How Powerful is The One Ring?

How Powerful is The One Ring?

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 hi everyone this is Robert welcome to indeep geek on this channel we cover tolken legendarium in full as well as other great fantasy worlds Like A Song of Ice and Fire And The Witcher welcome 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 middlee Saron 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 saon is patient of little else positive he re-entered Society in Disguise as anatar meaning the Lord of gifts an emissary of the Valor and tried to ingratiate himself with the elves we read in the selan that gilgalad and Elon 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 Aron by Kell brimo the great Smith who was eager to learn what anatar could teach him and so anatar saon moved into Aron 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 ring making 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 from Saron 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 saon 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 silmarilion secretly Saron 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 for 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 underes ating 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 gadriel elrond and gandal because they are a separate case being made without sauron’s direct involvement though with the same magical technology he had taught Kell brimo 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 Aron 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 dwarf 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 saon couldn’t govern their thoughts as he had hoped the good news for saon 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 saon used to create the One Ring The Elven smiths in oron who had forged the 16 rings of power heard in their minds saon 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 Edition 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 Ryme 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 siron 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 1 131 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 Elish 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 pressage 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 nasgul for what they really are at weathertop slows Decay and aging hence golum living for well over 500 years and Bilbo similarly being long lived 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 Saron 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 Haw rux from Harry Potter putting a part of your soul into an inadequate object but more so the one ring is not just a backup policy to ensure Saron can stay alive if someone kills his mortal body Saron doesn’t need that he’s a mea 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 Saron 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 raor 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 usurp 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 Tolen 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 world conquering Gardener bless him when saon saw Aragon 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 in with Sauron remained Gandalf and Galadriel were not feigning Temptation or exaggerating how powerful they would be with the ring tolken mentioned it almost in passing in the quote we just read but a sufficiently powerful new owner could even become master of all Saron had learned or done since the making of the One Ring of course they would probably be able to usurp him themselves which isn’t to say that the ring is sensient tolken didn’t go that far but gandal 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 iseler 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 aru the one God of tolk’s world or fate if you rather the ring may have intentionally abandoned and golum in an effort to get back to saon 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 Saron himself would be in tolk’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 ODed druin and he controlled access to that and even if someone wanted to destroy it they wouldn’t be able to because the 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 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 if you’d like to see more videos on the world of JRR Tolen and the Lord of the Rings please click on the link to the playlist on the left of your screen or if you’d like to support this channel thank you there’s a link to my patreon page on the right of your screen thanks for watching that’s all for this time I’ll see you again soon

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