[lindil]

<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Shade of Carn Dûm
Posts: 269</TD><TD></TD></TR></TABLE>
Chaotic Evil

&quot;Another thing would be that the One Ring is called the ruling ring, maybe it didn't just give him dominion over the other rings. It
could have helped him to control the other creatures that were
servents of Morgoth.&quot;


I speculate that the One Ring was designed w/ the express purpose of controlling the leaders of various communities[ and through them possibly the communities themselves].
Some of these were for him [Black Numenoreans, some evil houses of Dwarves?] and some against him [Elves and Durin's house -,were some of the 9 ,originally good Numenoreans whom he usedd the ring to corrupt] and that sauron himself seems not to have known just how the rings woud work.

Did he forsee that Celebrimbor would see him finishing and begining to use the One Ring?
Did he know that the Elves simply would not use them if they guessed something was amiss?
Did he know that the ( would become wraiths instead of maintaing a bodily state {like the Mouth}
Did he know they would have little effect on the Dwarves?

I think not in most if not all the above . They were an ambitious experiment w/somewhat poor results.

So I don't think it necessarily gave him any greater power of the other evil beings.
Re: Gandalf's concern re: Smaug- sauron or the ring wraiths would have to go in person and promise Smaug something of great value to him I suspect to entice any useful 'work ' out of him. Even the Early dragons [Glaurung I think] went somwhat against Bauglir's will [ or were sneaky enough to not ask!] by going out before he was prepared.

So with the greater evil creatures we are never shown that Sarun can automatically command them. Or that the ring would give Sauron power over them. Gandalf saying that if Sauron regained the ring , all things would come under his sway , meant I believe, that he [G.] knew that the Dunedain/elves and other good guys [if you will] were not in any position to defeat him militarily. Saying that Sauron, if the ring was not destroyed , would eventually take over middle-earth, was a generalized statement.
He seems capable of ignoring Smaugs and Balrog's and such as long as they are a threat to his enemies.

I wonder about the Balrog. Arn't there indications ,that the Orcs that attacked the party in Mazarbul were Mordior Uruks.
Were these ambassador's to the balrog from Sauron? free agents? Spies from Sauron to keep tabs on the Balrog?
Was the balrog hiding out waiting for Sauron to be defeated so as to become the next evil Maiaat large ?
I tend to favor the latter and guess that is why Gandalf had to destroy him or there would be another evil Maia just waiting t rally the Orcs and such [w/ a pretty the largest fortress at his command in ME]




Lindil is often found on posting on the New Silmarillion Canon Forum at the Barrowdowns discussion board. 'The dwindling Men of the West would often sit up late into the night, and awaken early before dawn- exchanging lore and wisdom such as they possessed , so that they should not fall back into the mean and low estate of those , who never knew or more sadly still, had indeed rebelled against the Light.' </p>