Quote:
Originally Posted by Puddleglum
One might wonder whay, if Sauron gets the One back, they can't just take their rings off again. I suspect (extrapolating from Elrond's sentiment) that it's not that simple. It's just a guess, but perhaps now that they've invested so much of themselves in and through their rings, that taking off their rings would no longer be enough to sheild them from Sauron's control. That Sauron would (in some fashion) get inside their heads and exert the control over them he had always desired.
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"If he recovers it, then he will command them all again, wherever they be, even the Three, and all that has been wrought with them will be laid bare, and he will be stronger than ever." (
LR p.50)
So says Gandalf in "The Shadow of the Past". It seems to me that the danger wasn't so much a matter of Sauron being able to control their bearers if he recovered the One as it was that he could understand and overpower their works. It's mentioned in the Tale of Years that "Three times Lórien had been assailed from Dol Guldur, but besides the valour of the elven people of that land, the power that dwelt there was too great for any to overcome, unless Sauron had come there himself." (
LR p.1069) I get the impression that was the greatest danger of the Three being compromised. A key element in recovering the One would seemingly have been the rapid mastery of the defences of Imladris and Lórien and an easier victory in the North. On one side I do somewhat feel that Sauron, consumed by hate as he was at the end of the Third Age, would have been more interested in destroying the Elves and their homes than controlling them. That being said, we can imagine that the bearers of the Three would have also been easier targets when otherwise they might have been formidable opponents had Sauron regained the One and been able to oppose their wills so directly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elbenprincess
OK, in the end, the rings lost it“s power and the things made by them vanished, that would hurt very much, I guess, but still I think without the rings the outcome of the war could have been quite disastrous.
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I agree. I think the Three were a blessing as well as a curse. Consider Gandalf's statement in
The Quest of Erebor about Sauron's return to Mordor after forsaking Dol Guldur:
"Then everything grew dark. And yet that was not his original plan; and it was in the end a mistake. Resistance still had somewhere where it could take counsel free from the Shadow. How could the Ringbearer have escaped, if there had been no Lórien or Rivendell? And those places might have fallen, I think, if Sauron had thrown all his power against them first, and not spent more than half of it in the assault on Gondor." (
Unfinished Tales p.427)
Obviously in this case he's referring to the whole Smaug situation and Sauron's military strategy but it seems to be that the presence of the Three is important: without these Rings maintaining safe havens the Dark Lord may have recovered the One much more easily. So while their creation was perhaps fundamentally unwise they did have certain benefits which in the end contributed to Sauron's undoing when they would have otherwise aided his cause.