Quote:
Originally Posted by Student of War
Controlling the one ring is just a delusion. It is a one way relationship. The only way to maintain control of it is to keep it without using it. And anyone "bonded" to the ring will be able to do its will in the meantime because they cannot be severed from it even if they are completely destroyed. Those with great substance will take longer but each time the ring is used it comes a little closer to dominating its bearer. So once they become wraiths they also become Sauron. It matters little in the end who wields it and how.
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I like this answer a lot. It could be argued that the entire quest played entirely into Sauron's hands, delivering the Ring right to his doorstep, though he knew it not. It is only the use of the Ring that reveals its whereabouts and the idea that it confers power -- even so mundane a power as invisibility (which, let us not forget, also reveals the bearer in another sense) is ultimately an illusion. I've always felt that the Ring had a malicious will of its own, or was in any case, designed to always seek its true master. It makes for a wonderful epic, but a cynic might suggest that Frodo's ability to overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in his path was mightily convenient, both in terms of a ripping good yarn and the will of the Dark Lord. It seems to me that all the while the Ring (the influence of Sauron) was going exactly where it wanted to go, and all the designs of the Council and heroics of the Fellowship (the best laid plans, you might say) could all be seen as mere extensions of the Ring's (Sauron's) will to click its heels three times and recite "There's no place like home." There was no worry that the silly little hobbit would actually cast the Ring away. As far as Sauron knew, no one ever had. But for the interference of the redoubtable Smeagol -- another of those pesky, unpredictable creatures, things worked out as wonderfully as Sauron might have hoped.