Quote:
Originally Posted by Zigűr
Good thoughts.
I find this assertion of Hammond and Scull to be curious, however:
Isn't this incorrect? In Unfinished Tales, in "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn", it states of the first Council in the Second Age, after the War of the Elves and Sauron, that "At that time also Gil-galad gave Vilya, the Blue Ring, to Elrond". He appears to have given Vilya to Elrond when he was hale and hearty, well before they departed for Mordor - one thousand, seven hundred and thirty three years before the Battle of Dagorlad in fact, more than half the length of the entire Second Age.
In my head I generally imagined that Elrond left Vilya behind in Imladris when he accompanied Gil-galad to Mordor, and I similarly imagined that Círdan did the same with Narya. It seems like bringing any of the Three to Mordor, even (of course) unworn, would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do.
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I think there are conflicting accounts when exactly Gil-galad gave Vilya and Narya to Elrond and Círdan, respectively, but nothing suggests Elrond only received Vilya from a dying Gil-galad. But I don't recall right the exact discrepancy, but if I'm not mistaken then it is between 'Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn' and 'Of the Rings of Power'.
In fact, the assumption that Gil-galad (or Elrond, Círdan, and Galadriel - if she was with the army) would have taken any of the Three into Mordor during the war against Sauron doesn't make any sense. If they had lost the war or been captured Sauron could have gained possession of the Rings, not to mention that it is by no means certain that Sauron while wearing the One could not have detected or felt the presence of the Three this close by. Perhaps he might even have been able to read the minds of the guardians of the Three while they had them in their pockets.
After all, the One Ring also has an effect on Frodo even before he puts it on his finger for the first time (it slows his aging process just as it did with Bilbo before). Granted, the Three weren't made by Sauron, but they were still under the dominion of the One.
One assumes Gil-galad, Galadriel, Círdan, and Elrond hid the Three somewhere in their abodes and never took them out until Sauron was overthrown and the One taken from him. And even then it might have taken quite some time until Elrond and Galadriel finally gave into temptation and actually tested what they could achieve with Nenya and Vilya.