Did Sauron have a physical form during The Lord of the Rings?
There is strong evidence that Sauron did have a humanoid physical body at the time of LotR. In “The Black Gate is Closed” we read, “‘He has only four [fingers] on the Black Hand, but they are enough’, said Gollum shuddering.” Gollum was tortured in Barad-dur, and this statement sounds as if it comes from personal experience. Some have objected that Gollum’s memory of his torture might not be accurate for various reasons, but this is still the only fully “canonical” evidence on either side of the issue, so it should be taken seriously. It need not be taken alone, however. Tolkien makes multiple unambiguous statements that Sauron did have a physical form in Letters. For example, he describes Sauron’s use of a humanoid shape in Letter #200: It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was ‘real’, that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructible like other physical organisms. …
