One Ring
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Image:Tolkien ring.jpg The One Ring, also known as The Ruling Ring or the Great Ring of Power, is an artifact from J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth universe. The story of the Quest to destroy the Ring is told in Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, as is most of the Ring's history.
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History
The One Ring was created by the Dark Lord Sauron during the Second Age in order to gain dominion over the remaining Elves of Middle-earth. In disguise as Annatar, or "Lord of Gifts", he aided the Elven smiths of Eregion and their leader Celebrimbor, in the making of the Rings of Power. In secret, he then forged the One Ring himself in the fires of Mount Doom. Since the other Rings were extremely powerful, Sauron was obliged to place most of his native power and will into it to effect his purpose. The risk to Sauron was that if he were to lose the Ring, he would also lose a great deal of his own power.
The Ring appeared to be made of simple gold, but due to the vast power within it, it was virtually impervious to damage. It could only be destroyed by throwing it into the pit of the volcanic Mount Doom where it had originally been forged. Unlike the lesser Rings, it bore no gem, but its identity could be determined by a simple (though little-known) test: when heated, it displayed a fiery Tengwar inscription in the Black Speech of Mordor. The lines were later taken up into a rhyme of lore describing the Rings, but it was evidently part of the spell that caused the One to function since the Elves heard Sauron utter the same words, whereupon they took off their own Rings and foiled his plan. Image:Ringinscription.jpg When a person wore the Ring, he would be partly "shifted" out of the physical realm into the spiritual realm. There, if he managed to consciously subdue the Ring's will with his own, he could wield all the powers that Sauron had before he lost the ring; notably, he could control and enslave the will of others. A side effect (but usually the first effect noticed) of the Ring was that it made the wearer invisible to physical beings like living Men but highly visible to spiritual beings like the Nazgûl, dimmed the wearer's sight, and sharpened his hearing. This "shadow world" was the world the Nazgûl were forced to live in always, but it was also a world in which the Calaquendi (Elves of Light) held great power: therefore Glorfindel was able to stay the Witch-king at the Battle of Fornost and later again at the ford of Bruinen at Rivendell.
The enigmatic Tom Bombadil was unaffected by the Ring, or rather, the Ring had no effect on him. This may be explained in many ways. (See the article on Tom Bombadil, which includes some theories.)
In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the wearer of the Ring is always portrayed as moving to a shadowy realm where everything is distorted. Neither Bilbo Baggins nor Frodo Baggins ever mentioned anything about this while using the Ring, but when Sam puts on the Ring at the end of The Two Towers he does experience something similar to this. This is the only time that this is mentioned in the books and could be attributed to Sauron's power increasing. Sam never wore the Ring in Jackson's movie.
Part of the nature of the Ring is that it slowly but inevitably corrupted its wearer, regardless of any intentions to the contrary. Whether this was specifically designed into the Ring's magic or is simply an artifact of its evil origins is unknown. (Sauron might be expected to endow his One Ring with such a property, but he probably never intended anyone besides himself to wear it.) For this reason the Wise, including Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel, refuse to wield it in their own defence, but instead determine that it must be destroyed. It appears that hobbits, being more pure of heart than Men, and far less powerful than Elves are the ideal vessels to resist its seductive power. This explains why Frodo and Bilbo bore it for long periods of time with relatively little ill effect, although Gollum, who bore it for over 500 years was twisted out of recognition.
After its original forging, the Ring was cut from Sauron's hand by Isildur, who lost it in the River Gladden just before he was killed (some time just after 3434 of the Second Age). The Ring remained hidden in the river bed for almost two millennia, until it was discovered on a fishing trip by a Stoor Hobbit named Déagol. He was murdered by his cousin Sméagol, who stole the Ring, and was changed by the Ring's influence over many ages into the creature known as Gollum. The Ring, which Sauron had endowed with a will of its own, manipulated Gollum into settling in the Misty Mountains near Mirkwood, where Sauron was beginning to resurface. There he and it remained for nearly five hundred years, until the Ring tired of him and fell off his finger as he was returning from killing a goblin.
