Hodush wrote:
I was of the belief that he couldn't take the form of Annatar again because the elves could now see through the disguise, making it useless to do, not that he wasn't able to.
I remember seeing a picture of him as a bat, may have been in the encyclopedia, and my assumption was that he changed to this form to escape, not that he drowned then his spirit flew back to ME.
He used the bat form after his defeat by Huan in the First Age, so it's plausible he used it again to escape the abyss at the Downfall, though we're never explicitely told how or in what condition he did make it back.
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As for Elendil/ Isildur, the movie makes it a little less clear but I understood that he wanted to destroy them in the same manner as Gil Galad (hence the reaching out) and having shattered the sword (power) of Elendil, he got cocky and thought nothing could bring him down which makes it more remarkable that the shards were able to hurt him. I don't remember reading/hearing that he was bested in combat or anything else.
"Sauron himself came forth; and he wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil. and they both were slain, and the sword of Elendil broke under him as he fell. But Sauron also was thrown down, and with the hilt-shard of Narsil Isildur cut the Ruling Ring from the hand of Sauron and took it for his own." - FotR, The Council of Elrond (emphasis by me)
From the boldened part, one can see that Sauron "also was thrown down" in the fight with Gil-galad and Elendil, so while he killed them, they still brought him down, enabling Isildur to cut off the ring and vanquishing his spirit. It was obviously a team effort, with the two kings sacrificing themselves so that Isildur could use the opening they created to deal the 'killing blow'. They did
not die uselessly like in the movie.
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I think it was his destruction at the hands of Isildur which led him to actually fear the sword and Isildur's heirs as he knew they would be able to do it again. This is why aragorn's challenge at the black gate succeeded in keeping his gaze on him not Frodo as he feared them marching through the gates again to destroy him so he emptied the land to try and stop them (making it easier for Frodo).
Certainly, Sauron was utterly scared of Narsil, but the main reason for him to fear Aragorn and concentrate on him wasn't the sword but the fact that he thought Aragorn had the Ring!
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I would assume he had the same form as the Necromancer also - but if anyone could prove the necromancer was a person like being, not just a wraith like being, then I would imagine that he did indeed have a regular physical form.
As has been stated somewhere above, Tolkien himself described Sauron during the War of the Ring in a letter:
"Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic."
It's an open and shut case, really.