[Nogrod]

I do agree with you Boromir with the point that the Ring wanted different things with different creatures it fell upon. But it's aim stood the same all the way even if it had to apply different tactics with different chances it was given.

I'm not sure if I'm corrupted by PJ's films but I do tend to think the One Ring is a power of it's own as well - even if in the end swaying to the ways of its master Sauron - and ready to use whatever way it has to attract creatures to be found. And there is also the kind of fatalistic world-view of Gandalf and others (Tolkien!) which leads us to think that everything that happens happens for a purpose eg. every encounter with the ring is somehow predetermined.

So the Ring might take on the creed or vanity of Gollum in the beginning - or of Bilbo as well. But what it transformed Gollum during the decades into is another matter and why it didn't manage to wield Bilbo under it's command...?

With Isildur and Boromir the temptation is somewhat different from Gandalf, Galadriel or Elrond as they know more and decide not to lay their finger on it. After a struggle against yeilding to the will of the Ring (or Sauron) - or to the temptation of the power of the good - the latter refuse and the former try to conquer.

To Gollum it gave security and during the centuries identity as one who is not seen and who does not want to be seen. To Boromir it offered a way to defeat the enemy under the pressure of his father. To Gandalf or Galadriel it represented the frightful power which might win but also consume the one who used it and thus turn evil with the power of the power.

Also the ring had different ways of catching the "mighty" than catching the "non-cognizants". To an average person it promised success, to a military leader it promised victory but to the wise it promised the final frontier. Although "wisdom" seems not to be the key here as Sam was not a "wise-hobbit" even if he was the most imortant person in the story, "Samwise" indeed and practically was the "wisest" of all (well, that's just my opinion).

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But coming to the original question...

In the end I think Tolkien was working around the themes of acceptance and power, of the difference between personal identity and the communal approval of what one has to do, of the challenge between personal liberty and responsibility in face of others, of personal might and duty vs. surrender, believing in one's own cause against all the odds and the personal survival vs. the inevitable-loking fate of death (that it must have felt in the trenches).

It's easy to see why Isildur or Boromir are so real. Looking at the trenches of the WW1 kind of makes it paranoically real.

Would you use a ring to make you invisible in a war? Would you use a ring that would quarantee a good fighting position against an overwhelming enemy? Would you use a Ring to make sure the enemy does not run through your trenches or nail all of you down with their artillery or machine-guns when you attack?

Would you use a ring if you knew - or believed - that the enemy might use your ring-gathered force against you?

Could you say no to the Ring?



Would you dream of the ring that made you invisible or all powerful?