This compilation offers a rigorous and lucid synthesis of Tolkien’s complex lore, honoring the metaphysical depth of the original Legendarium. It is an essential, authoritative guide for those who value intellectual precision over superficial adaptation.
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Tolkien's Rings of Power | CompilationAdded:
There are many rings of power in Tolken's Legendarium. How were they made and how powerful are they all? Let's take a look. Hi everyone, this is Robert. Welcome to InDeep Geek. On this channel, we dive deep into the Lord of the Rings and Tolken's wider legendarium as well as a song of ice and fire and the Witcher. Welcome. This is a compilation of eight previously published videos looking at the various rings of power in Tolken's Legendarium.
from the one ring to Morgoth's ring. But let's start with the nine rings for mortal men doomed to die.
There were of course nine rings of power for mortal men. And the men who wore them became the Nazgoul. But how powerful were those rings and did they have different powers like the three elven rings? Or were they all the same?
Let's take a look. We know the rhyme, of course, of there being nine rings for mortal men doomed to die. And we understand that they were given to the men who became the nine ring wraiths, but are they really just generic magic rings? The three elven rings all have names and specific powers? I did a video on that elsewhere on this playlist if you're interested. So, what about the nine? What do we actually know about how powerful they were and what powers they had? Let's start by recapping on the history. Sauron devised his cunning plan to create rings of power that would ultimately be under his control about 1,200 years into the second age. He disguised himself as Anitar and ingratiated himself with Kellbimbbor, the elven craftsman. And over many years, literally about three centuries, they crafted 16 rings of power. The seven that ended up with the dwarves and the nine we're talking about here that ended up with humans. But at the time they were just the 16 and all intended for elves, which is probably the first important point. Kellbimbbor may have done some other different things to the three elven rings, but the nine and the seven were forged as the 16, so were presumably roughly the same. After Sauron had forged those rings with Kellbimbbor, he headed back to Mordor to forge the one master ring, while Kellbimbbor forged the three that ended up with the elves, free from Sauron's influence. This was when Sauron's plan started to go wrong. As he put on his master ring, which he had hoped would gain him control over whoever wore those other rings, the elves realized what was going on and took off their rings.
Kellbimbbor handed over the three he had made on his own to some trustworthy elves, Galadriel and Gilgalad. Sauron, sensing the ruse was over, then launched an attack on Aron. He succeeded and captured the 16 rings that were there and set about distributing them to other people. His plan clearly didn't work with elves, so seven went to the seven dwarf realms. In some versions of the legendarium, Kellbimbbor had already given one to Duran the third, but you get the point. That meant that sometime around the year 1,700 of the second age, Sauron had nine rings left in his possession. He'd tried the elves. He could be patient to see what happened with the dwarves, so that left humans.
The Sylmerelion picks up the story from there. To men he gave nine. For men proved in this matter, as in others, the readiest to do his will. And all those rings that he governed, he perverted, the more easily since he had a part in their making, and they were accursed, and they betrayed in the end all those that used them. This, of course, was Sauron's plan. He kept the one ring for himself, and through that controlled those who used the other rings. But who were they, these nine humans? The short answer is that we don't know exactly.
But if you dig through the various collections of Tolken's notes and unpublished works collected and edited by Christopher Tolken, we can find some hints. The leader of the Nazgoul and indisputably the most powerful was the witch king of Angmar. The Angmar part of his title is a reference to where he ruled in the early part of the Third Age rather than where he came from. Though instead, he was probably one of the three great lords of Numor that were tempted into accepting rings of power.
The Num Manorans were the height of human power. Even millennia later, Aragorn's superhuman lifespan and abilities stems largely from his heritage. So, it makes sense that the most powerful of the New Ringbearers was New Manorian. We know the name and place of origin of one of the others, Camul, the Easterling. He rose to be second in command of the nine. As for the other five, we simply don't know. It makes sense, though, that they were spread geographically around Middle Earth.
Saron's plan was to conquer all the peoples of Middle Earth, not just a few corners of it. And as for what positions they all held when they received the rings, again, we don't know, other than that, the Num Manorans were great lords.
But it makes sense for Sauron to pick the most powerful people he could. The rings of power seem to multiply the existing power of their holders, hence hobbits being relatively resistant to the one ring's power and Gandalf and Galadriel daring not to even touch it.
So these will have been lords, kings, magic users and the like. Those who have power and want more. So the nine rings were given to nine powerful humans in various places in Middle Earth, including three in Numor and at least one to the Easterlings. The Sylmerelion picks up the story again. Those who used the nine rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth. Yet it turned to their undoing.
They had, as it seemed, unending life.
Yet life became unendurable to them.
They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men. But too often, they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength, and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the throdom of the ring that they bore, and under the dominion of the one, which was Sauron's, and they became forever invisible, save to him that wore the ruling ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows.
There's a lot in there, but first, whoever these nine were when they received the rings, they became mighty rulers, magic users, and conquerors. The power of the rings increased their own powers and ambitions and abilities much like the one ring can. In addition, the nine rings could turn their bearers invisible when they wanted and allow them to see things on the ethereal plane. An unscrupulous mind could think of a thousand uses for that to help build power. In their day, they must have been some of the most powerful people in the whole world, and most people probably didn't know the source of their power. and their natural lifespans were extended. So their reign and rule would have been long until slowly they descended into the wraiths we know. As an aside, this actually plays against the theory that perhaps one of the Nazoul might have been a Num Manorian king. We know how they died and none of them slowly faded from the mortal plane. The Nazoul, the ring rates as they now were, first officially appeared in the year 2551 of the second age, though I suspect some of the ring holders fell before others. Still, that's perhaps up to 800 years or so of slowly fading. Gollum, for comparison, had the one ring for less than 500 years, and he used it less than you might think. You don't need to be invisible in the pitch black under the Misty Mountains, for example.
Intriguingly, we have no physical description of the nine rings themselves. Perhaps because once the bearers were under his control, Sauron took the rings from them and kept them himself. At least that's what the consensus view is among scholars. It's likely to be another of those things.
Tolken changed his mind on over time. At the council of Eland, Gandalf mentions the nine the Nazgoul keep. But in Unfinished Tales, we read that the Nazgoul were entirely enslaved to their nine rings which Sauron now himself held. And in one of his letters, Tolken wrote about Sauron and the Nazgoul that Sauron still through their nine rings which Sauron held had primary control of their wills. Which explains why Frodo as ringbearer can see Galadriel's ring when no one else could, but doesn't notice any rings on the fingers of the Nazgll when he sees them, though he clearly looks at the witch king's hand. We do have one hint, though about how they might have looked. At the council of Eland, Gandalf notes that the nine, the seven, and the three each had their proper gem, unlike the one ring, which was plain and unadorned, which implies that they weren't all the same and may have had different powers. Take the three elven rings as an example. Villia was set with a sapphire, Nya with adamant, and Na with a ruby. And although they shared many characteristics, it's clear that they also had their own abilities. Gandalf's dependence on fire magic. Fireworks lighting the way, fiery pine cones, making damp logs burn, and so on was surely because he possessed Na, the ring of fire set with a ruby. It's a reasonable assumption that the nine were the same. They shared a particular set of abilities, but each one offered additional power in different ways. One given to a great warrior might bestow great strength. Another given to a leader might make them very persuasive and so on. Sadly, we will probably never know, or have seen their unique powers because Sauron took them back at some point, probably well before the start of the Lord of the Rings. The point about these rings, though, is that this is how we see what Sauron's plan was for the rings of power, how it was supposed to work. The three elven rings escaped the taint of his personal involvement in their forging. The seven dwarven lords proved more resistant to the ring's powers than anticipated. But the nine rings, this was what Sauron intended.
More of East and South Middle Earth fell under his control. Numor fell into increasing decline. Other nations weakened. Surely much of this was down to the power of those rings and the ringbearers being under the control of Sauron. That was what he wanted to happen to the elves in the first place.
If we're looking for a distilled version of Sauron's plan, this is it. Humans were more susceptible to a lust for power than elves or dwarves. And so ultimately, they came under the ring's control more easily. For a long time, they must have thought that they were in control. But once they realized, it was too late. The tragedy of the nine rings and their bearers is that it wasn't Sauron forcibly taking control of the ring holders. It was them and their desire for power that led to their own end.
How powerful were the seven rings that Sauron gave to the dwarf lords? Did they play any part behind the scenes in the story of the Lord of the Rings? And what happened to them? We all know the rhyme about the rings of power and most of those rings seem to play a big part in the Lord of the Rings. The one ring is obviously the center of the action. The nine rings for mortal men created the Nazgoul who are obviously also central.
And the three for the elf lords are held by Eland, Galadriel, and Gandalf. And they too play their own quieter but no less effective part. But what about the seven for the dwarf lords? Where are they in all this? Well, let's start by recapping on exactly what they are and how they came to be forged.
Way back in the second age, Sauron had a cunning plan to control the elves and take control of all Middle Earth.
Disguised as Anitar, the Lord of Gifts, he ingratiated himself with Kellbimbbor and the elven smiths of Oreon over a period of around 300 years, at the end of which they had produced 16 rings of immense power, which we will think later of as the nine and the seven. The original plan seems to have been for all of these to go to the elves and then Sauron to put on the one controlling ring that he snuck off to secretly forge in Mordor and in that way take control of well pretty much everything. The plan didn't quite work because the elves sensed what he was up to when he put on his one ring and took off their rings, including the extra three that Kellbimbbor had forged afterwards without Sauron's direct involvement.
Those were the three rings that ended up with Gladriel, Eland, and Gandalf. And Kellbimbbor managed to smuggle those three out before Sauron took action.
That left 16 rings of power with Kellbimbbor in Reon. Sauron launched a massive attack and claimed them. Nine straight away, then seven more a bit later when Kellbimbbor caved under torture. And this is where it gets a little bit murky because although we know that Sauron gave those first nine to human lords who became mighty sorcerers, kings and warriors in their day and seven to the dwarven lords, what we don't know is how or why they accepted them. The fact that Sauron gave seven to the dwarves is not a random number. By the way, the dwarves are divided into seven different houses.
