White Council

Re: a question of RINGS | White Council Forum Archive - msg 7379

White Council Forum Archive
Original Xenite.Org White Council Forum Archive

Site Map


All Archives Top White Council Archive Index Archive 36 Index


VISIT LIVE TOLKIEN FORUM
Topic: Re: a question of RINGS    Reply to: msg 7377
Posted: December 25, 1999 at 21:34:54: by Michael Martinez
: In the hobbit Tolkien mentions that bilbo's ring is not the
: only magic ring (that grants invisibilty). So did Sauron's
: "other" 9,7,3 rings posess the power invisibilty as well?
: Also why was Bilbo able to use the ONE in the Hobbit so many
: times while every time Frodo tries to use the damn thing in
: lotr, it's like sacreligious and he even gets stabbed in the
: friggen arm by a ringwraith, was the ell is that i ask! any
: followup is greatly appreciated.

Well, keep in mind that the magic ring of THE HOBBIT was retrofitted to an entirely new concept when Tolkien wrote THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

The One Ring (which Bilbo found) possessed all the powers of the other Rings, and the Seven and the Nine were originally intended to confer invisibility. But by "confer invisibility" Tolkien seems to mean some sort of transference of the physical body to the spiritual plane. i.e., the physical presence remained, but was somehow "faded" so that the Ring's wearer became aware and active in the incorporeal aspects of Ea.

It's not like an interdimensional shift or the bending of light rays which you find in science fiction or fantasy which has been influenced by science fiction. Rather, Tolkien seems to have envisioned the physical world as an aspect of the greater world, which also included the non-physical, spiritual, or unseen world.

Men are normally aware only of the physical world. They are spiritually blind (in fact, this closely resembles the Christian teaching that we are spiritually dead, and therefore cannot perceive matters of the spirit without help) and spiritually deaf. Men, in Tolkien, are totally insensate to disembodied spirits, unless those spirits are given some special power to make themselves known to the living, as the Nazgul, the Barrow-wights, and the Dead Men of Dunharrow possessed.

Or think of a Man's body simply as a glove fitting over the spirit. The Rings would permit a Man to sort of slip out of that glove, or to make the glove insubstantial enough that light would pass through it. People naturally want to analyze the phenomenon from a scientific point (worrying about conservation of mass and so forth), but the effect doesn't seem to have been derived from scientific principles.

On the other hand, some people have argued that the body was rendered transparent -- not eliminated, but physically altered -- while the Rings were worn. The ultimate fate of someone who wore these Rings would be that they'd lose their substance. The Nazgul were shapeless, according to Gandalf, without the special robes they wore when they were sent to hunt for the Ring, or to lead armies. The loss of substance was the fading Tolkien referred to.

The Seven, however, did not affect the Dwarves in this way because it was not in their nature to be reduced to wraiths. Aule made them differently from the way Elves and Men were made.

When Celebrimbor made the Three he didn't desire invisibility, so these powers were not bestowed upon those Rings (to render unseen the wearer, and to render unseen things visible).
------------------
Xenite.Org: Science Fiction and Fantasy



Contact us | SF Fandom | Privacy Statement


SF Fandom Sites

SciFi Forums
Archives
Forum Short Addresses
Other SciFi Sites

Xenite.Org Network

Science Fiction & Fantasy
SF Fandom
SF Worlds
The Queen of Swords
Tolkien Studies

Popular Network Sites

Entertainment Search Engine
Grace Park
Harry Potter News
History of Xena
Lord of the Rings News
Mizuo Peck
Poster Store
SciFi Search Engine
Star Wars News
White Cheese Dip
Witch World Page
Xena: Warrior Princess
 

This page is copyright © 1997-2007 by Michael L. Martinez. All rights reserved.
No portions of this page may be reproduced electronically or otherwise without express permission from the copyright holder, except as occurs in normal browser caching and page indexing.

No random scifi pages were incorporated into this archive. However, the truth about Balrogs may have been mentioned at least once. Learn more about Balrogs: Balrog of Moria. Read more Tolkien Essays.

Created by SEO Specialist Michael Martinez. Search engine optimization and search engine optimization provided by SE cOnsulting.