What actual power did the one ring have, aside from turning people invisible and autistic?

What actual power did the one ring have, aside from turning people invisible and autistic?

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It could turn the user into a dragon.

Couldn't Sauron control the minds of lesser beings that wore the rest of the Rings

Its primary power was allowing the user to read and control the minds of others, especially people who had connection to the other rings of power.

It gives you plot power in real life if you are Sauron. If you aren't Sauron, it gives you plot power but manipulates you.

Made sure they never got lost because Sauron could always keep an eye on them.

More importantly, how fast could a space marine destroy Sauron, his ring and his entire army?

Given how often they fall to Chaos, there's an even chance that one of them would just wind up working for Sauron for no clearly defined reason other than exposure to his evil

>Muh corruption
Fine, make it a grey knight. Not even Draigo, just a simple grey knight.

Aren't GKs corruptible now too?

They couldn't.

The One ring would inevitably corrupt them because they would attempt to use it to save humanity.

I think he'd run out of ammo before Sauron ran out of orcs.

Even with melee weapons instead of psilencers, you're talking about one marine against over 100,000 orcs, let alone the 12 Ringwraiths, trolls, or any of Sauron's allies (Saruman, the Haradrim, etc). I don't think a single marine could. Maybe a kill team could.

well Sauron would count as a Powerful Chaos sorcerer or even a daemon prince, so chances are he could kill a lot of space marines. plus he has an army of Zombie feral world eldar (orcs dont really translate to orks)

I would Imagen he would speardhead into an entire army of orcs,elves and Dwarven while Initial D is blasting "Gas,Gas,Gas"

There are 9 ringwraiths, not 12.

And the books rather heavily imply that they're not great at direct personal combat, they're more the leader and frightener kind of role, and I don't think their magical fear auras are likely to work on an Astartes.

Lets the wearer fly. At least, that's what Gandalf thought. FLY, YOU FOOLS!

The eagles. He meant the eagles. "Fly the rest of the way to Mordor".

Oh god dammit, not this bullshit again...

Shit, my bad. That's still not counting however many trolls Sauron had, or that the Felbeasts could just pick him up and drop him.

Yeah, that's a good question: Why didn't the Fellowship just fly to Mordor using the eagles?

Because there's at least one flying beast seen in Mordor, fucktonne of archers but the biggest reason is that they were Eagles, not eagles. They had sentience, they had pride, they weren't some fucking taxi service and if they knew about the ring they would be tempted to take it for themselves.

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We've fucking BEEN through this shit before.

Because you can't fucking hide from Sauron's Eye in the sky, dipshit.

...

Orcs charge. First few turns, he guns down one or two orcs each turn with his storm bolter. A few dozen reach charge range, engage in melee and poke him with their S3 spears until they wound him and he fails his crappy 2+ armour save. They then eat him and skull fuck his corpse.

My theory is that forging a ring was actually massive fuckup from Mairon's side

He did craft it to gain power over free peoples, through making their leaders his thralls. The ONLY real purpose of the One was to control wearers of Three, Seven and Nine. Unfortunately for Sauron only Men fell for it.

ONLY real purpose. Everything else is side effects. And those

To forge something like this, Sauron need to invest a lot of his peronal "inner" power and imbue it within the ring. Which was quite acceptable for him, because as long as he had the ring on this power was still available to him, and he never even considered possibility of losing it. No other person was ever meant to wear it. But somehow it happened.

What it caused is that person, strong and knowledgeable enough could use the ring to wield the part of Sauron's power imbued within the ring, much like Sauron himself did to compensate the loss of this power from his "main pool".
Invisibility is actually effect of Sauron being more creature of Unseen world than Seen one. Corruptible nature is stemmed from the fact that the part of Sauron inside has his own personality and the ring is, at least to a degree, sentient being. But none of those was even considered by it's creator. It just "happened" when Ring found itself in state of affairs that was utterly unpredicted.

All in allm it would be better for Sauron to never make it, for it brought him little, (nine powerful servants and arguably their subjects, and maybe weakening the dwarves) while ultimately being his doom, in more than one sense (not only it's destruction meant his own, but also it allowed elves to use Three, who were inherent to original plan of the ring trickery, which allowed them to linger in Middle-Earth more and be vital to final victory.

>that watermark over an oglaf comic

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges

Dozens of eagles could overcome a few flying monsters in mordor.
Archers can't shoot as high as eagles can fly.
The Eagles owed Gandalf and Elrond a shit tonne of favours, so fuck their pride.
The ring(s) were made for humanoids, not giant eagles, they wouldn't be tempted.