Duran's folk who we know most about firebeards, broadbeams, iron fists, stiff beards, blacklocks, and stonefoots. So, one each for each of the kings or leaders of those dwarves.
Sauron's plan seems to have been to control the leaders of the main races of Middle Earth and conquer that way. This distribution will probably have taken a bit of time as four of those seven houses are based off in the Far East.
But why would they take them? Humans seem particularly susceptible to Sauron's tempting offers of power and the magic of the rings. So, it's understandable that he might find nine ambitious men to take those rings. But the dwarves seem to have been particularly resilient to the ring's effects. Personally, I don't actually think this is as big a mystery as some have suggested. The dwarves and elves weren't exactly on universal good terms.
So there's no reason to believe that the dwarves even knew from the elves that there were some potentially dangerous magic rings going about or would believe the elves if they had told them. And we also shouldn't underestimate the dwarves avaricious natures. They would be willing to ignore good advice if it meant getting their hands on a beautiful jeweled ring, particularly if it offered the possibility of finding even more gold. Let's not forget that at this point Sauron could still change his appearance to appear comely and trustworthy and not at all like an evil dark lord. Finally, on this point, it's worth noting that Duran's folk based in Kazadum had alleged that Kellbimbbor the elf had himself given them the ring before Arion fell. Tolken's not very clear on this point, although it is possible. The dwarves of Kazadum had struck up a rare friendship with the elves of Aron over centuries. So perhaps Kellbimbbor passed on one of the rings to one of his friends before Sauron attacked, as well as smuggle out those three elven rings. It's possible, in fact, more than possible. There were nearly 200 years between Sauron sneaking off to Mordor and returning with a conquering army. All we know for sure is that after Sauron attacked Oion, the Longbeards sealed themselves up in Kazadum and locked themselves away from the rest of the world. So, it probably doesn't really matter whether Kellbraimborg or Saodon gave them that ring. The result was the same. Okay. So, partway through the second age of Middle Earth, the seven dwarf lords had the seven rings. As we've seen, Surron's plan was to control them through the one ring. Maybe the elves were suspicious, but not the dwarves, apparently. But the dwarves rings seem to have had a different effect on them than Sauron had hoped for. It made them greedier and they mined deeper and amassed more gold for themselves. But they didn't fall under Sauron's control or gain the power of invisibility when they wore them or lead extended lives that stretched out and became wraith-like. In short, none of the things that happened to humans.
This is how it's described in the Sylmerelion. The dwarves proved tough and hard to tame. They ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom. Nor can they be turned to shadows. They used their rings only for the getting of wealth. But wroth and an overmastering greed of gold were kindled in their hearts, of which evil enough after came to the prophet of Sauron. It is said that the foundation of each of the seven hordes of the dwarf kings of old was a golden ring. But all of those hordes long ago were plundered, and the dragons devoured them. And of the seven rings, some were consumed in fire, and some Sauron recovered. And so, in a roundabout way, the rings did cause the downfall of those seven dwarf lords, or their descendants at least, for the dragons smelt out those hordes and claimed them with fire. And that's what happened to four of the seven dwarven rings. They were swallowed by dragons or destroyed by dragonfire, and the dwarves were forced to flee before them. It was only the one ring that needed to be destroyed in Mount Doom. The others were undoubtedly hardy, but dragonfire was enough to destroy them. It was enough to destroy most things. So, four gone. And that of course left three rings. Three rings that had survived for thousands of years, passed down from dwarf lord to dwarf lord. We don't know the details, but at some point in the third age, while Sauron was rebuilding his strength and sending out his forces to search for the one ring, he managed to reclaim two of those. The final dwarven ring was the one held by Duran's folk. Remember, they were the ones who may have got it from Kellbimbbor direct rather than Sauron.
Their greed had led them to mine deeper and deeper until they awoke the Brog and had to flee to the lonely mountain. The ring of power came with them and was passed down from king to king until its final bearer, Thorne II, the father of the Thorin Oaken shield that we know from the Hobbit. In truth, this ring seems to have led a bit of a charmed life. The longbeards managed to get it out of Kazadoom when the Balro attacked, then out of Erra when Smau attacked.
That was King Thor who did that. He passed it on to his son Thra II, who was king of the long beards in their long exile from Arabore. And then finally he went missing when camping in the eaves of the Murkwood with a small group of companions. Sauron had had him captured then tortured him and imprisoned him in Dol Guldur where he had been hiding and gathering his strength. Gandalf found him 5 years later. Sauron had taken the ring but not the map of Arabore or secret door which would prove so useful in getting access to the lonely mountain in the Hobbit. So then all seven dwarven rings were accounted for. Four had been destroyed and Sauron had reclaimed three. The question has to be asked though, why? Why did Sauron go to such lengths to reclaim these rings that had failed him? Was he planning on giving them to other people? Perhaps the dwarves never fell under his control, so he might as well try with some others.
Counterintuitively though, he did seem to try to give the three rings back to the dwarves towards the end of the Third Age. It happened in the buildup to the Lord of the Rings, and we hear about it from Glory at the Council of Eland. He tells of a messenger from Mordor that arrived at Arabore. The Lord Sauron the Great, so he said, wished for our friendship. Rings he would give for it, such as he gave of old, and he asked urgently concerning hobbits, of what kind they were, and where they dwelt. As a small token only of your friendship, Sauron asks this, he said, that you should find this thief, such was his word, and get from him, willing or no, a little ring, the least of rings, that once he stole. It is but a trifle that Sauron fancies, and an earnest of your goodwill. Find it, and three rings that the dwarf sires possessed of old shall be returned to you."
So Sauron was proposing a swap, the three remaining dwarven rings of power that had brought so much wealth and power and trouble for the dwarves in exchange for the one ring. Now, it's possible that this was just a bluff, that he never intended to return the rings to the dwarves, but from his perspective, the dwarves having the rings didn't really affect him too much.
In fact, if anything, it probably helped him, keeping the dwarves focused on mining and accumulating wealth and attracting dragons to keep a lid on their slow population growth. It was definitely worth trading those three rings for the one ring. And maybe he had even worked on the rings a little more, imbued them with a slightly different kind of magic that might entrap the dwarves more easily. We don't know, but it's the kind of thing that he might try. In any event, the dwarves didn't give up that information about the one ring, and the three rings were never handed over. We'll never know whether Sauron actually was going to hand them over, or if he had a nefarious plan for them, or whatever, just that he thought the offer of them might tempt the dwarves to give him what he really wanted. And what then? Well, then we are heading straight into the war of the ring, at the end of which the one ring was destroyed. We hear nothing of what happened to those three dwarven rings, but nonetheless, we have a pretty good idea. The three rings of the elves lost their power completely. The nine rings of the Nazoul were destroyed, and that's probably what happened to the remaining three rings from the seven. If they were in Mount Doom, they would have been destroyed completely. If they weren't, they would have just lost their power, linked as they had been to the one ring.
And that's probably for the best. The seven rings given to the dwarven lords are a bit of an oddity in the legendarium. They show how different the dwarves are to either the humans who fell completely under Sauron's power when they put on one of the rings or the elves who had the wisdom to take their rings off when Sauron had his one ring.
No, the dwarves wore them and didn't come under Sauron's power. They gave in a bit more to some of their more base instincts, greed and pride and avarice, but that was it. The dwarves were hardy folks, strong willed and independent-minded. And it's fair to say that Sauron underestimated them. Like he and everyone underestimated the hobbits.
It would be his downfall.
What actually is the one ring? What powers does it have other than turning people invisible? How is it forged? And why is it so important? The one ring is the main focus of the Lord of the Rings and is set up as being the one artifact whose ownership determines the fate of all Middle Earth. But other than making people invisible and giving them a kind of view of the astral plane and obviously turning people greedy, we never actually see why or how it's so powerful. So what is the one ring and what makes it so important?
Let's start with the history. Way back in the early second age of Middle Earth, Sauron was in hiding, licking his wounds after his master's defeat at the end of the first age. The extent to which he briefly repented is a matter of debate.
I did another video on that if you're interested. But in any event, by around the year 500 of the second age, he had become convinced that the Valor had abandoned Middle Earth and that he was the best person to reintroduce a little bit of order. He was self-aware enough to know that not everyone would see it that way, particularly the elves. So, he had to find a way of controlling them.
And after a long, long time, he emerged into the world with a master plan. A slow burning master plan, it has to be said, but a master plan nonetheless.
Sauron is patient, if little else positive. He re-entered society in disguise as Anitar, meaning the lord of gifts, an emissary of the valor, and tried to ingratiate himself with the elves. We read in the Sylmerelion that Gilgalads and Elands doubted him and his fair seeming, and though they knew not who in truth he was, they would not admit him to that land. But elsewhere, the elves received him gladly. In particular, he was welcomed into Eron by Kellbimbbor, the great smith, who was eager to learn what Anitar could teach him. And so Anitar Sauron moved into Aragion for maybe three centuries, working with the smiths there to produce lesser magic rings and the like, the kind that Gandalf would much later describe as essays in the craft of ringmaking.
After that, they went on to forging the greater rings of power. The nine later given to mortal men and the seven later given to the dwarf lords, although at the time they were just the 16. There seems to have been no original thought from Sauron, at least to give them to anyone other than the elves. We're told that his desire was to set a bond upon the elves and to bring them under his vigilance. I'll do other videos setting out the powers of those rings. Suffice to say that they granted or amplified power in whoever possessed them. Because the crucial point here is that Sauron was secretly magically linking those rings to him via a master ring which he then snuck off back to Mordor to forge.
This is of course the one ring and this is what Tolken tells us about it in the Sylmerelion.
