The White Council

Re: Sauron - his ring-lore and prescience.

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

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: : Yet they were in fact deceived by Sauron. True, Sauron : : apparently underestimated his ability to conceal his motives : : after forging the One, but he was able to do so quite well : : before then.

: The deception is not said to have included hiding any special abilities of the Rings. Tolkien never attributes to the Rings while they are in the Elves' possession which are "Sauronic" AND "evil" (in the view of the Elves). The powers of invisibility and over the Unseen are Sauronic, but not "evil".

The whole enterprise was evil:

"Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping on another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make a separate and independent paradise. Gilgalad replulsed all such overtures, as did Elrond. But ar Eregion great work began - and the Elves came their nearest to falling to 'magic' and machinery. With the aid of Sauron's lore they made _Rings of Power_ ('power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods)." (Letter 131)

The actions of the Elves themselves is about as close to evil as you can get. Add to that Sauron's "secret purpose" and we are talking about basically evil things.

Look at Letter 144. Referring to the Three, Tolkien writes, "Though unsullied, because they were not made by Sauron nor touched by him, they were nonetheless partly products of his instruction, and ultimetely under control of the One.

The first clause is instructive. The Three were not sullied because they were forged without *direct* aid of Sauron. That means the generic Rings of Power were sulled simply by Sauron's being involved in their forging. Whatever "perversion" may have occurred later after the War of the Elves and Sauron, they were already sullied.

: : : Unless I'm misunderstanding you completely, I just don't see : : : the benefit in arguing that the Seven and Nine were Trojan : : : horses (as opposed to the Three). ALL of the Elven Rings, : : : including the Three, would have enslaved the Elves once : : : Sauron was wearing the One Ring. They were at least : : : vulnerable to Sauron's control by their very nature. I : : : can't see any basis for saying there was a deeper aspect : : : than that, or that the Seven and Nine were more prone to : : : Sauron's control than the Three.

: : Whether or not the Three were as or less vulnerable to the One : : is besides the point. The point is they were all vulnerable. : : This shows that the trojan horse theory is quite valuable : : because their vulnerablity is not tied to the "perversion" : : that occured later to the regular Rings. The Three were : : vulnerable without perversion. That tells me that Saurn was : : able to incorporate a trojan horse factor into these rings - : : directly in the case of the regular rings and by proxy with : : respect to the Three.

: This is an unrelated point. The issue (as best I can understand it) is whether Sauron was able to pervert the Rings before he took possession of them. Tolkien says he perverted them AFTER he took possession.

We may be debating semantics. But they were "sullied" before he took possession. More than that, the Three themselves were subject to the One merely because the Mirdain relied on Sauron's lore. If the Three could be so vulnerable imagine what Sauron did with the other Rings.

: : : : Though the basis of their creation was Sauron's, to my way : : : : of thinking, their "blue-print" was of Sauron's devising. : : : : The Elves believed they were creating them for their own : : : : purposes but that was far from the truth.

: : : I agree with this. But Sauron was manipulating the Elves. : : : There is no indication that the Rings were being given : : : inherent abilities the Elves didn't know about. What would : : : have been the point? Sauron had no part in making the : : : Three, but they were just as subject to the One as the : : : others.

: : Ha! As I argued above, that is evidence to me that Sauron was : : manipulating from the beginning. The Three were vulnerable : : because the Elves were utilizing the faulty code learned from : : Sauron during the forging of the regular Rings. I'm no : : programmer, but I thought of it like a virus. Say you : : collaborate with another on a program. Then later you write : : another program using some of the same code as the first. If : : there are faults or virus' in the first code they will be : : present in the second program even though you worked on it : : alone.

: Tolkien was no programmer, and he didn't think of it like a virus (and, besides, what you're describing is a mole, not a virus -- a virus reproduces itself but a mole is a program hidden within another program).

: The programming analogy has never been good because that is a technology well beyond Tolkien's experience. He wasn't describing a computer application.

That's why it's an analogy ;-)

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Russ