And finally, their music could have driven Sauron and his forces into hiding with the power of their rocking. Check and mate.

...

>Archers can't shoot as high as eagles can fly.

Contradicted by The Hobbit.

teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/the_hobbit.pdf

Page 80 of the PDF

>The Lord of the Eagles would not take them anywhere near where men lived. "They would shoot at us with their great bows of yew," he said, "for they would think we were after their sheep. And at other times, they would be right. No! we are glad to cheat the goblins of their sport, and glad to repay our thanks to you, but we will not risk ourselves for dwarves in the southward plains."

Well that's a good question too, I mean an Istari should be able to form a stable wormhole at least once in their lifeform, no?

Very good post. Very very good post.

I'd quibble about the Seven not fucking with the Dwarves. Perhaps not as directly as Sauron would have wished, but definitely in the long run.

The Seven definitely increased the wearer's avarice to the point of monomania. Further reinforcing the Seven's effects is that they worked after a fashion. The behavior the Seven encouraged got you gold as the many references to the Seven needing gold to get more gold suggest.

The Seven thus encouraged you to be more of a dick while also rewarding you for that dickish behavior. With their kings acting like a dicks, the "social cohesion" of the dwarf kingdoms suffered.

Finally, accumulating more and more gold painted a big fucking target on your back and not just from dragons. So you're acting like a dick to gather more treasure while pissing off the relatives, friends, and subjects who you'll need to defend the horde.

So, the Seven fucked up the Dwarves. Not by turning the "fathers" of the seven houses into Nazguls, but by corrupting Dwarven society.

Yes, yes we have.
Stop giving the (you)s.

Provided you can master the ring, (Frodo and Bilbo could not) it gives you the power to bend mens' will to your desires, persuade or intimidate or deceive or straight-out mind control in some cases, and probably a lot of other things.

Remember, Sauron put "the greater part of his power" within the ring.It's like 60% of Sauron himself locked in there, which is why he can't die as long as the ring exists to tie him to the world.

Consider how Galadriel has mastered her ring, and as a result it is invisible while she is not, and she's used it to defend her forest and hide it from the eyes of Sauron's servants.
Frodo and Bilbo, on the other hand, are not personally strong enough to bend the ring to their will and use it. Instead it uses them, pushing them into the spirit realm where they're naked before Sauron's gaze, and always striving to return itself home.

Also read the passage where Gandalf and Saruman argue over it -- Saruman claims he's cracked the rings' secrets and Gandalf should give it to him, because he can wield it and defeat Sauron with it, and Gandalf reminds him of his oath to study the tools of the enemy, but never to use them. He says Saruman might do as he says, and create a golden age with the ring, but the ring would still corrupt him sooner or later, and they'd have a new Dark Lord to contend with.

The thing is the wrong DOES have a mind of its own, either from distilled pure evil or because it wasn't just Sauron's power but his mind leaked into the thing as well. If the ring dislikes you for any reason or you are more trouble than you are worth to it it has a habit of slipping off your finger at the worst possible times. It would rather sit at the bottom of a pond for ages than

It also seems to have trouble with nasty Hobbitses. Unlike men they don't seem to be quite as easy to corrupt. Perhaps owing to their usual lifestyle? Smeagol was already a shitface, though, so much easier to strengthen his darker side until his own people kicked him out. Who knows how long it took to fully corrupt his physical form or if his body otherwise adapted to the caverns from his unnaturally extended life (another one of the ring's little gifts not to be overlooked). At any rate Bilbo took decades before it had him calling it precious and Frodo's trouble with the ring grew worse the closer he came to Sauron very possibly coupled with the ring's own desperation against its own destruction.

>It also seems to have trouble with nasty Hobbitses.

I think the problem for it is that Hobbits don't really have much in the way of ambition or greed. There's not much to grab on to. With so little to tempt the hobbit to use the ring for, it's hard to manipulate them.

I always liked the bit were it tries to tempt Samwise. "Take the ring, conquer the world and turn it into a garden I guess?"

When they return to the shire they find that the greed has affected the hobbits - one has even started hoarding pipeweed.

Honestly feel like the hobbits lack the imagination to go megalomaniacal more than lacking ambition or greed

That is some real insidious Gurthang grade awfulness.

IT LIES!!!

