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#28 | ||||
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,500
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Rather than offer my own opinion, I'd again like to draw on Tolkien's text to deduce answers to those questions of yours, alatar.
Let me start with your "making of the Seven" - as I said, I see no evidence that the Seven or Nine were made with a specific number, race, or purpose in mind, nor even that they were separate. It would seem to me that Sauron divided them arbitrarily; they may have been the sixteen most powerful - we don't know what other rings there were, but since they play no role in the further story, we can neglect them. As to the purpose for making the rings, it is not specifically mentioned, but from the context, this is what I assume. Here are Sauron/Annatar's words which precede the making of the rings: Quote:
Quote:
Whether Annatar slipped a chink into all of the rings in order to get his "virus" in there later cannot be told from the text, though it might be possible. That would not entirely account for his influence on the Three, which he did not make but which were forged with the knowledge he had imparted to the Elven smiths. However, it is quite clear that the rings themselves would not have had that effect on their bearers without his influence. It starts with the fact we already know: Quote:
Quote:
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
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