Secretly Sauron made the one ring to rule all the others and their power was bound up with it to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that one ring. For the power of the elven rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency. And Sauron forged it in the mountain of fire in the land of shadow. And while he wore the one ring, he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them. So that was the plan. When he wore the one ring, he could see everything that was done using those other rings of power and control what their users did.
Basically, it was all about power and control. But Sauron clearly made a mistake underestimating the elves because the magic went both ways. And when he put on the one ring, they could sense him too trying to control them.
So, they took off the rings. I'll do another video on the three elven rings, the ones that ended up with Galadriel, Eland, and Gandalf, because they are a separate case being made without Sauron's direct involvement, though with the same magical technology he had taught Calibbbor. Hence, the holders of those three never wore them or used them while Sauron was in possession of his one ring. As for the 16 rings forged before the one ring, Sauron gathered them together. Well, he invaded Eron and most of Middle Earth and forcibly took them from the elves. And he launched his one ring plan B. If he couldn't control the elves through the rings, then how about the other free peoples of Middle Earth? There were seven dwarf tribes, so he gave one to the lord of each of them, and the other nine went to humans. But again, he underestimated his intended prey. We're told that the dwarves proved tough and hard to tame. They ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom. Nor can they be turned to shadows. So Sauron failed to control the dwarves, too. The rings they had did influence them, of course. Again, that's worth another video. But Sauron couldn't govern their thoughts as he had hoped.
The good news for Sauron was that the rings of power did work on humans. The nine he gave to mortal men gave those men great power and extended their lives greatly, but slowly turned them to wraiths completely under Sauron's control. The ring wraiths. The ring verse we all know is therefore in two parts. The core of it about the ring itself, one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them was seemingly written by Sauron. Hence it being etched into the inside of the ring, revealed by fire and in the black speech. It may even have been the magical incantation that Sauron used to create the one ring. The elven smiths in Aron who had forged the 16 rings of power heard in their minds Sauron saying those words when the one ring was forged. That was what prompted them to take off those rings. the rest of the verse. 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. One for the dark lord on his dark throne in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie. Seems to have been a later addition by elven historians and lyricists. As we've seen, the three rings for the elven kings were never a part of Sauron's original plan.
Nor indeed did he originally plan to give the rings to the dwarves and mortal men. The elven rhyme was just about where they all ended up. So, the one ring was essentially a plan to control the elves that didn't work, which Sauron then turned to a plan to try to control the dwarves, which again didn't really work, and humans, which did work, though didn't give him control over all humans, which makes it sound like the one ring isn't that powerful or effective. It is.
It dominated the geopolitical landscape throughout the second half of the second age and was the catalyst for the massive war of the ring at the end of the third age. So what other powers does it have?
Well, in many ways it is similar to the other 16 rings. This is how Tolken describes it and them in letter 131.
The chief power of all the rings alike was the prevention or slowing of decay, i.e. change viewed as a regrettable thing. The preservation of what is desired or loved or its semblance. This is more or less an Elvish motive, but also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor, thus approaching magic, a motive easily corruptible to evil, a lust for domination. And finally, they had other powers more directly derived from Sauron, the necromancer, so he is called, as he casts a fleeting shadow and passage on the pages of the Hobbit, such as rendering invisible the material body and making things of the invisible world visible.
So, the one ring and the other 16 rings, again, not the later three elven rings, can make its wearer invisible. We obviously witnessed this happen many times. Can make visible things in the unseen or spiritual realm like when Frodo sees the Nazgol for what they really are at Weathertop. Slows decay and aging. Hence Gollum living for well over 500 years and Bilbo similarly being longived and enhances the natural power of the bearer. What makes the one ring distinct from the other 16 is that it was crafted to contain the powers of the others and control them and their bearers. And if you wanted to be able to do that, control those other powerful rings and the powerful elves that bore them, you would need a really powerful bit of magic. And this Sauron achieved by pouring his own spirit or soul into the ring. As Tolken puts it, much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into the one ring. It was the only way he could make something powerful enough to control all that other power. To modern readers, a reasonable approximation to help us understand is that it's a bit like a Horcrux from Harry Potter, putting a part of your soul into an inanimate object. But more so, the one ring is not just a backup policy to ensure Sauron can stay alive if someone kills his mortal body. Sauron doesn't need that. He's a Maya. He's already immortal. This is putting his life essence and his power into something to give it the power to dominate others.
Tolken goes on in that letter 131 to explain this. Sauron, he says, "Let a great part of his own inherent power pass into the one ring. While he wore it, his power on earth was actually enhanced. And even if he did not wear it, that power existed and was in rapport with himself. He was not diminished unless some other seized it and became possessed of it. If that happened, the new possessor could, if sufficiently strong and heroic by nature, challenge Sauron, become master of all that he had learned or done since the making of the one ring, and so overthrow him and user his place, which Tolken immediately notes was the first weakness of the ring. The one ring doesn't just tempt people with visions of greatness, making them yearn for power. It acts as a multiplier of whatever power they already possess.
Power is a rather ephemeral subject in Tolken law. It can mean magical powers, physical powers, charisma, or leadership qualities. For the dwarves, with their rings of power, it meant they got better at mining for precious metals. When Sam briefly had the ring, he had visions of being a worldconquering gardener. Bless him. When Sauron saw Aragorn commanding a force marching on Mordor, he took it as more evidence that he had the ring.
How else could he inspire or order so many people to march to death? So, if when watching the films and reading the book, it feels like the one ring has a mind of its own, it sort of does. Bilbo and Frodo were walking around with a huge part of Sauron and his power in that one ring, and the link with Sauron remained. Gandalf and Galadriel were not feigning temptation or exaggerating how powerful they would be with the ring.
Tolkien mentioned it almost in passing in the quote we just read, but a sufficiently powerful new owner could even become master of all Sauron had learned or done since the making of the one ring. Of course, they would probably be able to user him themselves, which isn't to say that the ring is sensient.
Tolken didn't go that far, but Gandalf definitely ascribes a desire within it to get back to Sauron, that it seems to drive forward through its ability to expand or contract in size to fit its bearer's finger. He says that it betrayed by slipping from his finger, it caught Deagle, it abandoned Gollum, and so on. Of course, Gandalf then balances this by saying that there is another force at play. Erru, the one god of Tolken's world, or fate if you rather.
The ring may have intentionally abandoned Gollum in an effort to get back to Sauron, but Bilbo found it because he was meant to. And Bilbo was meant to pass it to Frodo. Which brings us to the other great weakness of the ring. If it were somehow destroyed, then because so much of Sauron's power was wrapped up in it, Sauron himself would be, in Tolken's words, diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will. A definite weakness, but one that he seems to have never even considered, for two reasons, really. First, the one ring was nearly impossible to destroy.
It would take an even greater smith than him to unmake it, as it were, and there were none in Middle Earth. You could try to melt it, but it was invulnerable to any heat less than the heat that it was forged in. The fiery volcanic heat of Oduin, and he controlled access to that.
And even if someone wanted to destroy it, they wouldn't be able to because the power of the ring to tempt you with the power it possessed was so great, it would stop anyone trying to destroy it.
They could take it all the way to the cracks of Doom and not be able to do it.
Which is part of the explanation for why Mount Doom wasn't particularly well-guarded. But more on that another time. Because Sauron wasn't wrong there.
Frodo couldn't ultimately go through with throwing the ring into the cracks of doom. But for Gollum's intervention, Frodo would have just walked back out with the ring on his finger. but for Gollum or Fate or Eru. Ultimately, the one ring was powerful because it magnified power that was already there.
If Sauron, a hugely powerful entity in his own right, had got hold of the ring, he would have been unstoppable. With humans divided, the elves diminished, and the dwarves unwilling to engage in alliances, all of Middle Earth would have fallen. Which isn't to say that the ring makes its owner invulnerable.
Sauron lost three wars while it was still in his possession after all. And of course, there are some who are completely unaffected by its power. Tom Bombadil, for example, who put it on and took it off and made it disappear and reappear without it seeming to affect him in the slightest. But Tom Bombadil is the exception to almost every rule.
So that's how the one ring can be simultaneously the most powerful artifact in Middle Earth and seem to have relatively few powers in Frodo's hands. It makes the already powerful more so and more hungry for power, but its effect on the least powerful is small. It's why Gandalf was so keen for the humble and not at all powerful hobbits to have the ring. It kept its power, which would always and everywhere turn to evil, dampened down as much as possible, for as long as possible. We talked earlier about Sauron's strategic error in leaving to forge the one ring before the three rings for the elven lords were forged, but this perhaps was his greatest error. He made the one ring to make the mighty mightier. He knew the risk that other mighty warriors and sorcerers would wear it and challenge his power, but it never even crossed his mind that it could be carried and destroyed, not by the mighty, but by the powerless.
How powerful are the three elven rings?
How were they made? And why are they good, not evil, and under Sauron's control? Given how much we now know about the three Elven rings of power and the emphasis placed on them in various film and TV adaptations, it's curious to note that Tolken originally used them as a rather secretive subplot in the Lord of the Rings. In fact, other than a conversation Frodo has with Galadriel and the odd hint here and there, many readers won't even have been aware of who held those rings or how important they were. We only see their owners fully revealed at the very end of the story. It's often lost amidst the emotion of Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf, and the rest sailing west. But Tolken brings our attention to the three rings one after the other in that chapter. And it's supposed to be a moment of revelation for the reader, an explanation of why things turned out as they did. Because those three people, Gandalf, Galadriel, and Eland, possessed those three rings, Nia, Nya, and Villia.
We read, "And there, to Sam's wonder, rode Eland and Galadriel. Eland wore a mantle of gray and had a star upon his forehead, and a silver harp was in his hand, and upon his finger was a ring of gold with a great blue stone, Villia, the mightiest of the three." But Galadriel sat upon a white pulfry and was robed all in glimmering white like clouds about the moon, for she herself seemed to shine with a soft light. On her finger was Na, the ring wrought of Mithril that bore a single white stone flickering like a frosty star.
