0

So, question should say everything, but I'll detail what answer I'm looking for. Including the "Rings of Power" that were forged by the elves under Sauron's guidance:

  • 3 Rings for the Elves
  • 7 Rings for the Dwarves
  • 9 Rings for the humans

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die..."

Sauron secretly forged the One Ring for himself to control the other rings, making their total number 20, 19 of which were linked to the one ring which could control the other rings and manipulate their bearers according to the will of Sauron if used:

"...One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

There were other "Less Rings Of Power" made as practice by the forgers for said Rings Of Power, however, they don't play into my question.

The plan was to distribute the rings as described above and afterwards use the One Ring to gain complete control of middle earth without having to fight any of the nations because their leaders would have been under direct control of Sauron.

Apparently, not everything went as intended as:

  • The Elves noticed the betrayal the "Lord Of Gifts" was planning on and put the rings off their fingers and hid them in secrecy, making the race of the elves invulnerable for the original plan. Also, I've been reading that the elven rings were never touched by Sauron so I'd wonder if he really could have any influence on the elven Rings Of Power?

  • The Dwarves, due to a) their natural hardness and b) due to the fact that from the hard dwarves, only the Lords (The hardest of the hard, so to say.) got to wear the dwarven Rings Of Power. However, Sauron noticed, that the rings wouldn't take as much effect on the dwarves as they should as they didn't even turn them invisible. Later on, a few of them were destroyed by dragons and Sauron took the remaining few back.

  • The Humans, whilst obviously successful in transforming them into evil creatures of immense power, were no kings anymore, meaning he couldn't actually use them to rule over the humans and keep the population thinking their rightful kings were doing all these things.

This brings me to the following conclusion: All those rings we're lost the one, or taken out of effect the other way around. That's why my question is:

WHY would Sauron want the One Ring back if everything he could do with it was controlling the other Rings Of Power whilst all of those rings were lost / destroyed / hidden by their original bearers? I assume that the current Kings / Throne-keepers of the humans would not have been stupid enough to accept a fresh wave of Rings Of Power linked to the One Ring.

The only reason I could think of now was to rebuild a body which, could have taken him another years and thinking about it, I see no other reason for it, as apparently he could perfectly be everywhere and control most creatures in middle earth just with the power of his ghost. But this is not a discussion board.

I'm looking for a canon reference what exactly would have happened if he got the One Ring back.

Mithical
  • 38,898
  • 17
  • 178
  • 229
Devaron
  • 440
  • 3
  • 9
  • Related: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/19839/51379 – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:17
  • 2
    Sauron poured a lot of his own power into the One Ring, So without it he's only got a fraction of his power. He also has a body without the ring, this is supported in the LotR texts and in associating him with the Necromancer in the Hobbit. – Edlothiad Aug 18 '16 at 11:18
  • But this would not make much sense to me. Why would he want the ring back if it would not make a difference to his main power and just increase it? He could just have forged a new one in time, then. Plus, the ring is only loyal to him, I don't know if the ring could have switched his allegiane: "There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will. And he does not share power." - Gandalf | So if it was real the way @Adament said, why didn't he just build a giant fortress around mount doom and stopped to care about the ring at all? – Devaron Aug 18 '16 at 11:24
  • 1
    He didn't need the Ring because he was weakened without it. He needed the Ring because his enemies would be made stronger with it. Though, reading the quote, it does look like the Ring enhanced his power relative to his original baseline, while he wore it. He simply was not diminished from his native power without the Ring. – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:25
  • 1
    How would they be made stronger with it? I mean, what could they really do with it? Obivously no one knew how to use the ring, besides Sauron, nor would it make much sense because wearing the ring to turn invisible would just expose you to Sauron and his fellows and thus.. Yea. No one can really do anything with it, besides Sauron. – Devaron Aug 18 '16 at 11:28
  • Not so. The Ring would have provided a substantial increase to the native spiritual power of any individual. Note how Sam cowed an orc while wearing the Ring. If Aragorn, for example, wore it, he could terrify huge armies into obedience. Had Gandalf taken it, he might even have won its allegiance in a confrontation with Sauron, and become very terrible. – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:30
  • Ah, this makes sense tho. Is there a reference for this increase of spiritual power or is this just general agreed assumption? (Sorry, don't want to sound mean, but I really want to know it en detail.) – Devaron Aug 18 '16 at 11:31
  • The answers to the question that I linked in my first comment explain most of this. – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:31
  • @Adamant he was weakened without it. –  Aug 18 '16 at 11:42
  • @ATB - Relative to how powerful he would be with the ring, certainly. Relative to his pre-Ring state, no. Tolkien's quote in the answer I linked to would seem to indicate that, anyway. – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:43
  • @Adamant the act of making the ring actually diminished him. In a similar way to Melkor corrupting Arda and eventually being stuck in one form –  Aug 18 '16 at 11:45
  • @ATB - Tolkien's quote seems to be rather explicit about that not being the case: " But even if he did not wear it, that power existed and was in ‘rapport’ with himself: he was not ‘diminished’." – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:46
  • @Adamant Tolkien is inconsistent here. For thousands of years Sauron was greatly weakened. His physical death after the Battle with Gil-Galad and Elendil took a lot longer to recover from than his physical death on the drowning of numenor. The biggest difference being at one point he had the ring and another he didn't. –  Aug 18 '16 at 11:54
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Adamant Aug 18 '16 at 11:54
  • 1
    The verses talk about the power the One Ring has over all others, but I don't see a closing verse of "....AND NOTHING ELSE." I don't think it's a given that this is all the One Ring does. Clearly, it can make Hobbits invisible, and that's not in the verse. – PoloHoleSet Aug 18 '16 at 16:02

0 Answers0