View Single Post
Old 01-26-2003, 04:53 AM   #9
doug*platypus
Delver in the Deep
 
doug*platypus's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Aotearoa
Posts: 960
doug*platypus has just left Hobbiton.
Ring

As Dragonbreath alludes to in his excellent post (PM me if the name bugs you and I'll edit it), Letter 131 is an absolute goldmine of information. The Rings of Power are discussed at length, and Tolkien tells us that they were all designed to preserve and to halt decay. Previously I thought this was a property only of the three. Also, we are told explicitly that the three do not confer invisibility, and that this power of invisibility was a device of Sauron. Certainly it does seem to be an evil type of magic, although obviously of great benefit to goodies such as Bilbo and Isildur.
Quote:
They would make a human or hobbit invisible
Not correct, O Angry One. The answer, however, is only found (to my knowledge) in Letter 131. The more puzzling question is what would happen to an elf who wore one of the rings that did confer invisibility. I can see no reason why they would not become invisible to those on the physical plane. As has been pointed out, elves (or at least Calaquendi) are visible at all times on the spiritual plane. So the invisibility conferred by a Ring of Power would have a different effect on the spiritual aspect of the elf (the fëa if you like, although I don't know if this is the right context for the word).

It's an interesting whatif, this ring crossover. It is likely that the rings were crafted with the intended race in mind, and that they were each specially tailored to them. The dwarf rings were believed to attract gold. Possibly the effects would not work if the ring were wielded by another race. Although of course, the One Ring itself is proof against this. It can be used (with varying degrees of success) by maia (Sauron/Saruman/Gandalf), elf (Galadriel), man (Isildur), hobbit (Frodo/Bilbo/Sam) or hobbitlike creature (Gollum), and so possibly the same could be said for all the Rings of Power. It is likely that the success of the user would be in large part determined by their race, as with the One Ring its most powerful users would most likely have been the Maiar.

Reading Letter 131 and this thread gives me a new appreciation for the Rings of Power. They all (bar the Three) give the wearer the ability to look into the spiritual realm. I imagine this ability was often taken advantage of by their owners for various reasons. The men who were sorcerors, such as Witchy, would doubtless have used this power often, and been easier to ensnare. Perhaps the dwarflords were not so keen on what they saw as this namby-pamby aspect of their ring, and did not wear them so often. I imagine that being invisible to your subjects would more often than not be very inconvenient. It is possible that this was one factor in their resilience to the domination of Sauron. The elven ringbearers did not wear their rings when Sauron wore the One, and so were safe from his domination.

Gandalf and Saruman, in their forms as Istari, were I believe incarnate, and did not have the same power that Sauron would have had over his invisibility. In their original forms, this would have been a different story, but I think that if Gandalf or Saruman in Middle-Earth had put on a Ring of Power (excepting the Three) they would have become invisible. Which shows that Saruman's ring was not a very good copy, or that Sauron himself had to imbue the power of invisibility, or that it was not recorded how it was done.
__________________
But Gwindor answered: 'The doom lies in yourself, not in your name'.
doug*platypus is offline   Reply With Quote