As he turned and came towards them, Frodo saw that Gandalf now wore openly on his hand the third ring, Na the Great, and the stone upon it was red as fire.
Until then, they were kept secret. The fact that Gandalf now wore Na openly means he hadn't previously. And when Frodo sees Nya on Galadriel's finger in Loth Laurian, she says that it is not permitted to speak of it. and Eland could not do so. But it cannot be hidden from the ringbearer that she held one of the three. But why? Why the secrecy?
What powers did they have? And if these were Sauron's rings, why were their owners not under his control? Let's dig into the history and find out.
The forging of the rings of power was a cunning plan by Sauron in the second age to try to gain control over the elves.
He disguised himself as Anitar, the Lord of Gifts, and offered the elves knowledge and skills in crafting. Eland, Gilgalad, and Galadriel all variously refused his offer, not knowing who he was, but sensing something wasn't right.
But Kellbimbo, the elven mastermith, took Anatar in and learned from him for three centuries. This was quite a long-term plan by Sauron. During that time, they forged the nine rings that ended up in the hands of humans and the seven which ended up with dwarven lords.
But Sauron, needing a bit of space and secrecy to forge the one ring to control the others, for that was the plan. While wearing his ring, he would be able to read and control the thoughts of the elves wearing the other rings. He nipped back to Mordor to make that, leaving Calibbbor all alone, during which time he used the skills he had learned from Anitar to make three more rings of power. But this time, without Anatar, Sauron being a part of the process, at which point with the forging of the one ring and Sauron attempting to use its power, the elves of Aion finally realized what was happening. They took off the rings and Kellbimbbor sought advice from Galadriel. She recommended destroying all the rings. But Kellbimbbor couldn't bring himself to do that, destroying his masterpieces. So he gave one of the three he had forged on his own to Galadriel to keep safe, and the other two went to Gilgalad, who passed one of them on to Kyodan. When Sauron invaded Orion and captured Kellbimbo, demanding he hand over the rings, Kellbimbbor eventually had to give up the 16, but refused to say where the three final elven rings were. To bring the story up to date, Galgalad gave his one to Eland and Kyodan gave his to Gandalf when he appeared in Middle Earth in the Third Age. So by the time of the Lord of the Rings, that's where they are with Gandalf, Eland, and Galadriel. So the first important point here is that the three were forged using the same skills and magical technology that Anatar Sauron had taught Kellbraimbbor, but without his personal involvement in the forging. That's how they can be good and not corrupt whoever wears them. But because they were still forged using Sauron's magical technology, they retained some of the characteristics of the other 16.
Basically, the way Sauron taught Kellbraimbbor to make rings of power contained a secret link to the one ring.
How exactly, we're not told, but it was definitely there. The three elven rings might be capable of being used positively, but they are still linked to Sauron and the one ring. And so, if Sauron used the one ring, he could see the thoughts of those that wore the three. That's why the elves did not wear the rings while Sauron had the one ring.
But once the ring had been lost, they all felt able to put them on and use their powers. So for most of the second age, the elves did not wear the three.
But in the third age, they did. The link between the three and the one can be seen all over the place when you start looking for it. It's how Frodo, the ring bearer, can see Galadriel's ring on her finger when no one else can. And it's why when the one ring is destroyed, the three also lose their power. And in case you were wondering, Frodo could theoretically have tried to reach out and touch the thoughts of the bearers of the three elven rings when he wore the one ring. He even asks Scaladriel about it. Her response is that by that point he had only worn it three times, and he would have to be wearing it to try and he would have to actually try to bend his will to dominating others. and that as the rings only gave power to the measure of their possessor, he would fall short and it would destroy him. In short, it was good that he had never tried. Another interesting difference between these three rings and many of the others is that whereas the one ring makes its wearer invisible, the three rings when mourn can make themselves invisible or perhaps their users can make them invisible. That's why we never hear a description of Gandalf's ring through the story or Elron's. people can't see them. As we've already noted, when the fellowship makes their way to Loth Lauron and meets Galadriel, Frodo does see the ring Na on Galadriel's finger, but she says this is only possible because he is both the ring bearer and has seen the eye of Sauron, underlining once more the link between the three rings and the one ring. Poor Sam can't see it at all. So, that's the background. But what powers do they each have? Kellbimbbor made them from different materials and gave each of them different powers. And in each case, these were important, vital even to the story, though their effects are often hidden from most people's eyes. One was associated with fire, one water, and one air. Let's start with Gandalf's ring, Naria, the ring of fire with its red stone. As we saw earlier, it was entrusted by Gilgalad to Kydan, the elf lord who watched over the Grey Havens, and he gave it to Gandalf. We get this account of him handing it over in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings.
Kyodan later surrendered his ring to Mithrand, for Kyodan saw further and deeper than any other in Middle Earth, and he welcomed Mithrand at the Grey Havens, knowing whence he came and whether he would return.
Take this ring, master, he said, for your labors will be heavy, but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the ring of fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.
Rekindling hearts in a world that grows chill is a wonderful phrase. It suggests that the main magic around this ring is one of encouragement, putting hope in people's hearts, helping them resist tyranny and despair. This is one of those things that is hard to see most of the time, but it's easy to acknowledge that Gandalf is a strengthening and reassuring presence throughout The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. And just look at how desparing everyone was when he was lost fighting that Brog. Yes, they'd just lost a valuable member of the team, but it was more than that. It was as if something even more powerful had been taken from them. Aragorn even says, "We must do without hope." As if Gandalf was the one who brought hope.
That hope and encouragement also seems to have aided Gandalf himself personally, giving him resistance to the weariness of time. As we see, Gandalf does not tire or waver in his task in Middle Earth as say Saraman does, despite many setbacks. This is despite the fact that Gandalf never asked for this mission in the first place and was afraid of Sauron. It's a curious detail in Gandalf's background, but we never even see a hint of it in the main stories, perhaps due to Nia's encouraging magic. And though I covered it in much more detail in my how powerful is Gandalf video, it's undeniable that Gandalf with the ring of fire does specialize in fire magic.
Whether that's fireworks to entertain hobbits, hurling fiery pine cones at wolves, or defending himself from the nazgol at Weathertop with light and flame.
The second ring, Nya, the ring of water, was given by Kellbraimbbor to Galadriel, and she kept it throughout the ages.
We're told that it was made of mithril with a white stone made of adamant set into it. Frodo sees it on Galadriel's hand after looking in her mirror, and we read this.
So bright was the star above that the figure of the elven lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger. It glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the even star had come down to rest upon her hand.
We're told that it has powers of preservation, protection, and concealment from evil, and Galadriel used it to protect and preserve Loth Laurian. The bit about protection isn't so much about military protection. Eland was clear that that was not the purpose of any of the three rings and Loth Laurian did get raided by orcs and the like from time to time, but it did seem to hide it from the gaze of wouldbe invaders and shroud it from Sauron himself. Galadriel seems to have used this power to make Loth Laurian beautiful and peaceful and everything a community of elves should be. This of course explains how Loth Laurian appears so ethereal, so serene, so beautiful, more so even than Riendell and much more so than the woodland realm. Say Na is playing its part to preserve the elves and their life in Middle Earth far beyond what it would otherwise be. One by one, the elves are feeling the call to head west to Valinor. Their time in Middle Earth is coming to an end. The time of humanity is about to begin. But Loth Laurian is a shining beacon defying this tide through the power of the ring Nya. This of course adds a tragic twist to Galadriel helping Frodo and the fellowship on their way. For if the one ring is destroyed as per the plan, Nya's power, as with all of the other rings of power, would come to an end and Loth Laurian would fade. She tells Frodo as much. Do you not see now? Wherefore your coming is to us as the footsteps of doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Loth Laurian will fade, and the tides of time will sweep it away. We must depart into the west, or dwindle to a rustic folk of Delan Cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.
It is a melancholy thought, and it is indeed what happened. After the ring was destroyed, Nya lost its power and Loth Laurian faded. Its people left one after the other. It fell deserted and ruined, left to the forest. We last hear of it in the year 121 of the fourth age when after Aragon's death, Aruin goes there to die. And as the ring of water, we should probably also acknowledge that one of Galadriel's most powerful magical items was the mirror of Galadriel, a basin of water through which you can see the past, present, and future.
Impressive magic.
The third ring is Villia, the ring of air. This was the ring that Kellbimbbor gave to Gilgalad, and Gilgaladed then gave to Eland. So Eland had it and was using its power all the way through the third age, including, of course, the main stories of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. We're told that Villia was made of gold and had a large blue stone set into it. It was the mightiest of the three rings, which is probably fitting given that it was held originally by Gilgalad, the lord of the high elves and king of the Eld. But unlike the other two rings, we are never specifically told what powers it actually had. We're left to see what Eland does and impute backwards what the ring's powers might be. Well, to an extent, it seems to have had some of the same powers of the other two rings. In the Sylmerelion, Rivendell is described as a refuge for the weary and the oppressed and a treasury of good counsel and wise law. This sounds a lot like how Gandalf uses Na to give hope and encouragement to those who need it. And as with Na and Loth Laurian, once Villia had ceased to work with the destruction of the one ring, Rivendell also fell slowly to ruin, as if the magic preserving it had died. By the year 120 of the fourth age, Aragorn said to Arawan that none now walk in the gardens of Eland.
But it's perhaps in the power of healing that we see its greatest strength. We are told that Kellbimbbor forged the three rings to help heal and preserve.
We've seen the preserving aspect of this a lot. All three rings are united by their ability to preserve and encourage in some way, but the healing aspect is perhaps strongest in Villia. Eland is acknowledged in Gandalf's words as the master of healing. This is probably best seen in how he heals Frodo's wound from the Morgal blade. Aragorn instantly realizes that he cannot heal Frodo.
