Originally posted by sauron
yes FVJ the difference is sauron DID fight some people in first age...then alot of people in second 😛
But none in the third, where it really mattered.
The analogy is still correct. Sure he fought people in first age, but all the way through the second age, he was a strategist rather than a fighter. He did alot of manipulating, but very little fighting, and even prefers to decieve Ar-Pharazon rather than take him on in battle. Sauron chooses to seek refuge in his tower for the 7 years that the Siege of Barad-Dur lasts, before finally realizing that his only option is to fight himself, because his forces are weaker than the forces of those who oppose him. In the war of the ring he commands his troops from his tower, his much preferred style, because he now commands an army many times larger than those of his enemies. But although Sauron didn't do any fighting himself, it would still be wrong to claim that Sauron wasn't the "supreme" enemy of that age.
Sauron is a general, not a fighter, as is Morgoth. He (Morgoth) really didn't do a lot of fighting in the First Age either, he had his minions do a most of it. Manwë is a general too, and there's no question of who's side he is on. He sends the Istari, he sends the eagles, and it is by his grace, that Gandalf is allowed to return to Middle-Earth.
And his lack of actual fighting (I'm impressed how we can actually assume anything to be certain, considering that most information about "armageddon" is in the form of vague prohecies), doesn't make this any less of a Melkor vs. Manwë thing, much as Sauron's absence of fighting in the War of the Ring doesn't make it less of a Sauron vs. Gandalf thing.