[Kuruharan]

It is a question of 'will'. Aragorn's will was stronger than Saruman's

This makes my case stronger.

Aragorn not only did not fall to him he actually proved that his will was stronger than Sauron's. Will is the essential element in controlling the Ring. Wresting control of the Palantir (or anything else) from Sauron was something no-one else in Middle-earth could have done.

Far be it from me to quote letter 246 again, but…

In the contest with the Palantir Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present.
-Letter 246 emphasis mine

Aragorn was able to use the Stone because it belonged to him and answered more readily to his claims of possession. A fact that seems to have somehow escaped most of you is that the Ring belonged to Sauron and wanted to return to him. As we saw throughout the story, it was willing to try anything on anybody to get back to its Master. It wanted other people to think they could master it because it would get back to Sauron all the quicker. In any contest of strength over the Ring between Aragorn and Sauron, the deck would have been impossibly stacked in Sauron’s favor.

Aragorn may not have claimed he could master the Ring, but Gandalf, in the Last Debate, clearly states that he could.

After reading Lalwendë’s post, I think I understand part of the problem here…

To me the word 'master' is at the centre of this. I do not think anyone apart from Sauron could have 'mastered' the Ring in the fullest sense of the word. Only Sauron could use the Ring truly wilfully. Others may have been able to make at least intelligent use of the Ring - intelligent as being opposed to merely using it to 'hide'.

Anybody could attempt to use the Ring. Aragorn could certainly try. Tolkien didn’t say that one couldn’t use the Ring, the question is could they do so without ensuring Sauron’s ultimate triumph. Going back to the passage in question…

For if we have found this thing, there are some among us with strength enough to wield it
-The Last Debate

Gandalf did not say they could master the Ring. Wielding and mastering are not the same thing. If you wield the Ring without mastering it you will lose. Aragorn could wield it, but he could not truly master it and if he tried he was destined to fail.

And I can hear you even now typing away something to the effect of, “Well, why was Sauron so afraid?”

He had lost the War of the Last Alliance even with the Ring. His assault on Gondor had failed. There was cause for concern. As we saw with his earlier belief that the Ring had been destroyed, he doesn’t seem to know all the things that might happen in different circumstances with the Ring. He probably couldn’t be sure what would happen if somebody made a serious attempt to claim the Ring. We can’t say what the exact effect of this would have been.

Tolkien’s letter was written from the perspective of authorial omniscience. Simply put, Tolkien had knowledge his characters did not.

I think that if another commentator had made that statement about only Gandalf being able to master the Ring you would have laughed them out of court, using the same arguments & quotes that the rest of us have been using, because it doesn't fit the facts.

But this is not another commentator, this is the author of the works themselves. I am not going to assume that I know or understand his works better than he did.

They all mentioned that should they wield the Ring, they themselves would then become like the Dark Lord Sauron.

This is only what the characters themselves thought. Boromir and Sam also thought the exact same thing at one point or another, yet I don’t hear anybody clamoring for their induction into the Hall of Potential Successful Challengers to Sauron. If the Ring was capable of deluding Boromir and Sam, why can’t it be capable of similarly deluding Elrond, Gandalf, and Galadriel? I think the temptation for them would be even more extreme (hence their distress).