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Why then if Sauron was greater than the ring did he not come and take it? Why then did he need it at all? No, the ring held the very essence of the dark lord. Agreeably he was powerful without it, but not that powerful. The ring was greater than him.
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We seem to be dueling across the course of several different threads. Makes the boards more interesting, I suppose.
He did not come and take it because he did not know exactly where it was. Which is sort of odd because he was searching for it so carefully with his spirit, and drawing off of it, but there seemed to be something about somebody else having to wear the Ring in order for him to be able to really pin it down. Frodo's experience on Amon Hen is a good example of this.
He needed the Ring because he put so much of his power into it. I did not mean to say (or sound like I said) that Sauron was not considerably weakened in native strength when he created the Ring, or not greatly weakened without it. Obviously he was. What I intended to get across was that Sauron's power was greater than the Ring in the sense that he was not subservient to the power of the Ring. The Ring could not be used to control him, that was not what it was designed for. It was designed to control the other Rings. Assuming that Gandalf did gain mastery over the Ring (and apparently he is the only one who could) this did not give him power over Sauron. Sauron would still be Sauron, still in possession of the power that was still his own, which perhaps meant that he would still have his armies of orcs, and probably meant all of the peoples of Men who were enthralled to him.
Letter #246 discusses this issue if you want to check the sub-creator.
[ January 04, 2003: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]