If Gandalf knew that Bilbo had "a great ring, that much was obvious from the beginning...

And it could be one of the many, many lesser rings that Celebrimbor and co. of Eregion have made as practice as they made the Rings of Power

It enhances the will to dominate to dramatic degrees, and will is serious business in that world. It's also especially effective against other bearers of the Great Rings.

So for example Frodo was able to figure out that Galadriel had a Ring, and to tempt her, but he also was able to boss Gollum around, and this was mentioned as being partly thanks to the power of the One Ring. And Frodo is just a Hobbit who's actually trying not to use its power.

Sauron could use it to submit entire countries to his will, and as a bonus the bearers of the Elven Rings (Galadriel, Elrond, Gandalf) would have to either take them off, losing precious tools, or become his slaves. There's also a passage where it's said Barad-Dûr was erected thanks to the power of the Ring, and that Sauron is somehow able to overturn the very earth itself.

Different user but just to add, Barad-Dûr's foundation couldn't be destroy or the fortress completely taken apart while the ring still existed...So I suppose that's another example of its power.

This user summed it up well though, it was a subtle will power buff because that's more what Tolkien's magic was about rather than flashy shit

You should try making original threads instead of reposting the same thing over again.

Basically, magic in LotR is extremely will-dependent, and the One Ring was a mega buff to Will, in addition to binding Sauron to the Rings of Power forver, letting him fuck up and dominate every other ring user in the setting.

It seemed to be multiplicative, too, rather than additive. So something like Frodo could do some minor dominance and such, but it's stated that even with it, the Witch King would probably shank his shit easy. But something with the base power level of Galadriel or Gandalf with the Ring's mega buff would have been some serious bad.

Actually, (and if you really want a source, I can dig it up, but it will take a while as I'm not at home with my Letters), one of Tolkiens letters states that once Frodo claimed the Ring as his at Mt Doom, even being a puny hobbit and literally dying of starvation, he would have been powerful enough to prevent the Ringwraiths from attacking him, if not so powerful to pull their allegiance away from Sauron.

Really? I believe you, but that seems to go against what Gandalf says that Frodo shouldn't try it because it wouldn't work and their King would rip the Ring from his hands.

On the other hand, by then the Witch King was pretty ded, so maybe he was the only wraith with enough will of his own to oppose a ringified Frodo. Or maybe Gandalf was just bullshitting so that Frodo wouldn't get ideas, which would also be pretty reasonable.

i believe that this is mentioned in passing in the books but it basically depends on the wearer. it amplifies their strengths and changes their personality

so for instance when the hobbits wore it, they just became invisible and had the wraith vision, because hobbits are naturally hard to find, but nothing else because they weren't very powerful and didn't know how to utilize the one ring
but on the other hand sauron uses it to basically become the biggest BAMF in the setting as well as binding the other rings of power to himself, enslaving their wearers

There are other magic rings beside the One Ring and the others.
We just didn't get to have them mentioned but The Middle Earth is very high fantasy. Even rocks are magic

I thought everything was music.

Didn't Gandalf not even know what the One Ring looked like until he read Isildur's papers?
Hell, no one save Isildur, Elrond and Smeagol have seen the ring and lived to tell the tale afterwards.
Certainly not Gilgalad *smirk*.

No, it's not mentioned in passing in the books because it's not true. Invisibility is a side effect all mortals get from wearing any of the Great Rings (except the Three) because they're drawn into the wraith-world by Sauron's corruption. That's why Isildur became invisible even though he wasn't a hobbit.

There were also many lesser rings made, which were also unadorned. Gandalf wasn't sure if Bilbo had found the One Ring, or one of the party pieces.

Found it, by the way, if you're interested, from letter 246, and starts off from a digression about what might have happened had Sam been nicer to Gollum

>Frodo in the tale actually takes the Ring and claims it, and certainly he too would have had a clear vision- but he was not given any time: he was immediately attacked by Gollum. When Sauron was aware of the seizure of the Ring his one hope was in its power: that the claimant would be unable to relinquish it until Sauron had time to deal with him. Frodo too would then probably, if not attacked, have had to take the same way: cast himself with the Ring into the abyss. If not he would of course had completely failed. It is an interesting problem: how Sauron would have acted or the claimant have resisted. Sauron sent at once the Ringwraiths. They were naturally fully instructed, and in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring. The wearer would not be invisible to them, but the reverse; and the more vulnerable to their weapons. But the situation was now different to that under Weathertop, where Frodo acted merely in fear and wished only to use (in vain) the RIng's subsidiary power of conferring invisibility. He had grown since then. Would they have been immune from its power if he claimed it as an instrument of command and domination?
>Not wholly. I do not think they could have attacked him with violence, nor laid hold upon him or taken him captive; they would have obeyed or feigned to obey any minor commands of his that did not interfere with thier errand- laid upon them by Sauron who still through their nine rings (which he held) had primary control of their wills. That errand was to remove Frodo from the Crack. Once he lost the power or opportunity to destroy the ring, the end could not be in doubt, saving help from outside, which was hardly even remotely possible.

Cont

>Frodo had become a considerable person, but of a special kind: in spiritual enlargement rather than in the increase of physical or mental power; his will was much stronger than it had been, but so far it had been exercised in resisting, not using the Ring and with the object of destroying it. He needed time, much time, before he could control the ring or (which in such a case is the same) before it could control him; before his will and arrogance could grow to a stature in which he could dominate other major hostile wills. Even for so long a time his acts and commands would still have to seem 'good' to him, to be fore the benefit of others beside himself.

Tl;dr, there's a big difference when you claim it for your own and try to use its primary powers of controlling other people, as opposed to just using it to duck and run like Frodo had been before.

He did seem to know though that the "Greater Rings" had gems, and Bilbo's didn't.

This is pure speculation on my part, but I don't think it's necessarily a property of the Three or the other rings. I think the difference is in the elves themselves.

The "invisibility" that we see from the One seems to be done somehow by a partial transfer of the wearer to the realm of spirits/souls/fea. When Frodo puts the ring on, he can see the ringwraiths in much greater detail, and they him. And when he's really slipping, drawn into that same world by the morgul-knife, he sees Glorfindel as a glowing apparition, because the elven "soul" is much more active in the world.

Remember, there's no indication that Sauron was invisible when he wore the Ring in the second age. And I'd bet (although again, this is personal speculation, I can't be sure) that a powerful elf a la Elrond or Galadriel or Glorfindel, would also remain visible, as they have a foot planted in both worlds in any case. It's only the men, who don't naturally have a presence in the "spirit world" that go invisible.

Gandalf was certain it was one of the Great Rings though, given how Bilbo almost immediately (and uncharacteristically) tells and obvious lie about how he got it.

>*smirk*
I was with you until that. This is an imageboard, you can just post a picture of a smirk. They're like super emoticons.