As is told in The Hobbit, Bilbo found the Ring while he was lost in the caverns of the Misty Mountains, near Gollum's lair. (When The Hobbit was written, Tolkien had not yet conceived of the Ring's sinister back-story.) After losing the Riddle Game to Bilbo, Gollum went to get his "Precious" (as he always called it) so he could kill and eat him, but flew into a rage when he found it missing. Deducing that Bilbo had it from his last riddle—"What have I got in my pocket?"—Gollum chased him through the caves, not knowing that the Hobbit had discovered the Ring's powers of invisibility and was following him to the cave's exit. Bilbo escaped Gollum and the Orcs who inhabited the Misty Mountains by remaining invisible, but left that power out of the story he told the Dwarves he was travelling with. Gandalf, who was also travelling with the Dwarves, later forced the real story out of Bilbo, and was immediately suspicious of the Ring's powers.
Gollum, meanwhile, eventually left the Misty Mountains to track down and reclaim the Ring. He wandered for decades, to be captured and interrogated by Sauron himself, to whom he revealed the existence of Bilbo and the Shire.
In 3001 of the Third Age, following Gandalf's counsel, Bilbo gave the Ring to his nephew and adopted heir Frodo. This first willing sacrifice of the Ring in its history sparks the chain of events which eventually led to its unmaking. It is one example of the frequent interplay between apparent chance and destiny, a ubiquitous theme in The Lord of the Rings.
By this time Sauron had begun to regain his power, and the Dark Tower in Mordor had been rebuilt. In order to prevent the recapture of the Ring, Frodo and eight other companions set out from Rivendell for Mordor in an attempt to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. During the quest, Frodo gradually became more and more susceptible to the Ring's power, and feared that it was going to corrupt him. When he and Sam discovered that Gollum was on their trail and "tamed" him into guiding them to Mordor, he began to feel a strange bond with the wretched, treacherous creature, seeing a possible future of himself that he felt he had to save in order to save himself. Gollum gave in to the Ring's temptation, however, and betrayed them to the spider Shelob. Believing Frodo to be dead, Sam bore the Ring himself for a short time and experienced the temptation it induced, although he never gave in to it.
Sam rescued Frodo from a band of Orcs at the Tower of Cirith Ungol and returned the Ring to him, but feared that the toll it was taking was too great. It nearly was: although Frodo and Sam, followed by Gollum, eventually arrived at Mount Doom, Frodo was overcome by its corrupting nature and claimed the Ring for himself rather than destroy it. However, he was attacked by Gollum, who bit off the finger holding the Ring before falling into the fires of Mount Doom, finally destroying the Ring and Sauron with it.
Appearance
Physically, the Ring is an unadorned and geometrically perfect circle of pure gold; this perfection and purity is part of its allure. It seems to have been able to expand and contract in order to snugly fit its wearer's finger or slip from it treacherously. In Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the Ring can be seen contracting to fit Isildur's finger. When heated in fire, the Ring would bear the following inscription in Elvish (Fëanorian) Tengwar letters in the Black Speech of Mordor:
- Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
- ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
These are two lines from the end of a verse about the Rings of Power: Template:PoemOfTheRing
Powers
The power of the One Ring was foremost the power to impose the Ring-bearer's own will upon others. Anyone who wears it and has the strength of mind to overcome the influence of Sauron could control the wielders of other Rings of Power as well as anyone else of lesser mind. A general wearing the Ring could stand alone before a rival army and convince them to fall on their own swords. He could cow his greatest enemies into taking up arms for his cause. The hearts and minds of whole nations could be turned to his adoration. The Ring-bearer could build an empire of slaves if he so wanted. In short, the Ring grants the ability of mind-control. Even though the Ring could not grant the wielder the physical power to control or destroy near-omnipotent angelic beings such as Sauron or the Valar unless he already had that power within him, it would still be a very useful tool to aid in world domination.
The One Ring could also perform other functions beyond mind control. It could multiply the inherent power of its owner. It has been shown to give the wearer the ability to understand other languages. While wearing the Ring, Sam Gamgee was able to understand the Black Speech of the orcs. It also might give the wielder the ability to read people's minds. Galadriel suggested this to Frodo when he asked if he could learn to communicate with thoughts like her. Finally, the True One Ring has the powers of all the other Rings. Whether Tolkien meant the Ring could reproduce their powers or he was just reiterating the Ring's ability to control others who wore Rings of Power is unknown.
However, to fully realize all of these abilities, the person wearing Sauron's Ring would have to already have an extremely well-trained mind and high spiritual development. As a result, the weak, such as the hobbits and men, would gain very little benefit initially from the Ring, let alone figure out what it truly does. That is of course in the unlikely instance that they could avoid becoming Sauron's slave through the Ring, which was virtually impossible. However, already powerful beings, such as Galadriel and Saruman would immediately realize its strengths. They might even have strength enough to destroy Sauron. Yet, though they could overthrow Sauron once they claimed the Ring, in the end, the Ring's inherent ability to corrupt its owner would have eventually twisted them into another "Dark Lord".
