One Ring

Purpose The One Ring was forged by the Dark Lord Sauron during the Second Age to gain dominion over the free peoples of Middle-earth. In his deceptive disguise as Annatar, or "Lord of Gifts", he aided the Elven smiths of Eregion and their leader Celebrimbor in the making of the Rings of Power. He then secretly and deceitfully forged the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Sauron intended it to be the most powerful of all Rings, able to rule and control those who wore the others. Since the other Rings were powerful on their own, Sauron was obliged to place much of his own power into the One to achieve his purpose. Creating the Ring simultaneously strengthened and weakened Sauron. With the Ring, he could control the power of all the other Rings, and thus he was significantly more powerful after its creation than before; but by binding his power within the Ring, Sauron became dependent on it to survive. When Isildur cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, it was burning hot, its inscription legible; he transcribed it before it faded. Gandalf learned of the secret inscription from Isildur's account, and heated Frodo's ring to reveal it, proving it to be the One Ring. Gandalf recited the inscription in Black Speech at the Council of Elrond, causing everyone to tremble: Internal history Second Age After forging the ring, Sauron waged war on the Elves. He destroyed Eregion and killed Celebrimbor, the maker of the three Elf-rings. King Tar-Minastir of Númenor sent a great fleet to Middle-earth, and with this aid Gil-galad destroyed Sauron's army and forced Sauron to return to Mordor. Tolkien wrote in a 1958 letter that the surrender was both "voluntary and cunning" so he could gain access to Númenor. Sauron used the Númenóreans' fear of death to turn them against the Valar, and manipulate and deceive them into worshipping his former master, Morgoth (Sauron called him Melkor, Morgoth's original name), with human sacrifice. By this time Sauron had regained much of his power, and the Dark Tower in Mordor had been rebuilt. Gollum, released from Mordor, was captured by Aragorn. Gandalf learned from Gollum that Sauron now knew where to find the Ring. During the quest, Frodo gradually fell under the Ring's power. When he and his faithful servant Sam Gamgee discovered Gollum on their trail and "tamed" him into guiding them to Mordor, Frodo began to feel a bond with the wretched, treacherous creature, while Gollum warmed to Frodo's kindness and made an effort to keep his promise. Gollum however gave in to the Ring's temptation, and betrayed Frodo to the spider Shelob. Believing Frodo to be dead, Sam bore the Ring himself for a short time and experienced the temptation it induced. Sam rescued Frodo from Orcs at the Tower of Cirith Ungol. The hobbits, followed by Gollum, reached Mount Doom, where Frodo was overcome by the Ring's power and claimed it for himself. At that moment, Gollum bit off his finger, taking back the Ring, but, gloating and dancing incautiously over the edge of the precipice, he and the Ring fell into the fires of Mount Doom. The Ring and Sauron's power were destroyed, causing Sauron to be reduced to a permanent shadow who could never gain power or have influence in Middle-earth again. Powers The Ring's primary power was control of the other Rings of Power and domination of the wills of their users. The Ring extended the life of a mortal possessor indefinitely, preventing natural aging. Gandalf explained that it did not grant new life, but that the possessor merely continued until life became unbearably wearisome. and Sauron's 'fair' body was destroyed in the downfall of Númenor. He may not have worn it at the time, but he "took [it] up again" when his spirit returned to Mordor. Like the Nine Rings, the One Ring physically corrupted mortals who wore it, eventually transforming them into wraiths. Hobbits were more resistant to this than Men: Gollum, who possessed the ring for 500 years, did not become wraith-like because he rarely wore the Ring. To master the Ring's capabilities, a Ring bearer would need a well-trained mind, a strong will, and great native power. Those with weaker minds, such as hobbits and lesser Men, would gain little from the Ring, let alone realize its full potential. Even for one with the necessary strength, it would have taken time to master the Ring's power sufficiently to overthrow Sauron. The Ring did not render its bearer omnipotent. Three times Sauron suffered military defeat while bearing the Ring, first by Gil-galad in the War of Sauron and the Elves, then by Ar-Pharazôn when Númenórean power so overawed his armies that they deserted him, and at the end of the Second Age with his personal defeat by Gil-galad and Elendil. Tolkien indicates in a speech by Elrond that such a defeat would not have been possible in the waning years of the Third Age, when the strength of the free peoples was greatly diminished. There were no remaining heroes of the stature of Gil-galad, Elendil, or Isildur; the strength of the Elves was fading and they were departing to the Blessed Realm; and the Númenórean kingdoms had either declined or been destroyed, and had few allies. Fate of the Ring-bearers Of the Ring-bearers, three were alive after the Ring's destruction: the hobbits Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam. Bilbo, having borne the Ring the longest, had his life much prolonged. Frodo was scarred physically and mentally by his quest. Sam, having only briefly kept the Ring, was affected the least. In consideration of the trials Bilbo and Frodo faced, the Valar allowed them to travel to the Undying Lands, accompanying Galadriel, Elrond, and Gandalf. Sam is also said to have been taken to the Undying Lands, after living in the Shire for many years and raising a large family. Tolkien emphasized that the restorative sojourn of the Ring-bearers in the Undying Lands would not have been permanent. As mortals, they would eventually die and leave the world of Eä. == Concept and creation ==

