>>96022193
>threatening as a villain at least, or have his armies mean business.
He was. He destroyed and enslaved most of Middle-earth before Manwe sent his armies back there.
>worthless against anything up to and including hobbits
If you're talking about Sauron, he destroyed Numenor. If he didn't kill the Hobbits wasn't because he couldn't, but because he never took them into account as he saw them less than Men, Elves and Dwarves. Which ended up being both their strength and their weakness.
>at his word like fucking idiots
He and Sauron seduce people to take their side using their base desires against them. Which is the most effective type of seduction because everybody has them. Only the most wilful of people can resist, like Feanor or Hurin.
Seems to me you're looking here for one of these grimderp stories where evil guys are omnipotent and good guys are imbeciles, such as Warhammer 40k; while LoTR's world is an apology to Heroism. These stories besides being extremely lame and emasculating are poorly done. Since if evil controls everything there's no need to worry about it or resist instead of just letting it engulf all that exist, which is what these worlds basically are, the championing of fictional bestiality.