Although the One Ring could be claimed by a being of great power and used for evil, The Lord of the Rings books constantly reiterated the greatest threat to be Sauron reuniting with his Ring and returning to full power. Indeed, he would have made the best use of it, as the power within it was ultimately his. The Last Alliance that separated Sauron from his Ring in the Second Age was made up of legendary heroes of great strength and divine blood who fought during what was a golden age for Middle Earth. Even then, it was a concerted effort between the races of Elves, Dwarves, and Men. That war lasted several years and saw the deaths of many great Men before it was finally over. This would not have been the case during the waning years of Middle Earth near the end of the Third Age when the strength of the free peoples were greatly diminished. By that time, the Elves were sailing west, the Dwarves had become increasingly isolated, and the kingdoms of Men were broken and disorganized. In that environment, Sauron wielding his Ring would have been able to conquer the entire continent easily with little resistance.
Finally, despite its dangerous reputation, the Ring was not omnipotent, nor its power over other people's minds absolute. Even when Sauron used the Ring to command his troops to attack the Númenóreans during the War of the Last Alliance, his armies still fled in terror before the splendour of his enemies.
Symbolism
Although Tolkien always strongly held that his works should not be seen as a metaphor for anything, and especially not for the political events of his time (for instance WWII or the Cold War; note that much of The Lord of the Rings was written prior to and during World War II and well before the Cold War), many people have felt an urge to see the One Ring as a symbol or metaphor for various things. Among them are atomic energy and the atomic bomb, which would both be anachronistic, as the Ring was invented in the late 1930s, and the atom bomb did not become public knowledge until 1945. Other possible interpretations are that the ring represents the urge for power, which in Tolkien's view is always corrupting.
A recent interpretation by Danish author Peter Kjaerulff is that the Ring symbolises The Cursed Ring, a device described by both Plato in his Republic (the Ring of Gyges), and in Richard Wagner's Ring operas, besides Tolkien. Although Tolkien strongly denied any connection, it is possible that the One Ring was inspired by the Andvarinaut of the Volsunga saga, the central artifact of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), without being meant to "symbolise" it.
A different way to look at this question is to ask what gives the idea of the Ring its power as a story element, without considering whether it was intended as a symbol for any one thing. The notion of a power too great for humans to wield safely is an evocative one, and already in the 1930s there were plenty of technologies available to make people think of that idea. The lure and effect of the Ring and its physical and spiritual after-effects on Bilbo and Frodo are obsessions that can be compared with drug addiction, for which the Ring serves as a powerful metaphor.
It is likely that the One Ring inspired (at least partially) Crenshinibon, R.A. Salvatore's Crystal Shard, a likewise evil artifact that wants nothing more than power. Unlike the Ring, however, Crenshinibon is a sentient being and has no master seeking it.
In the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford there is a collection of English "Posy Rings" dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, which bear a striking resemblance to the One Ring. The rings, all in gold have short rhyming inscriptions on their inside, typically messages of love. The collection was presented to the museum in 1933 by Dr Joan Evans. It seems likely that Tolkien was aware of the existence of these rings at that date. A photograph of the collection is up on flickr.
List of times the One Ring was worn in The Lord of the Rings
The One Ring was tried on by several people, at different points in the book:
- Smeagol takes the ring from his brother, Deagol.
- Merry tells the story of Bilbo using the Ring to escape being seen by the Sackville-Bagginses.
- By Bilbo after his speech at his 111th birthday party.
- Tom Bombadil puts on the ring but it has no effect on him.
- Frodo tries on the ring shortly after this to see if it still works, yet Tom Bombadil can still see him.
- Frodo accidentally puts the ring on at Bree as he fell off a table while performing a song in the common room of the inn.
- Frodo puts on the ring at Weathertop, when they are attacked by the Nazgûl.
- Frodo uses the ring to escape Boromir on the slopes of Amon Hen.
- He uses it a second time shortly afterwards to take one of the boats and row across the river, yet this is still noticed by Sam.
- Sam puts the ring on to stay hidden from an orc company at Cirith Ungol.
- Sam uses it briefly a second time at the cleft of Cirith Ungol.
- Frodo puts on the ring at the Crack of Doom, when it is bitten off his finger by Gollum.cs:Jeden prsten
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