The Ring began as a plot device, not a central narrative theme. As told in The Hobbit, Bilbo found the Ring while lost in the tunnels near Gollum's lair. In the first edition, Gollum offers to surrender the Ring to Bilbo as a reward for winning the Riddle Game. When Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, he realized that the Ring's grip on Gollum would never permit him to give it up willingly. He therefore revised The Hobbit: in the second edition, after losing the Riddle Game to Bilbo, Gollum went to get his "Precious" to help him kill and eat Bilbo, but found the Ring missing. From Bilbo's last question—"What have I got in my pocket?"—Gollum guessed correctly that Bilbo had found the Ring. Gollum sought Bilbo through the caves, not realizing that Bilbo had discovered the Ring's power of invisibility and was following him to the cave's mouth. Bilbo escaped Gollum and the goblins by remaining invisible, but he chose not to tell Gandalf and the dwarves that the Ring had made him invisible. Instead, he told them a story that followed the first edition: that Gollum had given him the Ring and shown him the way out. Gandalf was immediately suspicious of the Ring, and later forced the real story from Bilbo. == Origins ==

Scholars have identified numerous more or less plausible sources for, or at least parallels with, the One Ring, acknowledging that Tolkien may have made use of multiple influences, and had intentionally set about to update the myths. Norse mythology and Wagner 's Der Ring des Nibelungen, as seen here in Josef Hoffman's 1876 set design for Das Rheingold, though they disagree on its influence on Tolkien. Tolkien's use of the Ring was influenced by Norse mythology. While at King Edward's School in Birmingham, he read and translated from the Old Norse in his free time. One of his first Norse purchases was the Völsunga saga. While a student, he read the only available English translation, the 1870 rendering by William Morris of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement and Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon. That saga and the Middle High German Nibelungenlied were coeval texts that used the same ancient sources. Both of them provided some of the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series, Der Ring des Nibelungen, featuring in particular a magical but cursed golden ring and a broken sword reforged. In the Völsunga saga, these items are respectively Andvaranaut and Gram, and they correspond broadly to the One Ring and the sword Narsil (reforged as Andúril). Tolkien dismissed critics' direct comparisons to Wagner, telling his publisher, "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." Some critics hold that Tolkien's work borrows so liberally from Wagner that it exists in the shadow of Wagner's. Tom Shippey and other researchers hold an intermediary position, stating that the authors indeed used the same source materials, but that Tolkien was indebted to some of the original developments, insights and artistic uses of those sources that first appeared in Wagner, and sought to improve upon them. Curse on a ring-thief at temple of Nodens In 1928, a 4th-century pagan mystery cult temple was excavated at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire. The archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler asked Tolkien to investigate a Latin inscription there, which mentioned the theft of a ring, with a curse upon its thief: The curse is often associated with the Ring of Silvianus, a Roman gold ring of around the 4th century, found near a former Roman town, Silchester. The ring has an inscription naming Senicianus. Shippey thought this "a pivotal influence" on Tolkien's Middle-earth, combining as it did a god-hero, a ring, dwarves, and a silver hand. The scholar of English literature John M. Bowers writes that the name of the Elven-smith Celebrimbor, who forged the Elf-rings, is the Sindarin for "Silver Hand". File:Roman Temple - geograph.org.uk - 1318760.jpg|Tolkien visited the temple of Nodens at a place called "Dwarf's Hill" and translated an inscription with a curse upon the thief of a ring. It may have inspired his dwarves, mines, rings, and Celebrimbor "Silver-Hand", the Elven-smith who forged Rings of Power. Parallels with Plato's Ring of Gyges in The Republic finds the magic ring, setting up a moral dilemma. Ferrara, 16th century A source that Tolkien "might have borrowed" In contrast, Tolkien's Ring actively exerts an evil force that destroys the morality of the wearer. The Tolkien scholar Eric Katz, without suggesting that Tolkien was aware of the Ring of Gyges, writes that "Plato argues that such [moral] corruption will occur, but Tolkien shows us this corruption through the thoughts and actions of his characters". == Analysis ==

