What would the ring tempt you with?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I guess the main problem with the Ring is really that it will eventually turn everybody's best intentions (if they have them and don't simply want just the power and wealth in the first place) to bad ends. Or not even ends, but also means already. And thinking that you would be able to use it and NOT become a Dark Lord is the Ring's trick in itself. It is just impossible, like Eönwë has very well put it, and Lommy as well.

To me this has always smelled like the lord Acton (1834–1902) speaking... "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". And looking at Tolkien's worldview and his time lord Acton would have been a person he knew about and agreed with. So the Ring is the emblem of power, the possibility of gaining power which then corrupts you - and with the Ring, "quite absolutely"...

Thence the heavy-hearted notes by Tolkien with Gandalf saying he'd love to do good but fears the power that might corrupt him whilst claiming the power to actually deliver the good?

Just a wild suggestion: maybe Tolkien saw what tickled the intellectuals in Germany during the twenties and thirties and how "right" they were in calling for conservative and nationalistic values (which Tolkien shared) in comparison to the technologically driven capitalism of the US & GB at one hand and collectivism of the Soviet Union (which both Tolkien as well disliked) on the other hand? But still, in the midst of that he was able to see that a kind of aristocratic system or revolution that could fight agaisnt those two great wheels of history would betray their children in the end anyway even if it was just trying to defend the "good things" against the "evil"? So, to become a Gandalf or Galadriel one should resist the temptation to try and mold the world towards the good with power?

Heh, I'm probably babbling right now... Let's see if I can make sense of what I'm trying to say tomorrow.