It controls the minds of others. Specifically the owners of the other rings. Hence the nazgul

>Provided you can master the ring, (Frodo and Bilbo could not)

That's not quite right. Frodo at least set out to deliberately NOT master the Ring, and even then, he started getting drips and draps of power from it beyond just invisibility; his far-sight on Amon Hen, or his binding of Smeagol's fate with the Ring's power. And at that last moment in Mount Doom, when he turned his back on the quest, he did claim the ring, and some mastery of its power.

According to word of God timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/the_letters_of_j.rrtolkien.pdf (letter 246)

>It is an interesting problem: how Sauron would have acted or the claimant have resisted. Sauron set 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 subsidariary 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 their 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 had lost the power or opportunity to destroy the Ring, the end could not be in doubt, saving help from the outside, which was hardly even remotely possible.

IIRC, Tolkien admitted that the eagles were just deus ex machina. Also, the whole "why didn't they just fly to Mordor" meme wasn't really a thing until the internet took off and people started analyzing this stuff more seriously.

The same letter (246) goes into the ring having a mind of its own, but it's also not all powerful.

>Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of 'mortals', no onem not even Aragorn (Skipping a bit)
>Of the others only Gandalf might be expected to master him- being an emissary of the Powers and a creature of the same order, an immortal spirit taking a visible physical form. (Another skip)
>One can imagine the scene in which Gandalf, say, was placed in such a position. It would be a delicate balance. On one side the true allegiance of the ring to Sauron; on the other superior strength because Sauron was not actually in possession, and perhaps also be cause he was weakened by long corrupttion and expenditure of will in dominating inferiors. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been destroyed,taken from him forever.


And while he goes on as to how Ringlord Gandalf would eventually be corrupted, it's quite clear that despite the 'wishes' of the Ring, he could theoretically use it to 'kill' Sauron.

Another thing to consider is that the dwarves digging greedily after more riches eventually unearthed a balrog in Moria.

It seems like most assume this was just an unfortunate coincidence, but "dig up one or more of sauron's old allies" could very well have been the intended result of handing the rings to the dwarves.

It wasn't as much a powerful artifact in itself as it was an anchor, a conduit. Through it Sauron was bound to Middle Earth and all his workings were firmly linked there too. Through it he could use his inert power to influence the lesser beings in Middle Earth.

The Ring didn't make Sauron or the Bearer more powerful, it simply allowed Sauron or the Bearer to use Saurons Spiritual Power on Material and Mental Levels. As long as the Ring existed, Sauron couldn't be banished to the void because the Ring was basically his foot in the door.

>The ring(s) were made for humanoids, not giant eagles, they wouldn't be tempted.
The fucking movie shows the ring shrink down to human size when Sauron's fingers get the slice, retard.

>Tolkien admitted that the eagles were just deus ex machina
Isn't that completely in-tone for the story, though? I mean, this is a fictional mythology we're talking about. Maybe the eagles couldn't carry the Ring because It Just Doesn't Work.

He admits that the Eagles are Deus Ex Machina, but in a far more limited scope; by all rights, Frodo "should" have had to make the sacrifice of his life, being a quasi-Jesus figure and stepping into something totally out of his reach, and resolving the quest by casting himself into the fire. The Eagles (and gollum, to an extent) were a way of sparing the character, not of ultimately resolving the Quest.

>I know from clear memory that I would not want to re-experience some of those moments again with my own child; the anxiety, the illnesses, the exhaustion..but what wouldn't I give to be able to go back to some of those moments in more than memory? The pain is only made bearable, the sadness only made blessed by love and by art.

>Reading is a kind of doubled conciousness, existing somewhere between pure memory and lived experience. When we look at our own children, we see not only their current forms but all they have been before. In this kind of doubled perception, love and sadness are intertwined.

>The ruin in the landscape, or the textual ruin created by all of Tolkien's techniques catalyses this change, linking together the imagination, the current experience and recollection, intwining the past and the present with each other so that they are, in Aragorn's dying words, more than memory. More than memory transmutes the pain of exile, of separation and loss through the movement of time, the "Heimweh", into something still sad but now, as Tolkien says of the tears of the hobbits at their parting at the Grey Havens, blessed, without bitterness.

>The past is everywhere and yet at the same time out of reach, overlaid permanently by the present, worn away by time and change and even fallible memory. You don't have to wait a quarter century from the time of some of your most cherished memories to have this feeling, though such a gap certainly accentuates it. The price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings, says the song. Pain for the lost home is common to every human as we are separated from our childhoods, from our youths, from our first experiences.

