It’s rather like trying to get into AOL dialup.
Let’s put a twist to the question. Saurman, by all accounts, studied much of the crafting of the rings and ring-lore. If Saurman had the Ring of Fire, would he knew about the One Ring? (did Tolkien ever address this?)
Considering the kind of folks Sauron deals with, I’d try “Cisco” and “Cisco”.
Appendix B in The Return of the King adds that there was warfare all over Middle Earth.
Lorien was attacked (from Dol Goldur) while both Mirkwood and the lands surrounding the Lonely Mountain were assailed by Sauron’s trooops and allies.
No doubt Radagast was helping the forces of Good at these places.
It’s interesting to consider that Gandalf may have inspired the events of the Hobbit to avoid Sauron and Smaug both attacking…
Interesting to consider? There’s an excerpt in the appendices, if my mind is not playing tricks on me, in which Gandalf pretty much says right out that Smaug was on his mind for this very reason, and that’s part of what motivated the whole bit with helping Thorin find his burglar.
There’s one heck of a firewall.
You DO! You totally DO!
I’m not going to speak for him, but when I quote an excerpt, I don’t hit the “Quote” button. I copy and paste that excerpt and click the quote tool (or just type the tags manually). It saves time.
If true, that would leave only the two blue wizards who went into the east unaccounted for. The conventional wisdom, based on some posthumously published scribblings of Tolkien, is that they strayed from righteousness and founded cults that persisted after the fall of Sauron (whether Tolkien meant to identify these with any actual eastern religions is unclear). However, subsequent scribblings indicate that the blues were in fact fighting the good fight, simply in a different arena.
My personal approach is just to let the imagine roam. Anything’s possible if it’s doesn’t contradict what’s defined in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.
I don’t to put too much stock in the volumes of material published after Tolkien’s death. As Middle-earth was a work in progress and the author was constantly tinkering with it and changing his mind, notes, rough drafts and half-finished stories can hardly be considered definitive. (I make exception for his letters, as they were obviously intended for other people to read and he was often just clarifying things that were implied in the published works.)
Eh, seems to simple. He should have rated at least a mention in the main text. We don’t really know if he was helping the elves at Lorien or near Mirkwood. He may well have been sleeping it off somewhere with those pesky eagles.
IMO, Tolkien should have developed the wizards more. I am less than interested in the swirly mists of nether being that is Sauron et al. YMMV, of course.
Quoth Skald:
What Munch said. I prefer to type out the tags manually, so adding the name is actually an extra step. And besides, I like my format for putting the name in better than how the board does it anyway.
I do usually try to put in the quoth when it would be unclear who said it, and probably should have, in this case, because your post was a bit of a ways back, but I apparently forgot in this case.
Who are the other 4 wizards anyway? We have Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, and Radagast the Brown. That leaves 4 power range… I mean, 4 wizards unaccounted for.
I agree with the general idea that while no-one with great power was wearing the one ring, it was inactive and therefore incognito?
One can simply log into mordor, but sauron will be watching from his eyebook.
OK, let me take off the ring that apparently made my previous post invisible.
There were only five wizards. The two blue wizards went into the east, beyond the portion of Middle-earth documented in The Lord of the Rings. What they did there and what ultimately became of them was never made clear.
Oh, and as for what Gandalf knew and when: In FotR chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”, we have him say
Later, at the Council of Elrond, he reveals that he had known for a while (but not until after The Hobbit) that the Three, Seven, and Nine all bore gems, but that the One was unadorned.
At some point on Weathertop, Frodo confronted the Nazgul while wearing the Ring, didn’t he? If he had known better what the Ring was, could he have controlled them and turned them away from Sauron’s service?
I doubt Aragorn could have turned them away using the Ring.
No. Because Sauron held their rings. At the time Frodo met them, they had faded so completely that they no longer needed to wear the rings to walk unseen. Sauron held their rings himself–kind of like keeping their souls hostage, I think.
One thing I don’t recall being clarified: Were the Nine and the Seven of different “families” as a result of their manufacture, or were they simply grouped that way afterward, since Sauron doled out 9 to men and 7 to dwarves? Did they have different properties from each other, or were the differences negligible? Are we talking 16 fairly similar rings, 7 similar rings and 9 similar rings, or 16 utterly dissimilar rings?
Tolkien wrote in one of his letters that after Frodo claimed the ring at Mount Doom, the Ringwraiths would not have taken it by force but would have deceived him into staying there until Sauron showed up to reclaim his property. So actually controlling them seems out of the question. (Although things would be different if Frodo had the opportunity and the desire to build up his ability to master others – Ringwraiths would just not be the place to start.
So the only question is could he even have held them at bay? Doubtful, given that the ring had not been in his possession (or vice versa) as long as it would be when he reached Mount Doom. But even then they might have betrayed him by encouraging him to face Sauron and attempting to overthrow him.
ETA: The 16 rings would have been virtually identical. They were originally made for use by the elves. Distributing them to men and dwarfs was Plan B after the elf-lords caught on.
But wasn’t it “One Ring to rule them all”?