Ok, I have a confession to make. At the ripe old age of 20, I have just finished reading the LOTR for the first time. I have about a million questions and maybe I’ll get around to starting a cafe thread if ever have the time but for right now I just want to ask one quick question that has been burning in my mind almost since I started reading the book: If Sauron made the ring in the first place…::drumroll::…Why didn’t he just make another one?!!
[sup]btw I thought the LOTR was one of the best books I’ve ever read and I can’t wait for the movie, I’ve seen interviews with Peter Jackson and he doesn’t look like the type that will screw it up so let’s keep our fingers crossed.
I don’t know that there is a single quick and easy answer to this question, and I expect this thread will lead to all sorts of discussion about the LoTR. Why don’t we just move this to Cafe Society right away.
bibliophage
moderator, GQ
Sauron invested the greater part of his own native strength into the ruling ring, in order for it to rule the others. He had no leftover power to put into another one. He was still mighty on his own, but not nearly as before.
QtM
and then only by turning the power of the One Ring to the dark side would he and his son be able to rule the … oh. sorry. Wrong thread.
Plus, he had built all of the Other Rings with a backdoor which said, “the wearer of That One Ring can control your mind.”
I thought the Elves made the other rings?
Forging the One Ring was a big, big mistake on Sauron’s part. The Ring wasn’t enough to help him beat Gil-Galad and Isildur, and then it wasn’t necessary for him to beat Gondor later in the Third Age. He was winning, and then his own Ring undoes all his plans.
Re Cisco, the Elves made three of the rings (Nenya, Vilya, and Narya), and thus they were partly free of the power of the One. I don’t think they made the Nine for the men or the Seven for the dwarves.
I don’t know why Sauron didn’t make another, but I’m guessing Quagdop’s right and he didn’t have the power to make another without actually wearing the first.
Sauron came to the elves in the guise of an elf (Annatar?) and taught them how, not bothering to point out a few critical weaknesses. Then he scuttled back to his fortress of solitude and forged the one ring.
I like to imagine the look of surprise on his face when he put on the One Ring and tried to command the Dwarven Kings to submit to his bidding…
“SUBMIT!”
“Bugger off, we don’t take orders from you.”
“Whoops! Give those back, I’ll find somebody weaker-willed to wear them…”
The wearers of the elven rings recognized Sauron for what he was when Sauron donned the ruling ring. Rather than submit to him, they took their rings off. These rings were not made by Sauron himself, but since they were made with his knowledge and guidence, they were subject to the rule of the One.
Qadgop wrote:
They didn’t take them off, certainly not permanently. Just in the Rings books alone, we see Elrond, Galadriel, and Gandalf wearing Vilya, Nenya, and Narya respectively. Cirdan had Narya before Gandalf did. We know that they wore and used them – Galadriel implies that Lorien is maintained partially through the power of her ring.
Could it be that the original wearers of the Three (GilGalad, Cirdan, and Galadriel, I think) took them off and only put them back on when it was known that Sauron was no longer in possession of it?
“It,” meaning the One Ring obviously. Preview is my friend. I should remember that.
I think it took a long time to make a Ring of that power anyway (several hundred or even 1000 years?) And I think Sauron needed to concentrate on making the ring, so he would be vulnerable.
Also, someone like Gandalf or Saruman could probably destroy him using the ring. (To explain why this didn’t happen, it should be noted that if Gandalf destroyed Sauron using the Ring then Gandalf would become evil like Sauron.)
I think the reason he didn’t make another Ring is because a)much of his power was in the ring and b)even if he could make another Ring using his reduced powers, it would take a long time and c)meanwhile Gandalf or some other person could use the Ring to destroy him. Oh, and lest we forget d)if the Ring was thrown into the forge in which it was created, Sauron would be destroyed (as happened in the book).
Once Sauron knew that the Ring wasn’t lost forever and that it may have fallen into the hands of his enemies, he had to search for it to prevent his destruction. In any case, if he thought he could find it then he certainly would have looked for it. Wouldn’t you rather find the term paper you thought you lost when your computer crashed than re-write it from scratch?
No. Actually, the three elven rings weren’t tainted, since Sauron never touched them (it’s clearly stated somewhere). So, Sauron had no powers on the wearers of the elven rings.
Thinking twice, it seems to me that the wearer of the One ring could locate the wearers of the elven rings. And also, they lose their power when the One is destroyed. Perhaps there’s some contradictions in the books, actually…
Totally out of context, but I’m wondering if Ethilrist’s handle has something to do with “Runequest”?
Wtf? I just got done reading the “Rings” books and I didn’t see that. What did I miss? I remember thinking for some reason that Elrond had a ring, though I don’t remember seeing anything specifically saying he did. I know Galadriel had a ring. But Gandalf? Where does it say Gandalf had a ring? And how do you know the names of the rings? I thought I read the books quite thoroughly but obviously I missed quite a bit…
The Return of the King, p. 310 in the 1965 Houghton Mifflin edition (second to last page of chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”).
Galadriel’s ring Nenya preserved Lothlorien, and Elrond’s ring Vilya preserved Rivendell, both of which faded with the destruction of the One. But I’m damned if I know what Gandalf actually used Narya for, or what, if anything, was lost when Narya lost its power.
Well, couldn’t it be that Narya is what made Gandalf so powerful?
Clairobscur…
Their power wasn’t destroyed, but it was lessened. That’s why all the Elves had to leave. Those that remained would fade away.
Danimal…
Preserved the Shire.
Narya was the ring of fire. WRT fire Gandalf:
Showed amazing control of fireworks and smoke rings.
Lights a fire in the middle of a blizzard in ‘Fellowship’,
Produces lights and scorch marks on weathertop where he fought off the Nazgul.
Ignites pine cones in ‘The Hobbit’
Confronts a Balrog with a warning about his being the ‘weilder of the secret fire’.
Survives several days locked in close combat with a flaming Balrog with minimal injuries.
We could reasonably attribute all these to Narya.
I also rememebr reading somewhere about the ring’s ability to kindle and strengthen the fires of the heart, but i can’t rememebr whether it was the Silmarillion or UT. I assume this refers to Gandalf convincing Bilbo to ditch the one ring and persuading the king of Rohan to ditch Wormtongue.
Minimal injuries? Minimal injuries?! He died!! I’d call that pretty maximal, if you ask me! He had to go back to Valinor to get a whole new body!!