: : Gandalf

: You're missing the point. The Silmarils did not fade with Feanor's death, BUT, if he had allowed the Valar to use them to resurrect the Trees, (destroying them in the process) he could not have created new ones.

: It was not the downfall of Sauron that caused the Three to fade, but the destruction of the One. Sauron used a great deal of his power to tie the Three, the Seven, and the Nine to the One. The destruction of the One caused Sauron's downfall, as well as the downfall of anything connected to it. New Rings could not be made for the same reason that new Silmarils could not be made.

no! YOU'VE missed the point!! No one is talking about making new rings. The point is, that although the One died, there is no reason to assume that the Three will. Think back to the hacker analogy. Just because the hacker has died, and the power he was controlling my PC with has perished, does not mean that my PC will fade (by which I mean the PC's powers, NOT the actual physical machine), EVEN if no one on earth can create another PC.

No one disputed that Feanor could make more silamrils. That's just ridiculous. BUT, the point is, the power of the Silmaril did not fade when it's maker perished. Such should be the same with the rings. Why on earth should the 3 fade, when Sauron had little to do with them seems beyond comprehension.

I suppose no one in Middle Earth knew for certain what would happen, and that's fair enough. It's Tolkien's universe, and he gets to decide the dynamics of it.

But still, it makes little sense....

Gandalf