>How do you read Tolkien? By paying attention to the ways that different features of his works combine to produce and transform sadness not into bitterness, but into something richer, greater, something fully human. Reading Tolkien this way you see the true scope of his achievement to touch the heart and you understand now much more fully how Sam's words "Well, I'm home." are both joyous and heartbreaking.

Wait, the ring was taken from his broken body, wouldn't he just had died at the time if he hadn't made the ring?

You kind of have to take all of JRRTs macguffins as allegory.

>The Silmarils
Eden, the literal light of a dark world, something 'perfect' lost to the infighting of the elves. Seeking the treelight is akin to seeking their old perfection, a meaningless task knowing that they already blemished their ideals.

>Arkenstone
Tied more closely to a wider idea of greed and its corruptive nature. The Dwarves confuse their noble task of reclaiming their homeland with the hoarding of their old riches to the detriment of others. The stone is the crownpiece of their lost home, but also the height of their hubris.

> The One Ring
All of mortal fallibility, and its manipulable nature rolled into one focal point. If a person has want or desire, the ring will inevitably dig into that aspect and slowly bind them to the dark lord's will. 'Mind Control' is a bit of a misnomer, I'd say- rather than demanding something of someone, it shows them a path to their desires and amplifies that want to the exception of other thoughts. The path it leads them down will just so happen to lead back to the ring's true owner.

>You kind of have to take all of JRRTs macguffins as allegory.
Uh, why? are you my AP lit teacher?

That the One Ring could corrupt even powerful figures like Gandalf is no huge shock. One need only look at Galadriel's reaction to it, after all. She, Gandalf, and Elrond all have a Ring of Power, The Three given to the Elves, but the One Ring is something far greater in terms of its power AND the mental influence it exerts.

If you want true immunity, both to the power and likely the corruption, seek ye Tom Bombadil and despair. God he was an annoying fucker. Hell, during the Council of Elrond it isn't even that Bombadil is supreme in his own realm that makes him immune, it's that the One Ring literally has no hold over him and he would have trouble fathoming its importance and might just misplace the damn thing.

I thought one of the point was that the more powerful you were the more tempting it would be.
And Bombadil doesn't count.

>what is wiki

aint hard to google nigga

people who already have epic powers:
>amplifies their existing powers
>you can scry
>you can read minds
>you can issue telepathic commands
>you can control bearers of lesser rings
>you generally become drawn to more power and your destiny toward ostensible greatest is amplified
>you're still fucked because the ring is literally over half of sauron's soul, so the whole time all these powers exist to jew you in the end

weak nerds who have no powers:
>it turns you invisible to normies, but makes people who know their shit MORE aware of your presence and you become more vulnerable to their attacks
>it makes you seem like a badass, you can project a false aura of power and trick people into thinking you're a navy seal, or even give the physical illusion that you are some dark lord. this only happens sporadically and isn't very reliable though
>it sometimes gives you random insights and the ability to predict the future
>after you're far gone into corruption, you become capable of issuing mental commands like powerful dudes, but again it's not very reliable. can also issue minor prophecies.

My own view is that it is a mixed bag. It isn't just your power that makes you corruptible, however if you are powerful enough to access the Ring's power the more you draw on it to augment yourself (which you'd need to do to challenge Sauron) the more you corrupt yourself. So yes being powerful is a huge factor but less about your own powers than how much you draw from a tainted source. And even beyond defeating Sauron, people like Galadriel and Gandalf seek to help others, everyone or specifically their own people in their own borders. The temptation to use the Ring would always be there. Once you start using it even to help people you're drawing that power into yourself and it will stain your very being.

>forgot that it extends your life artificially

You fool, the more you ignore Tom Bombadil the stronger he becomes!

The Ring contains part of Sauron himself. So it shares his powers, and if your will was somehow stronger than his you could control him and have all his powers.

It mainly grants whatever power would most seduce the user. Since we only really see Hobbits (Gollum was one) put it on, and they are unambitious folk who naturally are good at sneaking, it only turns them invisible.
The way Tolkien works anyone not working for Eru or who intentionally seeks power (the opposite of praising Eru) fails all WILL saves and slowly becomes Sauron's. Or Morgoth's if he's still around.

Even the God Emperor would be Sauron's slave. Chaos itself would kneel to his almighty will.