Applicability not allegory Tolkien stated that The Lord of the Rings was not a point-by-point allegory, particularly not of political events of his time such as the Second World War. At the same time he contrasted 'applicability' which "resides in the freedom of the reader", with 'allegory' which resides in "the purposed domination of the author". One aspect of such applicability, which the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes is rarely picked up by readers, is that Tolkien chose dates of symbolic importance in Christianity for the quest to destroy the Ring. It began in Rivendell on 25 December, the date of Christmas, and ended on Mount Doom on 25 March, a traditional Anglo-Saxon date for the crucifixion. Object of the quest 's analysis of The Lord of the Rings, as a combined Quest (to destroy the Ring) and Journey (as a series of Tableaux of places in Middle-earth); the two support each other, and must interlock tightly to do so Addiction to power The Ring offers power to its wearer, and progressively corrupts the wearer's mind to evil. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey applies to it Lord Acton's 1887 statement that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men". He notes that the opinion is distinctively modern, and that other modern authors such as George Orwell with Animal Farm (1945), William Golding with Lord of the Flies (1954), and T. H. White with The Once and Future King (1958) similarly wrote about the corrupting effects of power. When the critic Colin Manlove described Tolkien's attitude to power as inconsistent, arguing that the supposedly overwhelming Ring was handed over easily enough by Sam and Bilbo, and had little effect on Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli; Shippey replies in "one word" that the explanation is simple: The Ring is addictive, increasing in effect with exposure. Other scholars concur about its addictive nature. ==Adaptations==

. In the 1981 BBC Radio serial of The Lord of the Rings, the Nazgûl chant the Ring-inscription; the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's sound effects for the Nazgul and the Black Speech of Mordor have been described as "nightmarish". In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the wearer of the Ring is portrayed as moving through a shadowy realm where everything is distorted. The effects of the Ring on Bilbo and Frodo are obsessions that have been compared with drug addiction; actor Andy Serkis, who played Gollum, cited drug addiction as an inspiration for his performance. The actual ring used for the films was designed and created by Jens Hansen Gold & Silversmith in Nelson, New Zealand, and was based on a simple wedding ring. Polygon highlighted that A tabletop Middle-earth roleplaying game, The One Ring, was manufactured by Cubicle 7; a new edition is planned by a partnership of Sophisticated Games and Free League Publishing from 2020. Cards representing the One Ring were included in a Lord of the Rings-themed Magic: The Gathering set, of which one copy was unique, printed with its own artwork and Tengwar text. That unique card was purchased by the singer Post Malone for US$2 million, making it one of the most expensive CCG cards. == References ==