Glorfindel admits that it is beyond his abilities. And even Gandalf, that beacon of hope and encouragement, admits that when he saw the wound, he had little hope that Frodo would survive. But Eland does heal him. There's also probably an element here of Villia granting magical control over air, as it is the ring of air. Nia supports Gandalf's fire magic.
Nya supports Galadriel's mirror, so it makes sense that Villia does support Eland in some air magic, even if we don't see it. Perhaps when the river comes crashing down on the black riders outside Rivendell, that was caused by the wind rather than just water magic.
We don't know. So, we have three rings that are powerful, tied to the one ring, but opposite it in many ways. The one ring and the other rings Sauron had a hand in forging for that matter were all about power. Sauron's power and the individual power of whoever wore those rings. The three elven rings were made to help others, not those who wore them.
Healing, encouragement, and preserving.
And it is not a coincidence, I'm sure, that the three who wore those rings were the three who took on the mantle of guiding and protecting and pushing Frodo in the right way. Gandalf trusting Frodo as the ring bearer at the start of the journey, Eland commissioning him to take it to Mordor, and Galadriel gifting him and Sam the tools they needed to finish the job. The three of them also seem to be the ones who, while everyone else is arguing about what should be done, seem to sense something of the future for Frodo and the fellowship and what was to happen with the one ring. Elron says that I think this task was appointed for you, Frodo, and that if you do not find a way, no one will. Gandalf tells Frodo that he was meant to have the ring. And Galadriel gives Frodo the file of light from Arendel's star so he would have that when all other lights go out. Given it saved his life more than once, it is a precient gift. But most of all, Tolken uses these three rings to underline one of the central themes of the Lord of the Rings. The way to confront the power- hungry is not to also be power- hungry, but to be its opposite. to prioritize helping others. Some of the most powerful and important magic that happens anywhere in the Lord of the Rings happens so subtly through these rings that many readers don't ever realize it is happening. The first readers of the Lord of the Rings might not have even realized that Eland and Gandalf had rings of power until the closing pages of the book. The most powerful don't need to show off their power, and they definitely don't need to use it to gain even more power for themselves.
We know about the great rings of power, the nine, the seven, the three, and the one ring. But in Tolken's world, there were lots of other magic rings. What were they? What powers did they have?
And how did they impact on the story?
One of the most important plot points in the opening couple of chapters in The Lord of the Rings is that although Gandalf knew that Bilbo had got himself a magic ring and was concerned about it, he didn't know which ring it was and what the implications of that might be.
Being Gandalf, he seemed to have a feeling about the importance of this ring, and his suspicions grew over time.
But it was only after it took such an effort of will for Bilbo to finally part with it and some very umbil-like changes of character that he began to investigate it in earnest. He didn't immediately think that Bilbo had somehow stumbled on the one ring. It took him decades to come to that conclusion. He cautioned Frodo that it may have powers other than just invisibility and told him never to put it on. Gandalf then set his mind to doing some investigating into the matter. Along with Aragorn, he spent years hunting down Gollum and doing his own research among the books of Minister. He popped back to the Shire every now and then, but remained vague about his suspicions, saying things like, "Magic rings are well, magical, and they are rare and curious."
But he goes on later to tell Frodo a bit more about magical rings in Middle Earth. In Argon, long ago, many elven rings were made. Magic rings as you would call them, and they were, of course, of various kinds, some more potent and some less. The letter rings were only essays in the craft before it was full grown. And to the elven smiths, they were but trifles, yet to my mind, still dangerous for mortals. Gandalf obviously initially thought that Bilbo's ring was probably one of those lesser rings, and that's probably fair enough.
During The Hobbit, we only ever hear about its power to turn Bilbo invisible.
And what were the chances of the one ring being picked up randomly by a hobbit under the Misty Mountains? It was only over time that Gandalf grew to think that it might be something more. I did a whole other video on the details of how and why Gandalf didn't immediately recognize the one ring when he saw it. But for now, let's just acknowledge that it didn't look particularly special. We know about the one ring, of course, but what were these other rings? some dangerous and powerful. Well, they were forged in Orion between about 1,200 and 1500 of the third age when Sauron, disguised as Anitar, the lord of gifts, taught Calibbbor the elf, the skills of ringmaking. The culmination of this, of course, with the great rings. But Sauron didn't start off with them. He slowly, carefully, over centuries, showed Kellbimbbor how to make lesser rings, imbuing them with power. They were each seemingly plain and unadorned like the one ring itself would be later. This was in stark contrast to the greater rings, the nine, the seven, and the three. Each of which was set with precious gems, which of course explains why Gandalf could have assumed to start with that Bilbo's ring, the one ring, was just one of those lesser rings. Gandalf had never seen the one ring. It had disappeared from Middleear history before he was sent there. But all the greater rings he had seen thus far, including his own ring, Naria, looked like great rings.
They were beautiful with precious gems.
This one didn't have any of that. It was plain and boring, like a lesser ring of power might be expected to look. As an aside, this also explains how Sauron, when trying to barter with the dwarves of Arabore for information about the one ring, could attempt to pass it off as a little ring, the least of rings. It didn't look anything special. Okay, so the lesser rings had power. They could do things like make you invisible. And each ring seemed to have different powers. They were simple, plain rings, not gordy or set with precious gems.
They were prototypes, early efforts, nothing special to the magical elves.
It's worth noting here, as Gandalf does to Frodo, that these so-called lesser rings were still to mortals dangerous and powerful. This tells us a lot about the lesser rings, but probably even more about quite how powerful the greater rings were and the elves that they might be able to wear them without danger. So, the lesser rings were still powerful, but as in all good fantasy universes, in Middle Earth, power does not come from nowhere. There is always a cost associated with power. And it seems that the power of magic rings in Middle Earth, at least as taught by Anatar Sauron, comes from the person who forges that ring. We're told that much of Sauron's strength and will went into the one ring. Or as it is wonderfully phrased in the films, he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life into the one ring.
Basically, he poured his life essence into it to the extent that when it was cut from him, he lost his physical form.
It seems that magic rings need something of the person who forged them to give them power. Presumably, this is also the case with the lesser rings, although these were, in Gandalf's words, essays in the craft, just trying things out.
So, they aren't the case to the same extent. Kellbimbbor, if it were he who created them, poured something of his soul or essence into them. And Kellbimbbor was an immortal and powerful elf, grandson of Feyenor, who made the Sylmerils, and a legendary figure even for the likes of Eland and Galadriel. If he poured even just a little of his life energy into these lesser rings, they would be powerful indeed. And Sauron was there, too, presumably putting a little of himself into them, which matches up with how Gandalf describes them. Lesser rings, but dangerous for mortals, perhaps because there was a little bit of Sauron in them. They each seemed to have different powers, though. Some had just one power, others more than one.
Some were weaker, others stronger. All were dangerous. So, what happened to them? Well, once the elves realized what Sauron was up to, forging the one ring to enslave the possessors of the other great rings of power, they seem to have tried to hide or destroy the other rings. The three obviously ended up safe and out of Sauron's reach. We're told that they tried to destroy others, but Kellbimbbor seemed a bit unwilling in this regard, given how much time and energy he had poured into their creation. So, when Sauron invaded Eron, we're told that he seized many rings of power. The seven and nine he obviously gave to the dwarves and men, but the clear implication is that he took even more lesser rings. Indeed, in unfinished tales, we're told that he took, among other things, the lesser works of the Murdine. So, some of the lesser rings were probably spirited out of Oreon before Sauron invaded, but many were captured by him and presumably taken back to Mordor. After that, the trail goes a bit cold, but we can draw some inferences from what Gandalf says. If he thought Bilbo's ring was probably a lesser ring, then they clearly didn't all disappear back in the second age.
Perhaps some were with the elves in other parts of Middle Earth, and perhaps some reemerged from Mordor after Sauron's fall. We may not know where all of them are, but Gandalf clearly thinks that it's much more likely for Bilbo to have picked up one of the minor rings than the one ring itself.
Some lesser rings do appear in the various semicon sources we have. For example, in the Lord of the Rings online world, we hear of Nachuil. This was in the possession of Narmalth, an elf smith from Eron. But spoiler alert, in case you ever want to play the Lord of the Rings online, it slowly corrupted her into becoming a miel, champion of Angmar. In other words, under the power of the Witch King of Angmar, the chief of the Mazgoul. This is, as I said, only semicanon at best, but it does open up an intriguing and persuasive possibility because although we're only told of Sauron teaching Kellbimbbor about ring magic, surely it makes sense that the witch king might have known a thing or two about it, too. He was turned by a ring of power, is absolutely loyal to Sauron, is a powerful magic user specializing in magic involving wraiths and the undead, and clearly spent much of the Third Age ruthlessly pushing Sauron's agenda. It would be quite surprising if he didn't know quite a lot about the magic of the lesser rings. And there are a few hints that perhaps he may have used ring magic himself. He sent barrerowites to infest the Barrowns in ages past. We meet one when Frodo and company get lost there. And the Barrowites are wraiths, the same word Tolken uses for the Nazgol, the ring wraiths, and seem similarly spectral, shadowy figures. Intriguingly, they are infamous for the fact that they wore gold rings. It's mentioned not just in the Lord of the Rings, but also in Bombardil goes boating, a fun little poem Tolken wrote about Tom Bombadil's journey up the Wyle. Even more intriguingly, when in the presence of the Barrow White, Frodo feels a huge urge to put on the one ring. An urge that seems very, very similar to what he experiences when the Nazol are near.
There seems to be a connection here. All the hints are that the Barrow whites wore magic rings, lesser rings, either salvaged from Aion or created Aresh by the Witch King. Tolki never states this explicitly, but the hints are there. And the hints are there that someone else used their magical abilities to create a ring of power. It's one of the more overlooked details in Tolken's masterpiece, but Saraman seems to have made himself a ring of power offscreen, as it were. When Gandalf goes to meet Saraman, he notices in passing that he wore a ring on his finger. The clear implication of this is obviously that this is a new thing. Saraman didn't usually wear a ring and now he was wearing a ring. So where has it come from? Well, Saraman boasts a little bit later that he is Saraman the Wise.
