system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[LotR] Why does Sauron lose his physical form after Isildur cuts off the ring from his hand?

Did he not have a physical form prior to making the one ring?
gpt
In the books he does, you just never see him because he isn't at full strength so he holds out in Barad Dur. In the Jackson movies they wanted something more literal when referring to the "Eye of Sauron" so they made his avatar a giant flaming eye. He totally had a physical form, he actually died and came back several times before the War of the Last Alliance. When he made the rings he took a fair form as Annatar the Gift Giver. Hell at one point he was even a werewolf during the events of Beren and Luthien.


It just took thousands of years for him to scrap together enough power without the ring to take a physical form.