The White Council

Re: Sauron - his ring-lore and prescience.

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

I`m back again, and I`m sorry I`ve missed so much

: : : : There was never any question of giving the Rings to Men and : : : : Dwarves. Sauron's sole motive (according to Tolkien) in : : : : working with the Ring-smiths was to enslave the Elves. : : : : Giving out the stolen (and perverted) Rings to Men and : : : : Dwarves proved to be a plan B, apparently devised after : : : : Sauron's defeat in the War of the Elves and Sauron.

: : : Sauron always seems to have had plans B, C and possibly D for : : : any of his enterprises. Perhaps his subtlety and prescience : : : incorporated long range plans for the other races into the : : : genesis of the Rings? At the time of the making of the Rings : : : the Dwarves were still strong and humans were gaining in : : : strength and numbers, he would have been foolish to ignore : : : these folk in his plans. Sauron was characterised by caution : : : in most of his enterprises, it may be an error to underestimate : : : his abilities for forward planning to insist that his : : : application of the Rings to Men and Dwarves was a scrabbled : : : afterthought.

: : This is pure speculation. What am I to say that I don't normally say about pure speculation? :)

Itmay not be entirely speculative. Whether or not Sauron had the effects of such rings on various non-elvish peoples in mind when he aided the elves in creating the rings, and had a further motive than simply setting a bond upon the elves, there *is* one people whom we know he must have completely ignored and that is the hobbits (Gandalf tells us that he completely overlooked their existance) and it turns out that they are more resistant to the power of the rings than any other: Gollum`s resistance to fading after so many centuries was considered remarkable. They were also resistant to other weapons of the enemy (Frodo bore the Morgul wound for an astonishing seventeen days before it began to overcome him) but the effect of that wound was curiously similar to that of a ring of power, and in any case adds to the argument that Sauron overlooked the existance of hobbits in all his designs, leaving them less susceptible to some of his weapons. The fact that hobbits were so resistant to the effect of the elvish rings, as wells as to the enchantmemts of the enemy suggests to me that he did consider the effect they may have had on other races, either in their making or their perversion, but overlooked the hobbits.

The only other possibility is that the hobbits had some quality within them that would make them less susceptible than men. I suppose this might be true: after all, they are more easily contented and more naturally monogamous than men are - although perhaps the Dunedain and those within their own and the elvish cultural orbit were much the same? Of course, dwarves were resistant too, more than Sauron imagined, and didn`t even fade. But the way it aroused their lust for gold suggests that the rings (at least in their corrupted state) just set to work at once on all the passions of their wearers that could lead them astray, homed in on all their weak spots.

Onr thing that puzzles me, probably because I`ve not read through the material as thouroughly as I should have, is where Celebrimor and the Gwaith-i-mirdain obtained the power to create their rings. Sauron for his own master-ring put his own native power into it (and perhaps that in the elvish rings he bound in subjection to it). Feanor may have done something similar in the making of the silmarils, at least they took a lot out of him, but I`m sure Celebrimor and company didn`t do that. Were they simply harnessing a power found naturally in creation, or among elves generally? But I don`t think all elves were weakened when they failed - only those that had relied on them.

Perhaps the most interesting power the one ring conferred, and perhaps the others, is the one they didn`t actually confer, but the wearers obtained through wrestling with them. Frodo`s perceptions and inner strength were enhanced enormously through resisting the pull of the ring, enough to make him what Tolkien called a "considerable person," perhaps as our own can be by resisting passions that tempt us, or at least redirecting them. (It`s a while since I read any, but in fact the whole idea reminds me strongly of some patristic or ascetic comments on the consequences of struggles with demons). Were these qualities and powers within Frodo`s potential anyway, or was he actually taking something from it, but doing it the hard way, the only way it couldn`t corrupt him: by resisting the ring rather than by using it?