Saraman the ring maker. Again, this wasn't one of Saraman's previous titles, so presumably it's something new. He made a ring and now he's wearing it. I think it's pretty fair to say that it will have been a magical ring. And it's not really a surprise. We know that Sauran spent years, centuries even, studying Sauron and his works. He was the undisputed expert in the White Council on ring law and slowly grew to envy Sauron and it would appear tried to copy him, even down to creating an Urkai army and making a ring of power. He didn't know yet all the secrets of making a great ring on his own. That knowledge was locked in Mordor. But this seems to be his own lesser ring, an essay in the craft, his first step along the way. And like all of the lesser rings, it will have been dangerous. I did a whole other video on Saraman's ring if you're interested. So, we have the lesser rings made by Anatar and the elves in plus perhaps some more using the same kind of magic by the Witch King and Salaman. And beyond that, well, we don't get much specific, but there are quite a lot of broader themes connected to the ring of Barahir and Morgoth's ring, but those are other videos entirely. Did you know that Saraman had a ring of power that he made himself?
Let's take a look. We first hear about Saraman's ring when Gandalf notices it early in the Lord of the Rings. Radagast tells him that Saraman wants to see him, and Gandalf tells the story later to the council of Eland. He says, "I rode to the foot of Orthank and came to the stair of Saraman, and there he met me and led me up to his high chamber. He wore a ring on his finger."
Clearly, that caught Gandalf's attention. He doesn't say any more about it, but the strong implication is that it hadn't been there before. Saraman hadn't worn a ring. What follows is that rather awkward conversation where Saraman tries to persuade Gandalf that they should join forces with or perhaps submit to Sauron or maybe betray Sauron.
Saraman has a lot of plans going on and if he can get Gandalf on side for any of them that would be great. Saraman isn't a huge Gandalf fan but knows power where he sees it and Gandalf is one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth. Of course, eventually Saraman descends to villain monologuing, albeit in a rarified Tolken way, and exclaims this.
I am Saraman the wise Saraman ring maker. Saraman of many colors.
Saraman ring maker. Okay, so what's going on there? I think Tolken clearly wants us to make the link between that statement and Gandalf's observation that Saraman now wears a ring and he's proud of it. Well, let's start by looking way back in history to where this ring fixation came from. And first, we have to acknowledge that before Saraman came to Middle Earth, he was one of the Mayer attached to Allah the smith, the valor concerned with crafting, like Sauron, incidentally, though he was then known as Maidon the admired. Saraman, a name given to him by the people of Middle Earth, literally means man of skill or perhaps craft. So, his crafting skills were evident even then. And as the head of the order of the Astari and the White Council, it made sense for him to take the lead on understanding Ringcraft.
After all, the Astari were there to aid the free peoples against the return of Sauron. They needed to know things like whether Sauron needed the ring to come back to power. How powerful would he be if he found the ring or if he didn't?
What control did he still have over the Nazoul or the holders of the remaining rings given to the dwarves or the three elven rings? How would they even be able to recognize the one ring if they found it? And so on. So we read that the law of the elven rings, great and small, is his Saraman's province. He has long studied it, seeking the lost secrets of their making. This led him to the archives in Minastth and no doubt many other places, and it seems also to do some practical experimentation. He was a craftsman after all, and the tower of Orthank was far from prying eyes. This theoretical and practical study lasted centuries, and at some point his focus seems to have shifted from wanting to understand the ring to wanting to possess the ring. I covered Saraman's fall in greater depth on another video, but Elron's wise words on this will probably do for now. It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the enemy, for good or for ill. Saraman studied the arts of the enemy too deeply and for too long. So Saraman turned from trying to study the ring to trying to get the ring. We know he searched for it in the place it went missing, the Gladen Fields. And he even seems to have found the remains of Isilder's body, though the ring itself was long gone. It was with Gollum by then. We read in unfinished tales that Saraman had removed from Isilder's body a small case of gold attached to a fine chain. It was empty and bore no letter or token, but beyond all doubt it had once borne the ring about Isel's neck. And he also found the Elendelmir, the ancient Elvish crystal had carried with him. Tolken concludes that Isildur must have fallen not into the deep stream but into shallow water no more than shoulder high. Why then, though an age had passed, were there no traces of his bones? Had Saraman found them and scorned them, burned them with dishonor in one of his furnaces? If that were so, it was a shameful deed, but not his worst.
But, as I said, he did not find the ring. He did not give up then though, scouring the Shire for it when he noticed how often Gandalf visited there and obviously in the main story sending an orc warb band out to hunt for the fellowship. They returned part of the way with Mary and Pippen. Right idea, wrong hobbits. But all the while Saraman had another plan. If he couldn't find the one ring, he would make his own ring. Tragically, we don't get any details of his work there. Whether the ring he wore was his first or just the latest of many attempts or what powers it might have held. If I had to guess, it makes sense that it imitated in some way the one ring that he was so desperate to get hold of, which means that it was about power and control. The one ring was forged in order to control the holders of the other lesser rings of power. Some have suggested that perhaps Saraman's ring amplified his existing powerful voice. That makes sense in a way. Gandalf warns his companions to beware of Saraman's voice, and it certainly seems to have the power to persuade and command the weak-minded and even some of the strong-minded. But perhaps it also helps him command his army from afar. He noticeably stayed far back from combat himself. Either way, this is about control and is another example of Saraman imitating Sauron and coming up short. His tower was a fraction of the size of Barador, his army a fraction of the size of Sauron's.
As Tolken costically puts it, all those arts and subtle devices for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor, so that what he made was not only a little copy, a child's model, or a slave's flattery of that vast fortress, armory, prison, furnace of great power, barador, the dark tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride, and its immeasurable strength.
Given that we don't hear any more of Saraman's ring, and it doesn't seem to have helped him at all when Gandalf broke his staff and power after his defeat, I think we can safely say that although it was a magic ring, it was a long way from being a full ring of power. I'd personally put it alongside the rings that were crafted by Kellbimbbor and Anitar in Euron in the second age in the decades and centuries that they were making rings before they perfected the art in the rings of power that we know. Gandalf called those first magical rings essays in the craft. He viewed them as not to be trifled with and potentially dangerous and definitely magical, but not game changers. In fact, he seems to have initially assumed that the magic ring Bilbo emerged with from the Misty Mountains was one such ring.
It clearly had the magical power to make him invisible and perhaps other powers, and Gandalf kept an eye on it, but that's about all. Saraman's ring was probably like that. It had power and concerned Gandalf, but not enough for him to really focus on it given his other priorities. He was seemingly less concerned by any power it might actually have than the implications of Saraman having decided to craft a ring in the first place. If Saraman's studies had led him down that path, it only meant bad things. At which point you might think that this is therefore much to do about nothing with Saraman crafting rings. But nothing could be further from the truth. Gandalf sensed the importance of the ring Saraman had made, and Tolken also mentioned it in passing in the introduction to the Lord of the Rings.
He's clear that Saraman might not yet have crafted a ring of power, but that wasn't because of a lack of ability. He just hadn't worked out all the details yet. Tolken hypothesizes what might happen if Sauron were defeated by someone using the power of the one ring and Saraman survived. The holder of the ring would clearly in time set themselves up as a dark lord themselves.
But Saraman, well, this is what we read.
Saraman, failing to get possession of the ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into ring law, and long before he would have made a great ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled ruler of Middle Earth. So yes, Saraman had made a magical ring, and yes, it probably was only just an essay in the craft, but that's not really the main point. It's that Saraman had started down a path that would lead either to his death or to him becoming a dark lord himself. He had the power to make rings of power himself, and he had some of the knowledge, but not all. That lay in Mordor, and if he ever got access to that, his ambition would know no end.
Did you know that Aragorn had a ring?
Not a ring of power per se, but definitely a ring of great importance.
Let's take a look. When we think of members of the fellowship as ringbearers, we obviously think of Frodo and Sam, who was the bearer of the one ring for a short, if crucial time in Mordor. There's also Gandalf, who bore Nia, the ring of fire, one of the three elven rings. But Aragorn also wore upon his hand for some time an elven ring, one far older than any of the rings of power, far older even than the earlier essays in the craft that Kellbimbbor and his smiths had devised in Ireon. In fact, throughout the third age, it was probably the single oldest object possessed by the race of men. It predated the aisle of Numor. It predated the awakening of the first men. It even predated the sun and moon themselves.
But it was not merely old. Throughout time, it played a pivotal part in the lives of Aragorn, his ancestors, and their ages long war against Sauron.
Aragon's ring was wrought by Nulor Smiths in Valinor sometime between the birth of Finan and the exile. According to the Sylmerelion, this ring was like to twin serpents whose eyes were emeralds and their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers that the one upheld and the other devoured. That was the badge of Finan and his house.
Finan was the youngest son of the Nulor king Finnway, of which Fafhin's house became a cadet branch. This sigil, twin snakes and a crown of flowers, was to them what the direwolf was to the Starks or the lion to the Lannisters in Game of Thrones say. We're not told exactly who crafted it, though it probably wasn't Feyenor, the greatest elven smith, as there was no love lost between him and his half-brother, FAN. Regardless, it seems that FA designed the twin snake sigil personally, and at some point he passed it to his eldest son, Finrod.