Giant Eagles are the servants of Eru. The guy who is the almighty god, and created literally everything that exists other than possibly Ungoliant and Bombadil to act out his preplanned story for his amusement. The Eagles literally only show up when Eru planned for them to, otherwise they simply tell you to fuck off. NOBODY but Eru can give them orders and they only take rare requests from Gandalf.
Christopher Tolkien literally stated exactly that in the foreward to one of the editions of Silmarillion. So you are correct, sir.

The ring was full of his power and part of his soul, power needed to bind body to spirit.
But Sauron was not a mortal being, so just losing his body didn't kill him. The lack of anything tying him to the mortal realm and the fragmented spirit after the destruction of the ring caused him to finally die and those bound to the other rings of power with him. Since the Dwarves were already dead and Elves never bothered with theirs, it only killed the Ringwraiths.

No, but Tolkien himself spelled it out exactly that way.

Also, he was a lit teacher.

According to Tolkien, pursuit of power is a rejection of god.

Hobbits, having so little ambition that even war over land and a centralized government are unnatural and foreign concepts, are the closest to god as a result. By contrast the beings who rebelled against god like Morgoth and Sauron cannot comprehend him; Tolkien stated that the reason Sauron lost is he was so power hungry he was unable to comprehend not being so. It gave him mastery and ability to turn any being capable of greed to him eventually, but also made him overlook everything else.

How was Sauron emotionally/mentally when he lost the One Ring?
Does he still have cruelty, malice, and a will to dominate all life if he poured them in the One Ring?

>Uh, why?

Because JRRT's mcguffins ARE allegories. That's why.

Tolkien was both a deeply religious man and a highly educated one. He knew the sagas and myth cycles he studied and taught had larg3e allegorical components so he knew his saga would have to have the same.

>are you my AP lit teacher?

No, but he is someone asking you to THINK instead of bleating "muh eegulls" and all the other memes these threads attract.

>Because JRRT's mcguffins ARE allegories. That's why.

He said multiple times that he hates allegory and that people who try to find "meaning" in it annoy him, that the LOTR story is just a fun tale about fairy myths and linguistics autism.

More than likely he subconsciously inserted things as all people do because worldviews exist, but to say that LOTR is some kind of intense allegory is bullshit. He disliked C. S. Lewis's writings because of this.

He definitely vehemently protested the "LOTR=WW2 commentary" interpretation that people bugged him with every day (to the point that he put it in the foreword of later editions), but all allegories, really?

“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

They aren't allegories about the real world, but about the themes he infused into his work.

Tolkien's intentions were to build a mythology. He succeeded. The "high fantasy" tag came later.

As all mythologies, and as Tolkien knew better than any of us, LofR has themes and lessons and morals to convey.

Sure but see
>I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

It wasn't an allegory. You can write morals and themes into a story without using allegory. As mentioned, he criticized his friend's C. S. Lewis's work because it was so hamfisted about muh jesus etc.

>Giant Eagles are the servants of Eru.
Strictly speaking they serve Manwe, but that dude is very serious about his God-given duties and responsibilities so it nets out to the same thing.

He couldn't, at all. Now go kill yourself.

Could Morgoth have made his own "One Ring"?

Why didn't he?

because he was busy making cooler shit, like dragons the size of continents.

oh no this will attract the Ancalagonfags and their images

>the destruction of the ring caused him to finally die

It caused him to fade away to the point where he can observe the universe but not interact with it. He will watch the world till the end of days. Unable to act, whisper to anyone, scream in frustration, sleep or even weep. A great lidless eye watching all it built up destroyed and the grass grow over the ruble and the stones weather away and eventually be forgotten utterly.

And he will stay like that till the unmaking of the world in some far off distant age.

Obviously, the most fitting punishment for him would be to turn all of Mordor into the Second Shire.
Nothing but unambitious midgets doing shit-all in what was his old home, farming in the rich volcanic ash, using the stones from his fell towers to carve decorative knickknacks.

Tolkien had this to say about it:
>Melkor 'incarnated' himself (as Morgoth) permanently. He did this so as to control the hroa, the 'flesh' or physical matter, of Arda. He attempted to identify himself with it. A vaster, and more perilous, procedure, though of similar sort to the operations of Sauron with the Rings. Thus, outside the Blessed Realm, all 'matter' was likely to have a 'Melkor ingredient', and those who had bodies, nourished by the hroa of Arda, had as it were a tendency, small or great, towards Melkor: they were none of them wholly free of him in their incarnate form, and their bodies had an effect upon their spirits.
>But in this way Morgoth lost (or exchanged, or transmuted) the greater part of his original 'angelic' powers, of mind and spirit, while gaining a terrible grip upon the physical world. For this reason he had to be fought, mainly by physical force, and enormous material ruin was a probable consequence of any direct combat with him, victorious or otherwise. This is the chief explanation of the constant reluctance of the Valar to come into open battle against Morgoth. Manwe's task and problem was much more difficult than Gandalf's. Sauron's, relatively smaller, power was concentrated; Morgoth's vast power was disseminated. The whole of 'Middle-earth' was Morgoth's Ring, though temporarily his attention was mainly upon the North-west.

