In psychology, appraisal theory is a cognitive perspective on emotion which states that appraisals, or mental evaluations of the meaning and personal significance of an event or stimulus to an individual's well-being, precede the experience of an emotion. The core sequence includes:
Situation / Stimulus --> Appraisal --> Emotion --> Action / Action Tendency.
Information is selected for attention based on personal significance, concerns, and interests. The event does not cause the emotion; it is the subjective evaluation of what it means to the person that generates the emotion.
Appraisal can occur in multiple stages, as deeper evaluation during secondary and tertiary appraisals can elicit different emotions.
Primary Appraisal: This initial evaluation assesses basic situational parameters and goal relevance. It determines whether an event or stimulus is beneficial, neutral, or poses a direct threat to an individual's personal goals and concerns.
Secondary Appraisal: This phase evaluates coping potential. It assesses the available resources, power, and alternative strategies an individual possesses to determine whether they can successfully cope with or overcome an obstacle or threat.
Tertiary Appraisal: This deeper evaluative stage assesses normative standards, moral codes, status, and self-legitimacy. It weighs the situation against pride, personal standing, and adherence or subjection to higher standards and rules.
Sauron's Phasal Appraisals
Phase 1: Creation of Arda
When the physical world was brought into being, Arda lay as a turbulent, unshaped waste awaiting the labor of the Valar. Before his fall, Sauron existed as Mairon, a primordial Maia endowed with a supreme love for order, structural harmony, and alignment. Looking upon the raw, uncoordinated elements of early creation, Mairon appraised the surrounding chaos and inefficiency as a profound Goal-Threat to his vision of an organized world. This evaluation kindled intense anger and frustration, driving a compelling urge to seek out methods and powers capable of enforcing total, systematic organization across Arda.
Phase 2: Service under Aulë
Mairon began his service within the halls of Aulë the Smith, learning the lore of physical materials, crafts, and systemic construction. However, Aulë’s fundamental philosophy was defined by humble submission to Eru Ilúvatar, delighting purely in the act of making without seeking personal dominion, possession, or forced control. As Mairon observed Aulë’s patient, hands-off approach, his Secondary Appraisal concluded that relying on Aulë's passive framework offered insufficient instrumental power to eliminate the world's chaos. This resource assessment generated growing discontent and ambition within Mairon, desires that quickly transformed into an action tendency to search beyond Aulë's smithies for a mightier authority aligned with his urge for swift, sweeping reorganization
Phase 3: Melkor's Rebellion
Mairon found his answer in Melkor, the mightiest of the Ainur, whose immense power and aggressive drive to reshape Arda offered a direct counter to the world's disorder. Through a combined Secondary and Tertiary Appraisal, Mairon evaluated Melkor’s immense external force as the ultimate available resource to successfully achieve his goal of a unified structure, while appraising Eru’s moral mandate of patient, unforced growth as an unacceptable restriction on efficiency. Overwhelmed by hubris and admiration for Melkor’s raw power as a tool for his own ambitions, Mairon’s emotional response triggered a decisive defection. Leaving Aulë, he assumed the name Gorthaur or Sauron, becoming Melkor's chief lieutenant and the master coordinator of his vast fortresses and armies.
Phase 4: Rise as Dark Lord
Following Morgoth’s absolute defeat in the War of Wrath, Middle-earth was left in ruin. Rather than returning to Aman to face judgment, Sauron hid in Middle-earth, intending at first to "reorganize and rehabilitate" the desolate lands. However, his Primary and Secondary Appraisals evaluated the independent free wills of Elves and Men as chaotic variables that would inevitably cause division and friction, threatening his personal capacity to govern. Concluding that total mental and political dominion was the only viable coping strategy to enforce order, his obsession hardened into a cold contempt for free will and a lust for absolute power. Drawing on his ancient lore, he forged the One Ring as a master control mechanism to govern the thoughts of others, erecting Barad-dûr and establishing an empire grounded in tyrannical law, fear, and self-deification.