When the Nulor elves left Valinor for exile in Middle Earth, Finrod went with them, but his father, Finan stayed behind. Finrod took the ring, presumably as a symbol of his status, the heir of House Finan and its senior member in Middle Earth. It quickly became synonymous with him. After Finrod founded the underground kingdom of Nogand, he received the name Feliganduer of caves. And in turn, his ring became known as the ring of Feligand. And so it was until the year 455 of the first age when Morgoth finally broke the siege of Angband. The elves had been loosely besieging the fortress for centuries, and finally Morgoth had broken free. The fighting in that battle, which became known as the Dagor Bregalac, the battle of sudden flame, was fierce, and the House of FAin were at the center of it, taking huge losses. Finrod had raced up from Nggothrron to help with only a small company, but orcs cut off their advance and surrounded Finrod's forces on all sides. The day was saved by a human named Barahir, leading his bravest men, who cut through the orcs and formed a spear wall around Finrod and his troops. Together, the elves and men were able to make a strategic retreat south, albeit suffering heavy losses along the way. We read that thus Feligund escaped and returned to his deep fortress of Nargo. But he swore an oath of abiding friendship and aid in every need to Barahir and all his kin. And in token of his vow, he gave to Barahir his ring.
It's clear that this is not a gift given lightly. as a relic of Valinor and a symbol of House Fafen. It was precious and Barahir didn't take it lightly, treasuring it. And so it became known as the ring of Barahir.
But this was a dark time for Bolyriand and soon almost the whole land was overrun by Morgoth's forces. Eventually only Barahir and 12 of his men remained in their lands resisting, including Barahir's son, Bon. What was once a mighty clan was reduced to a small band of outlaws. But despite being so few in number, they were so effective at harrying the enemy that Morgoth himself took notice of them and commanded his chief left tenant Sauron to personally see to their destruction. Thus began way back in the first age the special enmity between Sauron and the descendants of Barahir. This will play out much later with Aragorn. As was so often his modus operandi, Sauron set his enemies against one another, deceiving one of Barahir's companions into betraying the rest. Orcs snuck up upon Barahir and his band and slew them all. It was seemingly by chance that Baron had been sent out alone on a perilous mission far from their encampment, and thus he alone survived the onslaught. Upon finding his friends and father dead, Baron pursued the orcs responsible, who he found circled around a campfire, which he snuck up to and spied upon. We read that then their captain made boast of his deeds, and he held up the hand of Barahir that he had cut off as a token for Sauron, that their mission was fulfilled, and the ring of Feligand was on that hand. Then Baron sprang from behind a rock and slew the captain. And taking the hand and the ring, he escaped.
And so the ring of Barahir came to Bon.
For four years, he kept up the guerilla warfare against Morgoth's forces singlehandedly in that region before finally being driven into Doryath, which is where Baron met Lucian, and they fell in love. We need not tell that whole tale here. But the ring of Barahir again played its role. When Bon first told Thingal that he wished to marry his daughter Lucian, Thingal would have killed him there and then, except that Bon held the ring a loft. All could see that it was Finrod Feliggon's ring.
Baron basically claimed Finrod's protection against Thingol's threats.
Thingal setting Baron the task of getting a sylmeril from Morgoth's crown, a task that was meant to be impossible was Thingal's way of getting around this. He couldn't kill Baron for the tmerity of seeking his daughter's hand in marriage, but he could send him on a fool's mission that would surely lead to his death.
Thingal, of course, refused to give Baron any aid in his quest. So, Baron headed first to Nargo and to Finrod. The ring again kept him alive. The elven archers guarding Nggothron's borders were on high alert and ready to shoot first and ask questions later. So as he traveled there, Baron, we're told, held ever a loft the ring of Feligant. And though he saw no living thing because of the stealth of the hunters, he felt that he was being watched and cried often aloud, "I am Baron, son of Barahir, friend of Feligand. Take me to the king.
Therefore the hunters slew him not. But assembling they waylaid him and commanded him to halts. But seeing the ring they bowed before him, though he was in evil plight, wild and way.
Finrod of course agreed to go with Baron. He had given his word to always come to the aid of Barahir's kin. But this was quite a tragic parting for Finrod could see what would happen. If they failed the mission, they would die.
But if they succeeded, the sons of Feyenol would never cease to try to claim the Sylmeril for themselves, bringing civil war to the elves. Indeed, we're told that Finrod had foreseen that his oath to Barahir would bring about his own doom, he had told Galadriel. And sure enough, this quest was to bring about his death. They were captured by Sauron and tortured. Eventually, Finrod died fighting a werewolf, sacrificing his own life to save Baronss. He stayed true to his oath until the end. In the end, Baron and Lucian did capture that sylmeril, and Thingal was forced to accept their marriage. And though the now famous ring is not mentioned much in the years that followed, it clearly passed from Bon to his son Dior and then his daughter Elwing and eventually to her son Elro, the twin brother of Eland and the first king of Numor.
After being the symbolic ring of the house of FAin, then Barahir's line, now it became an heirloom for the first few kings of Numor.
The fourth king, Tar Alendil, however, bequeathed it to his daughter, Selarion, since she was the eldest child. It became an heirloom then of her house.
Her son, Valandil, became the first lord of Andunier, and it was possessed by every subsequent lord down to the last, someone we all know, Elendil, the father of Ildildor.
Through Ildild, it passed to the kings of the northern line in Arnor. And after that, Arthodine, yet another dynasty, using this now millennia old ring as a symbol of their house and rule.
We next hear specifically about the ring in the year 1975 of the third age after the witch king of Angmar overthrew Arthodine, causing its last king, Arvdi, to flee north to Farel, where he wintered with the Eskimoike snowmen known as the Looth. Right before boarding the rescue boat that would soon send him to a watery grave, Arvdi paid the snowmen for their hospitality, the chief of the Loth tried to dissuade Avdi from setting sail on the ice bay in mid-March. We read, "But Avdi did not take his council. He thanked him and at parting gave him his ring, saying, "This is a thing of worth beyond your reckoning, for its ancientry alone. It has no power save the esteem in which those hold it who love my house. It will not help you. But if ever you are in need, my kin will ransom it with great store of all that you desire.
It's good that Ardu did give the ring to the Loth, for his ship sank with everyone and everything lost to the frozen seas. A tragedy, but the ring itself survived. And the Dunadine did indeed ransom it back, most likely that same year or the very next. In the Tale of Years, the chronicle entry for 1976 states, "The heirlooms of Arnor are given into the keeping of Eland, and the ring and the other heirlooms of the line of Isildur stayed with Eland at Rivendell until the time of Aragorn. We read that by the age of 20, Aragorn had proofed himself in Elrron's eyes.
That day therefore Eland called him by his true name and told him who he was and whose son and he delivered to him the heirlooms of his house. "Here is the ring of Bahrair," he said, the token of our kinship from afar. And here are the shards of Narcil. With these you may do great deeds, for I foretell that the span of your life shall be greater than the measure of men, unless evil befalls you, or you fail at the test. But the test will be long and hard. The scepter of Anuminess I withhold, for you have yet to earn it. If you're wondering, Eland did give Aragorn the scepter when he was finally crowned king of the reunited kingdom. But the ring of battle here was Aragorn's by right of his birth. So Eland gave it to him. Then Eland calls the ring of Barahir a token of our kinship from afar because Barahir was the great greatgrandfather of Eland and a slightly more distant ancestor of Aragorn with 30some extra greats tacked on. And of course the ring had once been worn by Elrron's own brothers.
The very next day, Aragorn was singing the lay of Lethon, an epic narrative poem which speaks extensively about the ring of Banahir in several places. For example, this time when Baron and Finrod meet, twist not thy oaths, oh Elvish king, like faithless Morgoth, by this ring the token of a lasting bond that Feligond of Nargo Rond once swore in love to Barahhere, who sheltered him with shield and spear, and saved him from pursuing foe on northern battlefields long ago.
Death can thou give unearned to me, but names I will not take from thee. Of Bborn's spy, or Morgoth's thr. Are these the ways of Thingal's hall? Proud of the words, and all their turned to see the jewels green that burned in Beron's ring. These gnomes had set as eyes of serpents twinned that met beneath a golden crown of flowers. The one upholds and one devours.
The full lay or song recounts the tale of Bon and Lucian, their love and their struggles against Sauron. An appropriate song for the occasion. As while Aragorn was singing it, he saw Arrowan for the first time. Much like his forebear Bon, Aragorn called out upon seeing Arrowan, Tenuvial. Tenuvial, whose likeness Arrowan admitted that she bore. And so these two descendants of Bon and Lucian met in a manner which seemed to suggest history repeating itself. Perhaps their meeting would have played out similarly regardless. But it's likely that receiving the ring and learning of his heritage played no small part in Aragon thinking to sing that song or see so readily in Arwin a resemblance to Lucian. Eventually, Aragorn gave that ring to Arwin to symbolize their betroal.
Tolken's philosophy of history is displayed in the way in which elements from earlier eras closely correspond to counterparts in later ages. But nowhere in the legendarium is such parallelism seen so clearly as in the lives of Baron and Lucian and Aragorn and Arwin. Both couples were starcrossed lovers whose desire for marriage was met by unapproving fathers. Though Elron's quest for Aragorn was much simpler than stealing a Sylmeril, he merely forbid Arwin to marry any man who was not at least the king of both Arnor and Gondor.
You can in fact argue that this was an apparently impossible task that Eland thought Aragorn could and would achieve.
Contrasted to Thingal tasking Baron with something he thought he couldn't and wouldn't. Regardless, both couples played their part in fighting against Sauron and bringing about the downfall of the dark lord in their respective ages. Both coup's unions introduced an Elvish strain of noble blood into mankind. and both ended bittersweetly with the elf maid each arguably the most beautiful in all the many millennia of elven history choosing mortality and thus leaving them with no possibility of being bodily reincarnated in the undying lands from then until the end of Arda thing and will live alongside nearly every elf ever except for their only daughters throughout these two tales of triumph and tragedy and all the long history that connects them before and after, the ring of Barahir plays an unassumingly important role. And it is very like Tolken that this ring without which Middleear history would have been very very different is not in and of itself powerful or magical. Instead, it is symbolically important. It ties so much of the story together, symbolically embodying ties of love and affection between elves and humans, the children of Aluvatar. given as a gift of friendship from Finrod to Barahir. Worn by Baron as he loved Lucian. The first elf human marriage held by Elross the half elven as he chose to live a mortal life as a king of humans. Rescued from Numor by Alendel, the elf friend given by Aragorn, the human king, to Arwin, his future elven wife. The ring does not symbolize power like the other more famous one ring of these stories and its linked rings of power. Instead, it represents love and honor and hope, persistence through the ages, self-sacrifice, and the importance of family and friendship. It was given again and again through the years as a gift of love and thanks and care. The ring of Barahir is not a magical ring.
