First: What can the One Ring do besides make one a leader, invisible, and ageless?
Why didn’t the Fellowship get a metal box, drop the Ring into it, and seal it shut?
What was with the buried Uruk-Hai in the movie?
And, my main question, talk to me about interbreeding? What can breed with what?
Can orcs breed with elves? If so, what would the resulting child look like?
With the one ring, a powerful being could bend others to his or her own will. It seems to grant power according to the current power of the wearer.
If they tried to hide it, the one ring would eventually be found. Sauron has a crystal ball that lets him see past present and that yet to be, he could well have found it in the box, or saw them hiding it. Also due to the corrupting nature of the ring, those who knew the location were likely to go back and retrieve it. There is also the chance that it could have been stumbled upon. On top of that, Sauron was a big problem then. There was no way to attack his power without destroying the ring.
Interbreeding. Some say that orcs are elves that were captured and bred to be fould creatures of the dark. Elves can breed with men and orcs can breed with men, so likely elves can breed with orcs. Hobbits are probably a derivation of men and so could also breed with men, orcs, and elves. It is unlikely that dwarves or ents could breed with other races. Elves and men and children of the creator directly and no others had part in their making, but ents were born of the song of Yavanna when the creator and the Ainur sung of creation. Dwarves were crafted by Aule after the world was made, but the creator blessed them and gave them independent will.
Arg. Lemme rephrase: Why wasn’t the One Ring carried in a box, to prevent any temptation for misuse? Hell, why not just let an Ent or someone else fingerless carry it?
What would happen if Frodo, upon capturing Smeagol in TTT, had tied him up, cut off his hands, put the Ring-neclace on him, and marched him into the Cracks of Doom at Sting-point? Why didn’t he?
The mere presence of the ring is a temptation to those around it. So if it was in a box near you, you would be tempted to open it. If you didn’t know it was in the box…then you might lose the box. Or Sauron might find it. (And Sauron and his minions are planning for the Long Term. They don’t care if it takes a thousand years or two for the ring to turn up.)
And Ents have fingers–anywhere between 11 and 20.
Frodo had too much pity for Gollum to torment him by letting him wear the ring. (And just wait until the climax of Return of the King, to see how this plays out.)
That’s a good question. Does the Ring have any control or influence over someone physically unable to wear it? The Ringwraiths obviously can’t wear it (they don’t have bodies, sort of), but the Ring has control over them. What about a handless elf? Would the Ring just grow in size to be worn like a hat or a belt?
Hmm. It ocurrs to me that they’d have to cut off more than Gollum’s hands to prevent him from wearing the ring.
He has toes, of course.
Now that I think about it, the Ring would just slip over your head, or arm, or leg, or waist or wherever it could fit. Hell, Jack Black made do with another appendage in the Easter Egg on the Extended version…
(bolding mine)
Tolkien, for one…
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Not specified. Tolkien didn’t spell out the powers of the ring. But the main powers were the ability to utterly dominate the wearers of the other rings, to dominate others in general, to pass unmarked, and to defeat death. I’m sure Sauron could do many other things with it. Nobody else got the chance to experiment much with it, for obvious reasons.
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Because Sauron would eventually find it if you tried to hide it our throw it away. The ring was calling to him. Even without the ring, he was winning the war. And the ring has a will of its own, so if someone suitable came across the sealed box with the ring, they’d probably get the idea to smash open the box and see what was inside. The ring has power over people, even if they aren’t touching it.
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That scene comes from the movie, it isn’t in the books. Saruman created the Uruk-Hai. In the books it is just stated that he “bred” them, exactly how is unspecified. In the movies, I guess he grew them in slime pits.
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Elves and men have intermarried and produced children, but only a few times in all of middle earth history. Beren and Luthien, Arwen and Aragorn, and Tuor and Idril. And you couldn’t really have “half-elves”. The children of Elf-Human pairings had to chose whether to be Elves or Men. The Uruk-Hai are supposed to be crossbred men and orcs, and there are also Orc-like Men doing Saruman’s bidding. There are no canon mentions of Dwarves interbreeding with any other species. It is stated that Hobbits are a kind of Man, but no mention is made of any Hobbits interbreeding with anything other than Hobbits.
It is stated in the Silmarillion:
It would therefore seem that an interbreeding between an Elf and an Orc would be an Orc of some sort, since Orcs are corrupted Elves. I don’t think it is ever stated anywhere whether Orcs are ageless like Elves. But Orcs hate their own lives, and are often glad to throw them away in suicidal attacks.
What about the half-elves who died/disappeared before being presented with the choice? Beren and Luthien’s kid (whose name I forget) and Elrond’s parents, IIRC.
