The White Council

A lot of folks look for special powers in the Rings which really are not there. They were created by the Elves of Eregion originally for only one purpose: to hold back Time. This is according to J.R.R. Tolkien himself.

Now, Sauron was able to influence the design of the Nine and the Seven (which were created solely for the Elves and not for Men and Dwarves), but he could not make them evil. i.e., they could not be used by him from afar to create Ringwraiths.

Tolkien wrote that Sauron captured the Nine and the Seven in the War of the Elves and Sauron, and that he took these Rings back to Mordor with him. There he perverted them. Here I and many other fans have parted ways, for most people believe the Rings were already evil and corrupted by Sauron, or else that the One Ring (by this time in existence) was Sauron's mechanism for corrupting the Nine and the Seven.

Going strictly by the texts I reject these notions because they require that assumptions be made. It is assumed, for instance, that the One Ring possesses or confers the ability to alter the nature of a Ring of Power from afar. Tolkien never says as much. He does say that the One Ring will rule the others, and that Sauron can use the One Ring to dominate the wills of the keepers of the other Rings of Power. But Tolkien never writes that Sauron will use the One Ring to create wraiths.

So, what are the powers that Tolkien states specifically are in them from the beginning? Except for the Three (Nenya, Vilya, and Narya) all the Great Rings "conferred invisibility", i.e., rendered the wearers invisible to mortal (and perhaps Elvish) eyes. The nature of the invisibility is not explained by Tolkien, but it is there by design. It seems odd that an Elf would want to be invisible, but perhaps Tolkien envisioned some purpose for that which he was never able to document.

They were created to hold back Time, as I stated above. This means the Elves were specifically trying to delay the inevitable "fading" which afflicted them. In THE LORD OF THE RINGS Tolkien referred to it as a "world-weariness". In MORGOTH'S RING we learn that Elvish bodies actually faded away until all that was left was a spirit. And recall that at the Council Elrond said the Three were created to provide "understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained."

Preservation was an Elvish concept. The world passed by quickly for them, according to Legolas: "For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last."

Thror told Thrain that their Ring of Power needed gold to breed gold. I don't believe it actually helped to create gold. Rather, it probably gave the Dwarves an edge. Sauron gave the Seven and the Nine the ability to confer great power on their wearers. The Nine became sorcerors (although some people have argued that they could have been sorcerors without the benefit of Rings). One of the powers Sauron seems to have invested in the Rings (according to Tolkien) is the domination of the wills of others (a power with which the One Ring was sated). Domination of other wills was Sauron's goal.

The Rings made the Dwarves greedy. They could not turn the Dwarves into wraiths, although this was apparently Sauron's purpose when he gave out the Seven.

Gandalf tells Frodo that any Mortal who keeps a Great Ring will not grow old, but rather will merely become "stretched". This would be a plausible side-effect of the Rings' original purpose. The Seven appear not to have affected the Dwarf-lords in this fashion, but then they were not spiritually "mortal". Men differed from Elves and Dwarves in that their spirits, when separated from their bodies, would naturally seek to leave Ea, whereas the Elves' and Dwarves' spirits remained in Ea, in Arda for that matter.

Hence, the Dwarves -- being inured against the domination of their wills -- seem also to have been inured against the stretching of their natural lifespans.

My guess is therefore that the powers of the Seven were probably quite similar to those of the Nine, and that in some degree these powers included the healing, making, preserving, and understanding that Elrond attributed to the Three, as well as the powers of conferring invisibility, dominating the wills of others, and perhaps exercising or increasing sorcery.

But the Dwarves, being naturally resistant to the powers of their Rings (to make them invisible or to trap their spirits so that they faded and became wraiths) may simply have been incapable by virtue of that natural resistance to make full use of the Rings' powers. Their skills at making and perservation may have been enhanced (for Tolkien also wrote that the Rings enhanced whatever native powers the wielders possessed), but I would think not to the same degree as an Elven wielder would see.

Michael