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Originally Posted by Galadriel55
I think that you also need to add 3. That Sauron made the Ring and it will bend all to his will.
No I didn't forget that. If one auomatically assumes that anyone who posesses the ring will automatically go off and try to give it back to Sauron, then this whole discussion is sort of moot. We are told throughout the book that there are individuals who are powerful enough (i.e. Galadriel, probably Gandalf etc.) to be able to beat/destroy Sauron with the ring, it's just that the ring is so filled with Sauron's malevolence that anyone who did so would immediately place himself in Sauron's place and become a being as evil or more so. All I was doing was putting the Balrog on the same level. He is a Maiar, presumably (Gothmog certainly was) and was a near match to Gandalf, on a raw power level, so this seems reasonable to me.
I think the Watcher was not tempted to posess the Ring for himself. He just felt something. Gandalf does make a note that he was going particularly for Frodo, which could easily point to the Ring. I think that his intentions were not to rule over lake and sea, but to grab at this unknown, potentially dangerous power. Though it's hard to tell.
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The real question i was asking (which may or may not be germane to the thread) is whether the Watcher in the water was a sentient, conscious creature, or just basically a mindless beast running on instinct. Yes the watcher seemed to be targeting Frodo, but there is the fact that Frodo is amount the (pysically) frailer members of the fellowship; it could simply be the predator l standard "go for the weakest one in the herd". I tend to assume that one of the few prerequisites of the rings being able to twist minds and wills is that the creature holding the ring has to have a mind to being with. If it didn't one would expect that, in the time that the ring was under the river it would have been "claimed" (eaten) by a fish, ot taken by a river crab into it's den etc.