Regarding the powers of the ring:
While unspecified, we do know that it can be used to do more than dominate those of lesser wills. It is clearly stated that the foundations of Barad-dur were laid down with the power of the ring, and hence could not be destroyed while the power of the ring lasted. (Don’t have the book handy, will provide a cite on request. I believe this was mentioned during the council of Elrond, but I could be mistaken)
Of the western characters, I suspect that the white council may have had an idea of what could be done, in particular Elrond & Galadriel, as they had lesser rings that were used to material purpose (Elrond at Rivendell, Galadriel in Lorien). However, much as Saruman researched, there was truly only one being in Middle Earth that knew the full power of the ring: Sauron its creator. As the story was not told from his side…
Personally I think Tolkien left it intentionally vague, and I prefer it that way. It is a symbol of the power of evil, and that alone is enough to merit its destruction.
Elrond’s parents were Beren ‘n’ Luthien’s kid and Tuor ‘n’ Idril’s kid. They chose to be Elves and fly the Silmarillion ship. Elrond also decided to be an elf. Elros decided to be a human and founded Nunemor (was the first king and ancestor of Aragorn). Arwen decided to become human. looks around I think that was everyone.
lemur866 says:
I think you’re referring to the lines of the high elves which had few marriages with men. Luthien was the daughter of Elu Thingol, who had been to Valinor and seen the light before the Sun and Moon, and hence was accorded Calaquendi status. Idril was herself born in Valinor. Arwen herself was more of Calquendi than Moriquendi status, being descended of Luthien, Idril & Galadriel, but also of the Moriquendi like Celeborn (Yes, I know that in unfinished works JRRT converted Celeborn into a Teleri) and Nimloth.
But there were unions of the Moriquendi and men, the most notable being one of the handmaidens of Nimrodel and an ancestor of Imrahil of Dol Amroth. JRRT made reference to other, uncited unions in a number of his notes.
Nitpick concluded.
Not exactly. Elwing was Elrond’s mom, but she was the daughter of Dior Eluchil, who was the son of Beren and Luthien, and his wife Nimloth. And Elwing didn’t sail Vingilot in the heavens, but stayed in her tower on the shores of Aman, and awaited Eärendil’s return.
Can’t you guys keep these Eldar/Edain genealogies straight?
Slight correction:
The parents of Elrond & Elros were Earendil & Elwing. Elwing was the daughter of Dior, child of Beren & Luthien. The other two you want to account for are Elladan & Elrohir, brothers to Arwen. Their fate is not entirely clear. A reference in (I believe) Lost Tales indicates that they dwelled for some time in Rivendell during the Fourth Age.
On preview I see that half of this nitpic has been addressed, but not the sons of Elrond.
He phrased it in the published works as a likely but unconfirmed rumor.
When? If she was human from the get-go then what immortality did she have to give up for Aragorn? Does doing “the elven thang” for a couple of hundred years and then giving it up really count as having to choose based on your parentage? Or could a “full blood” elf not make the choice to give up eternal life and live (and die) as a human?
To be clear, the choice of Luthien which ulitmately devolved to a choice by Arwen was not a power the elves had inherently. In the case of Luthien, the choice was forced upon her after Beren’s and her own first death. She was given the choice of remaining elvish and dwelling in Aman, or to become mortal and return for a brief time to middle earth before passing with him beyond the “confines of this world”. This choice was given to her by Manwe, king of the valar, and this power was given to him by Eru. It is clearly implied in the text of the Silmarillion that none on Arda (Earth) had the power to change the fates of human or elf without such ‘divine’ intervention. She choose the latter.
Their child, Dior, was considered fully elvish and never had a choice. To answer another question, Dior did not disappear, he was killed by the sons of Feanor after the ruin of Menegroth. His death was the result of refusing to yield to them the silmaril that Beren & Luthien won from Morgoth.
In the case of Tuor, he was presumably rewarded for his role in service of Ulmo, and was numbered with the Noldor after he sailed to Aman.
Earendil was also given a choice at the end of the first age, a choice that was specifically limited to he and his children. He chose to become fully elvish at the wish of Idril. The choices of his children have been noted above.
I think you could make a good case that Arwen’s choice was not really that of Elrond’s, but rather the same choice made by Luthien. Given Tolkien’s obvious intention to counterpoint Beren & Luthien with Arwen & Aragorn, this makes sense. Where this runs into some trouble are some textual clues that the offspring of Elrond may also have had a choice while he remained on middle earth. Unanswered also is how the sons of Elrond could remain on middle earth for a time as elves if this is so.
Finally in regards to Dol Amroth: this seems more a plot device than anything else. We have no information as to whether these elf (or elves) chose to become human, or were even given a choice. Given the lack of text, it is just as easy to speculate that they sailed for the west as originally intended after the death of their lords.
“countless companies of Men of a new sort we have not met before. Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come, we deem”
Well, according to the movie, right there by the pond in Fellowship of the Ring. She’s been aging as a mortal human ever since.
In the book, it was shortly before, during or after the marriage that she chose to become mortal. 'course, she then lived another hundred years…