The White Council

Re: The One vs. the Three

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : The One ring had power because Sauron poured much of his native strength into it as a Maia. As a result he was that much weaker w/o the Ring. How is it then that the Three had power? Did the elves somehow put their strength into them? Would that only be Celebrimbor's? And lastly, was he weaker w/o them?

: Hmm.. That is a little tricky considering that they failed with the passing of the one (something I have never understood) It would mean that the power of the elves were tied to Sauron somehow.... : I don't get it - Sauron's hands, "never touched them"??

We latter day folks probably will never really understand how the Rings worked. My guess is that somehow they focused, augmented or amplified the user's native powers. Sauron had to pour his power into his because he was wasn't interested in merely augmenting his already considerable power, but in somehow linking his Ring to the others and then somehow making them a trap that enslaved the user. That took quite a bit of power, and, thinking about it, he wasn't all that successful: true, he captured the Nazgul with the Nine, but he was unable to break the Dwarves, only heighten their interest in gold, so as to entrap them. And the Elves? Well, he never touched those rings, so establishing the link was such a tricky maneuver that in attempting it he somehow revealed himself to Celebrimbor (I used to think that this revelation was a vision sent from "outside," like Faramir/Boromir's dreams, from Illuvatar, most likely (The Valar seem unable to directly monitor Morgoth or Sauron's moves, I doubt they sent these visions.) Now it occurs that possibly it was a glitch in Sauron's Ring-fishing quest. After the war where Sauron destroyed Eregion but failed to capture the Three Rings (why try to do this: if they were meant as a snare, why "recall" them before they'd done their work? Maybe because he'd failed to totally establish a link, they were capable of some independent action: it was some 1400 more years before Sauron lost his Ring. The Three were out there, supposedly hidden (but nevertheless, we are told that they were in the keeping of Gil-Galad, Cirdan and Galadriel,whatever that meant: they weren't using them, so Sauron couldn't get his claws on them: makes sense, he didn't know where the One was when it wasn't being used...So the link between the One and the Three was strong enough to ensnare those who actively used the Rings, not merely kept them idle and hidden in some fashion, and to drain them of their power if the One was drained itself.