(1/2)

>Unless swiftly successful, War against him might well end in reducing all Middle-earth to chaos, possibly even all Arda. It is easy to say: 'It was the task and function of the Elder King to govern Arda and make it possible for the Children of Eru to live in it unmolested.' But the dilemma of the Valar was this: Arda could only be liberated by a physical battle; but a probable result of such a battle was the irretrievable ruin of Arda. Moreover, the final eradication of Sauron (as a power directing evil) was achievable by the destruction of the Ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was possible, since this required the complete disintegration of the 'matter' of Arda. Sauron's power was not (for example) in gold as such, but in a particular form or shape made of a particular portion of total gold. Morgoth's power was disseminated throughout Gold, if nowhere absolute (for he did not create Gold) it was nowhere absent. (It was this Morgoth-element in matter, indeed, which was a prerequisite for such 'magic' and other evils as Sauron practised with it and upon it.)
>It is quite possible, of course, that certain 'elements' or conditions of matter had attracted Morgoth's special attention (mainly, unless in the remote past, for reasons of his own plans). For example, all gold (in Middle-earth) seems to have had a specially 'evil' trend - but not silver. Water is represented as being almost entirely free of Morgoth. (This, of course, does not mean that any particular sea, stream, river, well, or even vessel of water could not be poisoned or defiled - as all things could.)

(2/2)

When they return to the Shire, a crippled Saruman had moved in and turned the place into Romania.

So Gold is literally evil in middle earth?

....that makes a lot of sense actually

>the movie
please reevaluate your lifechoices

Hey now, all that glitters is not gold but a dragon would probably hump it either way.

...

It made Sam look like a badass

When I first read the book when I was younger in my head I always assumed the ring gave a person power based on what they most desired. Hobbits tend to want to stick to their own life and be left alone so they turned invisible. Humans wanted to be in control so they were given powers to help influence those around them. Sauron got what ever the fuck he wanted because he was Sauron.

You were correct in everything but Sauron. The ring actually was part of him, like a Horcrux or Phylactery except it made him stronger instead of keeping him alive.

I thought bombadil was supposed to be more a representation of middle earth itself. As in the actual land mass/wood/mountains/whatever. And it was supposed to be a statement about howthe world itself will always have a sort of permanence despite whatever the fuck humans/dwarfs.elfs/whatever are doing. Hence why the ring did fuck all to tom, becuse even if evil dose take over the world, there is still in fact, a world to be had.

Tolkien himself said he didn't know what Bombadill was

He did know, he was a character he put in because his children loved the character, thats as far as it goes.

Well, he said Bombadil is identical to a doll his children had and was a character from stories he wrote for them.

What he means in Middle Earth is anyone's guess though.

You lot all know about Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters, right?

The Ring turns all mortals invisible as a side effect. That's why Isildur (and the Ringwraiths) became invisible.

DID SOMEBODY SAY BOMBADIL?

youtu.be/ZZouiWmzWoY

So you're saying the dragon humped the wrong treasure and now has crabs?

I despise Tom Bombadil

he's a pustule of pointless boredom at the start of what is already the weakest book in the series, you could probably cut 100 pages away from that part and not harm the story in any significant way. The worst part is how everybody always creams themselves over him when he never does anything of note, he's just a total waste of time

A doll, I would add, that wound up flushed down the toilet.

Thing is, he's ludicrously entertaining conceptually.

He's the, pardon the reference to NC/TVTropes, Big Lipped Alligator Moment of the series in such an amazing way. There exists a being who may in fact predate the omnipotent God or at least be an early eldritch creation, accidentky brought a river to life by singing and decided to bang her despite her generally hating him, and gives so few fucks that the McGuffin of ultimate power in his control is more likely to be lost forever in his pockets than used.

While you are right in that it is strange and drags, its still fun.

Imagine how valuable that doll would be if someone unclogged it from a pipe.