One Ring to Rule Them All

So as you no doubt noticed, after much deliberation, I changed the title of my blog. It's more in keeping with the material I like to cover. Future updates may be pending.

In light of this update let's return to Tolkien.

For those of you new to his work, he has a trilogy about a ring. Also Gandalf is a wizard, Elrond and Galdriel are elves, Boromir, Faramir and Aragorn are men of the line of Numenor, and Frodo is a Hobbit.

So the most crucial question the book presents is this: why does no-one listed above take the ring?

Boromir is the easiest place to start. He only needed the chance and he would have taken it.

What would he have done with it? He would have defeated Sauron. That much is certain.

And then what? Destroying the ring destroys Sauron, but destroying Sauron doesn't destroy the ring. From this fact we deduce that the ring is greater than Sauron.

How? Sauron made it. He gave it its power right? Well, no, not really. He had to learn the craft of ring making, and each of the great rings bestow power on a person that is not their own. All the other rings were forged by someone other than their bearers and given as gifts. These gifts then gave great power to the bearers. Galadriel, for example, preserves the immortality and mystery of Lothlorien, as Elrond does Rivendell.

So the One Ring is a perversion in that it was not made as a gift. It was designed for its maker, to make its maker all powerful.

Here arises a great Tolkienesque theme: power ruins stuff. If you want the power, the power has power over you. If you give into the desire for power, the power rules you.

Sauron has no control; the ring is in control of him. it is his master. Frodo doesn't want the power and what does Gollum (river person, possessed by ring, not too important here) call Frodo? The master of the precious.

This fact is part of Tolkein's motif of weak heroes. Hobbits don't want power. Men do. Dwarves want wealth but lust for power and avarice invariably tie themselves together; the dwarves are no exception. Elves and Wizards are a plane above such base desires, unless you're name is Sauruman, in which case you get to show everyone that wisdom doesn't immunize you to temptation.

So do Gandalf, Aragorn, Faramir and Galadriel want the ring? Yes, all of them want it, but they recognize the power that the ring of power has over them, and it terrifies them. They do their best to avoid thinking how quickly they could end the evil in the East because they know it is just a whisper from the ring justifying them in taking control. They recognize what Boromir doesn't until it's almost too late. The evil in the book is not Sauron. The ring would far rather have a powerful wizard or elf-queen or Numenorian King as its plaything instead of a broken disembodied sorcerer. Sauron isn't the lord of the rings. Recall the line: "One ring to rule them all." The trilogy's title is about the ruling ring, not Sauron.

So it is foolish to risk losing the ring by sending it into Mordor, when the council has within it wise and powerful leaders capable of wielding the ring and restoring peace to the world. But the council in The Fellowship has no such leaders there. They have three types of people: those who know they cannot wield the ring, those who do not want the ring and know they must wield it, and those who think they can wield the ring. The decision they make hinges on this fact: it would be better for the ring to go to Sauron than it would be for Gandalf or Elrond to take it.

Last thought, what if the ring was given as a gift? It's offered to Galadriel, much as the ring she bears was given. She knows that if she doesn't take it, either the ring will be destroyed and her ring will lose its lord and its power and her kingdom will fade, or else the ring will empower a master opposed to her and she will be destroyed. She knows that of all living beings she above all others, even Elrond or Saruman or Gandalf after his return, has the best claim on the ring and the best chance of resisting its power.

But she doesn't take it.

If you made it to the end I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I'm going to go start reading the Return of the King, and I'm sure something new will come up for tomorrow. Farewell, until our next meeting!