if she reveals what she has done, it will be the final nail in the coffin. Instead, when Elrond pulls her from the river Glanduin, and she races back inside to Celebrimbor's forge, she chooses to stay silent.
Tolkien also stated that Sauron saw Galadriel as his equal, and therefore, in his rise to power he feared that she would go after that power herself. As we saw in The Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel told Frodo that the One Ring would consume her and turn her into a Dark Queen.
Sauron disguised himself as Annatar ("Lord of Gifts"), Artano ("High-smith"), Aulendil, the Necromancer, and a dark sorcerer known as "the Necromancer".
Fingolfin, receiving false news, rode alone to Angband and challenged Morgoth to single combat. He wounded Morgoth several times, but grew weary and was killed by the immortal Vala. Fingolfin has inspired artists, musicians and video game designers to create depictions of his deeds.
It was only thanks to Celebrimbor's own secret rings that the elves manage to avoid the same calamitous fate, because although the rings are still linked to Sauron, they were not filled with his malice and hate, but they did still present a channel through which the elves could hear Sauron whispering (similar to how ...
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.
The main difference is that, in the books, they were forged after the other Rings, not before. This means that the three Elven Rings weren't imbued with Sauron's malice, making them the most powerful among the Rings of Power — and the most coveted by the Dark Lord.
It's implied throughout the series that Hobbit's are unusually resistant to the ring, tending to admire the beauty of it rather than wield its powers, with Bilbo and Frodo being the ones who held it the longest while still maintaining their sanity.
And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Úlairi, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death.
To win the elves over, Sauron goes to Eregion disguised as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. He helps Celebrimbor and the other smiths gain an even higher mastery of their crafts, but he leaves once they begin crafting the Rings of Power.
As one of the most powerful Maiar, Sauron was created by Ilúvatar before the Music of the Ainur. At the beginning of Time, he was amongst the Ainur who entered into Eä. Here he became one of the Maiar of Aulë, among whose people he was deemed mighty and surpassed only by the Smith himself, and was known as Mairon.
Galadriel's story line has been well established in the first two episodes: She's hunting down Sauron to avenge Finrod, the one who told her in her youth that sometimes darkness must be touched before discovering the true light.
Especially in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves. They are a corrupted race of elves, either bred that way by Morgoth, or turned savage in that manner, according to the Silmarillion.
Elrond discovered the scroll that revealed that Halbrand couldn't be King of the Southlanders, so it's likely that he realized that Halbrand was Sauron and that he escaped. Knowing that Sauron is on the loose, he could warn the dwarves of the growing evil and encourage them to forge their own rings.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1 concluded shortly after Galadriel learned that Halbrand had actually been Sauron in disguise, but she didn't tell anyone. This was a surprise since the elf had spent much of the first season trying to convince her people that Sauron was still a threat.
As soon as the Mystics realize the Stranger isn't Sauron, they label him an "Istar." With this label, and several other hints throughout the episode and the season, The Rings of Power has all but confirmed that the Stranger is everyone's favorite wizard: Gandalf the Grey.
Aragorn was an immensely threatening figure regardless of his ancestry. He's one of the greatest warriors in all of Middle-earth, he was trained in Elvish ways by Elrond, and he held a banner all men would flock to. Sauron believed that Aragorn was the only man who could wield the Ring against him and win the war.
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.
Arwen was her granddaughter
Galadriel and Celeborn had a daughter named Celebrian, who married Elrond and became the mother of Arwen (as well as her brothers, Elladan and Elrohir).