Enligt Tolkien var Sauron ursprungligen en tjänare av Aulë (i grunden Middle Earth motsvarar Hephaestus ) och var därför en av de goda killar:
Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void. - The Silmarillion
Senare blev han och flera andra ganska tagna med Melkurs " rättvis ansikte " och blev förstörd av hans " lögner och förrädiska gåvor "
And darkness he [Melkor of Morgoth] used most in his evil works upon Arda, and filled it with fear for all living things. Yet so great was the power of his uprising that in ages forgotten he contended with Manwë and all the Valar, and through long years in Arda held dominion over most of the lands of the Earth. But he was not alone. For of the Maiar many were drawn to his splendour in the days of his greatness, and remained in that allegiance down into his darkness; and others he corrupted afterwards to his service with lies and treacherous gifts. The Silmarillion
Det finns ytterligare information i History of Middle Earth 10 om hans ställning i Aules hushåll:
Now Melkor knew of all that was done; for even then he had secret friends and spies among the Maiar whom he had converted to his cause, and of these the chief, as after became known, was Sauron, a great craftsman of the household of Aule.
och orsakerna till hans undergång ...
Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction ... all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his 'plans', the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.
Så ja, han började verkligen dygdig och användbar, om än ganska naiv. Det var först efter att han kom under Melkor svängning att han blev till Middle Earths bosatta bad-boy.