Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerMorgoth and Sauron are both mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, but The Rings of Power's opening line from Galadriel states: "nothing is evil in the beginning", calling into question whether Morgoth and Sauron were perhaps once good themselves.
The Rings of Power is largely based upon J.R.R. Tolkien's appendices in The Lord of the Rings and follows the events of the Second Age which led to The Hobbit trilogies, it still fits within the same world and involves familiar characters including Galadriel, Elrond and Sauron.
Although Morgoth and Sauron are painted as purely evil characters in The Rings of Power's opening, neither of them started off as evil. In fact, Morgoth, formerly known as Melkor, began as one of the most powerful Ainur (Tolkien's angelic beings). In Ainulindale, Tolkien's cosmological prelude to The Silmarillion, Melkor exists as a creation of Eru Iluvatar who creates everything as innumerable good in the beginning. Sauron is a lessor Ainur than Morgoth, known as the Maiar, but is nonetheless still created wholly good. Therefore, the quote "nothing is evil in the beginning" perfectly resonates with Tolkien's original created order, so the fact that Morgoth and Sauron are so evil in The Rings of Power is actually incredibly tragic.
What Happened To Morgoth & Sauron That Turned Them Evil
Melkor desires to create life just as Eru can, leading him to seek the legendary Flame Imperishable. Unable to find it, Melkor instead decides to express his own creativity by contending against Eru's Great Music. Believing that he is creating original tunes, Melkor draws weaker Ainur to sing with him to counter Eru's music, a ploy that eventually leads to Eru humiliating Melkor. This experience causes Melkor to rage against Eru and his creation, eventually leading him down a dark path and banishment as he seeks to corrupt and destroy the work of the other Valar. Melkor is eventually renamed Morgoth and becomes the archetypical evil character of The Silmarillion.
Sauron's fall from grace is a cautionary tragic tale in The Lord of the Rings. Sauron is also highly ambitious, who is excellent at inspiring order and planning. Sauron's distaste for disorder of any sort, ultimately leads to his undoing as he seeks control over Middle-earth in order to create a perfectly ordered society making him an easy target for Morgoth to corrupt. Tolkien deliberately wrote Sauron's fall to mirror that of many world dictators, even saying of Sauron's Ring: "You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power" (via Mises Institute).
Tolkien's philosophy as explored in The Lord of the Rings was that all things are created good by God, but that the pursuit of power corrupts such good. Through Morgoth and Sauron's stories this pursuit of power becomes their downfall, even in Sauron's case when the power was intended for good outcomes. Given the deliberate placing of this key idea in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's opening lines, it will be interesting to see how the show's portrayal of the Second Age continues to wrestle with Tolkien's key ideas moving forwards.
Episodes of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power air Thursdays on Amazon Prime
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