It is not a ring of power. Instead, it represents the things Tolken thought were far more important than that.
Tolken told us that Morgoth had a ring of sorts, like Sauron had a ring of power. It was clearly very important in Tolken's world. But what was Morgoth's ring? There are many important rings throughout Tolken's legendarium, most notably the one ring and the rings of power, of course. But what about Morgoth's ring? Morgoth or Melor was the original big baddy in Tolken's legendarium and one of the volumes of Christopher Tolken's epic history of Middleear series was called Morgoth's ring. So what was it and what relation did it have to Sauron's ring? Well, when you dig into it, you'll find that Morgoth's ring is actually one of the foundational ideas or concepts in Tolken's whole creation. And to understand it, it's perhaps best to start with this quote from one of Tolken's essays.
Just as Sauron concentrated his power in the one ring, Morgoth dispersed his power into the very matter of Ardora.
Thus, the whole of Middle Earth was Morgoth's ring.
So, Tolken wants us to link the two.
Morgoth's ring and Sauron's ring. Let's start with Sauron as we already have an instinctive understanding of what he did there. In creating the one ring, he poured much of his will and power into it, concentrating it into that one ring.
So, it contained in concentrated form his essence, his life strength. There's a lot of different words we could use to describe it. But, as we know, the impact was that when he wore it, he became that much stronger. When he didn't have it, he was weaker. And when it was destroyed, then so would he be. Or at least he would lose his ability to have a physical form. Now, Sauron doesn't seem to have come up with this idea all by himself. For thousands of years, he had been the chief left tenant of Morgoth and undoubtedly learned much from him. In particular, he seemingly learned about what we might think of as ring magic. But it was probably more accurately magic in which you put a part of yourself, your power or soul as it were, into something inanimate. So, what did Morgoth put a part of his power into? Well, to go back to that quote from Tolken, the whole of Middle Earth was Morgoth's ring.
Impressive. But what does that mean?
Tolken went on to explain what Morgoth had done like this. A vaster, more perilous procedure, though of similar sort to the operation of Sauron with the rings. Thus, outside of the blessed realm, all matter was likely to have a Melor ingredient, as it were a tendency, small or great, towards Melor. They were none of them wholly free of him in their incarnate form, and their bodies had an effect upon their spirits.
So, Melor, Morgoth, thus put a part of himself into everything, not just Middle Earth, incidentally, but all of creation. As with Sauron and his ring, this therefore tied his fate to that of creation and made creation at least partly reflective of him. It was no longer this perfect creation brought forth by Aru Aluvatar and sung forth by the Aer. It all had this tendency in Tolken's language towards him and his rebellion.
In typical Tolken fashion, he had a name for this idea, Arda Mard. This is the in universe term for the fallen world.
Morgoth is in many ways an analog for Satan in Christian theology. The great enemy who rebelled and his fall caused others to fall and ultimately the whole world fell. We see this symbolically as well as practically at the start of the Sylmerelion when Morgoth or Melor as he was then known sings notes of discord during the music of the Aina. This tarnished Eru's original design which then fed into the actual creation. Eru honored the music the created imperfections and all. And Ar was marred from the start. But even then it might not have been as marred as it later became. Other beings joined Melor in his rebellion inside this new creation. Maya like Sauron and the Belrogs at first and later much of mankind. Even if Melor were reformed or cast out of Ayah entirely, these other creatures could continue to perpetuate evil. And with Morgoth pouring the greater part of his primeval spiritual potential into all the matter of the world, Arda was well and truly marred. Morgoth's discordant notes may have been the catalyst for all of this, but the fallen world would remain fallen even without him. As Finrod says, even if Melor could in any way be thrown down or cast from Ardora, still his shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and swn as a seed would wax and multiply.
The comparison between Sauron's ring and what Morgoth accomplished was not merely analogous. It was the same process, albeit on different scales, because Melor was in his beginning far more powerful. But there was a crucial difference. Tolken writes that Sauron's relatively smaller power was concentrated. Morgoth's vast power was disseminated. The whole of Middle Earth was Morgoth's ring. Sauron's power was not, for example, in gold as such, but in a particular form or shape of a particular portion of total gold.
Morgoth's power was disseminated throughout gold, if nowhere absolute, for he did not create gold. It was nowhere absent. Sauron was less powerful, but pushed his power into just one small thing. Morgoth was infinitely more powerful but pushed his power everywhere which actually helped Sauron because he could use what Morgoth had already done. We read Sauron however inherited the corruption of Aror and only spent his much more limited power on the rings. It was this Morgoth element in matter indeed which was a prerequisite for such magic and other evils as Sauron practiced with it and upon it. Because of what Morgoth did, all of Arda, Middle Earth, was marred or fallen. That empowered Sauron to do what he did. As an aside, if you've ever read tales of the first age of Middle Earth and wondered how Morgoth in his physical form was capable of being matched sometimes in combat with much lesser beings, it's because of this dissemination of his power. He wasn't the being he once was. Indeed, it's likely that Sauron, with all his power concentrated in that one ring, was eventually mightier than Morgoth, with all his power spread out across the entire world. And there is one more crucial implication of the difference in scale of Morgoth and Sauron's rings.
Though Frodo might disagree, destroying Sauron's ring was actually relatively straightforward, just dropping it into the cracks of doom. I said relatively straightforward though because consider what it would take to destroy Morgoth's ring. Tolken put it quite bluntly. The final eradication of Sauron was achievable by the destruction of the ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was possible since this required the complete disintegration of the matter of Aror.
Morgoth could only ultimately be defeated by destroying the whole world.
Obviously, this was not an option for the Valor. Perhaps it could have been before the elves awoke, but not after, unless you wanted to kill them, too.
Now, I've talked so far about Morgoth pouring his power into everything, and all of Ara was marred by the creation of his ring, but that isn't to say that it was spread evenly. Some parts of creation were more deeply affected than others. For example, gold in Middle Earth seems to always have a more evil tendency than other precious metals. Or more accurately, it seemed to readily prompt greed and other undesirable traits. Dragon sickness, an obsession with and love for gold, was a real thing in Middle Earth. On the other hand, a man, the undying lands were much less affected by Morgoth's ring than other parts of the world, which is as you'd expect. But this isn't to say that they were not affected at all. When Miel gave birth to Feyenor, Feyenor's life force was so strong that Muriel never recovered and voluntarily died going to the halls of Mandos. This was not just a tragedy for the elves, but against the very nature of how a man should work, because a small bit of aram had crept in. What hope is there then if nowhere in air, not even the blessed realm, is wholly free of Morgoth, even long after he was thrust out into the abyss. When Finrod realized this, he was initially dismayed.
Finrod, however, sees now that as things were, no created thing or being in aror or in all air was powerful enough to counteract or heal evil. That is to subdue Melor in his present person, reduced though that was, and the evil that he had dissipated and sent out from himself into the very structure of the world. It is for this reason that the elves concluded that the end of Ardora would have to be catastrophic, as the only solution would be to destroy Morgoth's ring even more totally than Sauron's, melting down all the atoms and elements everywhere. That would be necessary to achieve Ardora healed, a world like Ardora unmarred in that it would not be stained with the shadow of Melor, but better. The elves weren't sure whether this new world at the end of time would be the same world put back together but cleared of Morgoth's influence or a completely new world. But it didn't really matter. What matters is that this is when they would see creation as Aru Oluvatar intended, perfect and unmarred.
Despite being the big baddy of Tolken's legendarium, the narrative does not always convey to the casual reader the extent of Melor's threat because we see him mostly after he has created his ring and disseminated his power into the world. We see Morgoth wrestled by Tolkus, crippled by Fingin, lulled by Lucian, and defeated not by Mane but merely his herald Aeon. In that light, he seems of a kind with other big baddies. But he isn't. Not by a long way. Morgoth is not merely different in degree, but in kind. He is not just more evil than another baddie. He is the originator of evil. Moreover, every subsequent evil is not simply a consequence of his original sin, but actively the result of his spirit still poisoning everything and everyone everywhere. Even Sauron's one ring is simply part of Morgoth's ring. its Morgul magic working because Morgoth spirit made such sorcery possible. Years after Sauron was defeated, other dark lords would rise because all of Middle Earth was marred. Every time Frodo contended with the temptation to wear the one ring, he was contending with Morgoth, no less than Sauron. Morgoth, who marred Arda, making the dark magic of the ring work, which is all a bit depressing really. Evil may be defeated, but it will always spring back somewhere else. Where is the hope that Tolken always brings us? It's in the hope that the elves had of Ardora healed. When Morgoth is finally defeated, that defeat will bring the world as it should have been. And this adds another layer to the story that we know in the Lord of the Rings. Destroying Sauron's ring and ending his rule is not merely a short-term defeat for evil only for it to rise again elsewhere. It is foreshadowing of that greater victory at the end of time when Morgoth's ring shall be destroyed. At the end of all things, Sam asked, "Is everything sad going to come untrue?"
No, it wasn't. Not then, but it will.
When Morgoth's ring is destroyed, Tolken paints a picture of Arda healed in which everything sad really does come untrue.
That is the true end of Tolken's legendarium, the ultimate downfall of the Lord of the Ring, Morgoth's ring, and the return of the king, of which the other was but a glimpse.
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There's a link to my Patreon page on the right of your screen. That's all for this time. Thanks for watching. I'll see you again soon.
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