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tolkiens legendarium - Is the Necromancer capable of true resurrection?


Will those resurrected by the Necromancer be undead demonic creatures, or can necromancers can also bring people back who might live a normal life after the resurrection as before they died? Who is the Necromancer in Tolkien's universe?



Answer



In a manner of speaking


Tolkien discusses "necromancy" in his imagined world in an essay titled "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar"; he's quite clear that "necromancy" isn't about raising the dead, per se, but about commanding and controlling lingering spirits of the departed (emphasis mine)1:



It is therefore a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, though the houseless may desire it, especially the most unworthy among them. For the Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one own's will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.


History of Middle-earth X Morgoth's Ring Part 3: "The Later Quenta Silmarillion" Chapter 2: "The Second Phase" Laws and Customs Among the Eldar



However, in theory, there's nothing stopping Sauron from "re-embodying" these spirit-servants; another part of this essay discusses the possibility that rogue spirits could inhabit bodies not their own, and take them over (either by evicting the original spirit, or by more subtle means):




Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they are not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judgement of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully. The peril of communing with them is, therefore, not only the peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies: there is peril also of destruction. For one of the hungry Houseless, if it is admitted to the friendship of the Living, may seek to eject the feä from its body; and in the contest for mastery the body may be gravely injured, even if it be not wrested from its rightful habitant. Or the Houseless may plead for shelter, and if it is admitted, then will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes.


History of Middle-earth X Morgoth's Ring Part 3: "The Later Quenta Silmarillion" Chapter 2: "The Second Phase" Laws and Customs Among the Eldar



We can easily imagine Sauron bringing a slave, either a devoted follower or a prisoner tortured beyond the point of reason, to one of his spirit-servants for the purposes of possession. If this were done, the resulting creature wouldn't quite be the same as the original, since identity in Tolkien's imagined world arises from the combination of spirit and body, but it also wouldn't be an especially "demonic" creature; it would still be an elf, and one who would presumably behave quite similarly to how it would have before death, except that it would be under the dominion of Sauron's will.


This is, however, purely hypothetical; there's no evidence that Sauron ever attempted this more direct kind of necromancy.




1 For more context on this, you may want to read the answers (particularly my answer, which delves into this in great detail) to What happened to elves when they died or lost the will to live?


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