In the book the first example I can think of would be Frodo wearing the ring while at the top of Amon Hen. He winds up gazing out and seeing orcs mustering, Minas Tirith and further on a presence that gropes towards him.
I think the best explanation is that Sauron had been so crippled by being disembodied that he could only fester and brood in Mirkwood. So he’s weaken, has no idea where the ring is and Gollum is a weak willed husk of a creature the ring can make no use of. Makes sense no one ever notices it.
It’s a difference of intent. Yes, Gollum claimed the Ring in the sense that he considered it his (more or less–his references to it as his “birthday present” were part of his attempt to justify his possession of it). Frodo took it all the way to Orodruin, and wore it a number of times, but only at the end did he put it on with the intent to make himself the new Lord of the Rings. It’s sort of like the difference between claiming your coat at the dry cleaner’s and claiming a new continent in the name of Spain…only in this case, you are Spain. Gollum never did that. Neither did Sam, though he was tempted. Even Frodo himself at Amon Hen wasn’t actively trying to master the Ring; he was just being affected by it.
Basically, Frodo grabbed a big fistful of Sauron’s “soul” (which had been stowed in the Ring to empower it) and pulled. That is what got the Flaming Vagina’s undivided attention.
When Bilbo put on the ring at his birthday party, there is no indication given that Bilbo noticed anything unusual.
Frodo did not seem to notice anything unusual when he “accidently” put it on in the Prancing Pony scene, but he did notice something more on Weathertop. Was that due to the proximity of the RingWraiths?
It’s possible that the intention of the wearer has as much to do with attracting notice as well. Gollum just wanted to be left alone, not to dominate anyone. Bilbo, too, was uninterested in power. (So was Frodo.)
But again, the ring seemed inconsistant in this area. I don’t recall how the movies differed from the books in this, either.
Just on the Balrog, Aragorn was correct. The Balrog was Gandalf’s doom. It killed him (well they killed each other). I don’t think Gandalf knew that the Balrog was there but he was fairly sure that the Dwarves had been wiped out and that something very powerful was down there.
He didn’t come alone, his father Gloin was with him. They came over the mountains I believe. Remember, the only reason Gandalf & Co. couldn’t do so was because Saruman was fucking with the weather.
Add to this the fact that, despite the idiotic and anachronicistic bit in the one of hte extended editions about Elrond “calling a council,” the fact that Boromir, Legolas, Gimli & Gloin, and the other persons in the council were there at the same time as Aragorn & the Hobbits was a coincidence. Or, properly, providence. They’d all come to talk to Elrond for their own reasons; if anyone was behind them arriving within days of one another, it was Eru.
Flashback!Denethor saying that Elrond had “called a council” irritated me enormously. It directly contradicts the scale of Middle-Earth, and available methods of communication, as shown in the movies themselves.
Note that the fire tricks in question possibly aren’t his, either: he’s wearing Narya, one of the three rings Sauron gave to the elves - that happens to be imbued with fire powers. Whether the fire stuff comes from that ring alone, or Gandalf was merely using it as a catalyst for his own pyro powers is unknown.
Narya also has inspirational powers (from Wiki, “the power to inspire others to resist tyranny, domination and despair (in other words, evoking hope in others around the wearer)”) so the Theoden cure might also conceivably have been courtesy of Sauron.
They weren’t WHOLLY free of his influence. It’s just that they were free of his DIRECT influence; that is, he could not influence their wearers unless he himself were wearing his own ring. Remember, Sauron (using the nama Annatar) advised Celebrimbor during the creation of the Three, which were finished & given to their bearers before the One was forged; and those bearers (I’m thinking the original three were Cirdan, Gil-galad, and Galadriel) knew immediately when he first donned his ring and said the rhyme (one ring to rule them all, etc).
I’ve always taken it like this. All Rings of Power drew upon the Unseen for their puissance. I tend to think that the Nine & the Seven, along with the One, drew directly from the Morgoth element in Arda – that part of Morgoth’s power which he dispersed through the world – for their functions. Sauron was directly involved in making those sixteen rings and could control (or at least influence) their bearers so long as he himself was corporate, regardless of whether he had his ring. Though he never touched the Three and could not do likewise with them, the counsel he had given Celebrimbor included something like a programming back door that would permit Sauron to control their bearers if he had on the One and they were wearing their Rings.
And even when Sauron was ringless and discorporate, the Three were not wholly innocent. That is, the slowing of decay and the passage of time which Galadriel clearly used her ring for was not in the will of Eru.
Could be. I said I wasn’t sure. All I was certain of was that Elrond was not one of the first holders of the three, that Galadriel was, and that Celebrimbor didn’t have any of them when he was tortured to death by Sauron.
Hmm. WAS he actually tortured to death? Wouldn’t a Noldo who had seen the light of the Two Trees have been able to will his own death and avoid that? (Assuming he saw the Trees, which I am too lazy to check.)
The reason that neither Gollum nor Bilbo attracted Sauron’s attention is that he wasn’t looking, then. He had thought the Ring utterly lost. Once Gollum makes his way to Mordor and told him about it, though, he started actively inclining his will towards finding it, and that’s what made it risky for Frodo.
That seems a plausible explanation, but is it written anywhere in Letters or HOME or whatnot?
I myself took it that Sauron was simply moving slowly in his search, so as not to give himself away before it was necessary. He’d WANT the Ring back – hell, he may well have felt the craving anyone else who had worn it did – but, as Gandalf & Elrond observe in the Council, by 3019 he he didn’t NEED it to conquer Gondor and the other Free peoples. Its mere existence, along with the growing exodus of the Elves and the waning of Gondor, gave him power to gain the military might he’d need to crush them without it.
Well, yeah. They weren’t included in the rhyme for no reason, dontcherknow. I’m of the opinion that while the elves acted like *their *three rings were all better, risk-free, pure and all that shit it was just elves being elves. You know, self-absorbed and asshole-like.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
The reason that neither Gollum nor Bilbo attracted Sauron’s attention is that he wasn’t looking, then. He had thought the Ring utterly lost. Once Gollum makes his way to Mordor and told him about it, though, he started actively inclining his will towards finding it, and that’s what made it risky for Frodo.
[/QUOTE]
That’s my take on it as well. From the time Isildur & co. kicked his arse to the point when Gollum came and whined at him for the Precious Sauron assumed that the victors had captured the Ring and either destroyed it, shipped it off to Valinor or merely kept it locked away in a vault somewhere heavily fortified like Minas Tirith or Rivendell. He basically considered it lost and tried to make do without it.
It’s only when he heard about Bagginssss that his vaginal gaze turned away from distractions like Orthanc or Gondor and back on the prize, as a shortcut (back) to power.
Isildur was not involved in any Sauron-specific arse-kicking. Gorthaur the Crul was slain by by Elendil the Tall and Gil-galad hte Un-Ephitheted. Isildur, like the filthy Etruscan he so essentially was, came by later and cut off the ring (and ring finger) and then acted like he was the shit.