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Old 07-17-2004, 11:00 AM   #48
davem
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
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davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
I do wonder about the significance of finger rings, as opposed to arm rings. There is, perhaps, some 'marriage' symbolism - making the two 'one flesh', binding them forever. In the British Coronation service the Monarch is given a ring, symbolic of his/her 'marriage' to the people. Perhaps there's something of the same going on with the Rings of power. Could we think in terms of Galadriel being 'wedded' to her realm & people, Elrond in a similar position - & Gandalf? (yet Gandalf, as he tells Denethor, is a 'steward').

If the wedding ring symbolises the union of two people into one flesh, do the Rings Sauron gives symbolise the same thing, bind his servants to him in the same way? But then, what is the significance of his making & bestowing the One on himself? Marriage to himself, producing a sort of incestuous, sterile union with himself - self love pushed to the ultimate extreme? All the other rings are given out, bestowed on others, even the elven rings - Celebrimbor gives them to Gil galad, Galadriel & Cirdan, but Sauron makes the one for himself & keeps it, in a sense binding himself to himself, closing himself off from external contact. Perhaps this is why the One obsesses any who take it up, & turns them in on themselves. So, Gandalf warns Frodo never to put it on.

Wild thought - the Ring turns its wearer invisible - symbolising their own self obsession, their (final) inability to be aware of anyone but themself.
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