Rings of Power talk!

[Radtech51]

Originally Posted by jallanite

It is also just as “likely″ that the Elven Rings were rendered invisible by magic outside of their own power.

This is one of the many points unexplained in The Lord of the Rings. Were the dwarf rings also invisible to those looking at their wearers? Unknown.

In the Milton Waldman letter Tolkien states:

And finally, they [the 16 Rings of Power created by the Elven-smiths of Erebor with Sauron’s help] had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron (‘the Necromancer’: so he is called as he casts a fleeting shadow shadow and presage on the pages of The Hobbit): such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible.

But of the three rings created by the Elves without Sauron’s aid, Tolkien writes: “… they did not confer invisibility″. How this fits with these three Rings being worn by the wearers invisibly is not said.

Perhaps this is another case where material written by Tolkien but not published within The Lord of the Rings should be disregarded. Or perhaps not.

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But Tolkien also has Gandalf say in the chapter “The Shadow of the Past”:

A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handling it on to someone else’s care—and that only in an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really gone and done it.

But Cirdan, the keeper of one of the Rings of Power, had also handed on his Ring of Power, to Gandalf himself. The best one can do to avoid seeing here a tremendous hole in The Lord of the Rings is to claim that Gandalf was uncharacteristically speaking loosely here and not thinking of the Elven-rings or perhaps even deliberately lying.

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If Sauron happened to be wearing a visible Ring, or even more than one visible ring, there is no particular reason by Ar-Pharazôn would have considered anything untoward about that. But yes, Sauron might indeed have been wearing the Ring invisibly, but also might not have. The theory you present is quite reasonable, but only as one possible fan fiction that would serve.

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You bring up an excellent point, If the rings of power could be commanded to only only be seen by the wielder or other wielders of rings of power then Ar-Pharazon would not have been able to see Sauron's ring.

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