so a little while back someone asked if Durin's Bane could have mastered the Ring and usurped Sauron, and the consensus seemed to be no.
Would Smaug or some other Uruloki have been able to seize the ring for its own use?
How about Gothmog? Could Shelob have eaten it like a silmaril and taken its might into herself like her mother?
Also, is there enough of Sauron's personality in the Ring to make a usurper not just a new dark lord, but effectively Sauron himself in a sort of pseudo-mantling?
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>but effectively Sauron himself in a sort of pseudo-mantling?
Sauron isn't a fucking Black Lantern, you don't *become* Sauron when you put on his Ring.
The thing with the Ring is it effectively is sapient. It has its own will, and that will is "return to Sauron". So if you are someone who could theoretically resist Sauron's will, you could potentially hold onto the Ring and oppose him with it. But that's a major gambit because you're gonna be wrestling with it and the nature of the Ring means you can't defeat him unless you destroy it as well.
sauron placed such a significant portion of his power into the ring that his ring is practically just him. hes more ring than man, the eye is basically just a lingering shade, waiting to be reunited with his power.
the only way to usurp the ring from Sauron, as said in Tolkien's letters, is to become a totalitarian lunatic totally obsessed with dominance and the subjugation of all sentient beings to suit your designs for an ideal world, which is Sauron's core personality trait. You essentially need to be more Sauron than Sauron to trick the ring into responding to you instead of its creator, and it will enable you to act pretty much exactly like Sauron once you have achieved that.
This actually makes me wonder. Say, somehow, Morgoth came back. What would happen if he just took the Ring himself? Say for the sake of argument Sauron wasn't interested in serving him again.
regardless, nothing would be left unfucked
Would Morgoth actually *need* it though? Only use I can think of is it would basically let him cuck Sauron into being his servant again.
correct
no. He's a valar. While not the strongest of them, he could spank Smaug and keep him on a leash along with ruling a force that would make sauron cream himself. He was the first Dark Lord, and Sauron was his bitch. Why would he even want the Bitch Ring when he had a Simaril once upon a time?
He was indeed the strongest Valar, as long as they called him Melkor steht least. Thats why old Ilu sent Tulkas down against him
>strongest valar
>gets trounced by Oromë on multiple occasions
>wounded by Feanor
gonna disagree
>gonna disagree
You're forgetting that Morgoth had leached off some of his own power to "fuel" many of his various dickish shenanigans.
When he first fucked things up according to his version of the Music, Morgoth was the most powerful and it was necessary to send Tulkas down as a ringer. The second time however, he'd been squatting in Middle Earth for centuries trading away bits of his power to build this, ruin that, or breed something else. The more Morgoth "spread" himself around Arda in his attempts to mar it, the weaker he became.
You mean Fingolfin.
You clearly don't understand what rings of power do, and how they do it.
Middle Earth itself was Morgoth's Ring.
Morgoth was infinitely more powerful than Sauron. The ring would probably have no effect on him and he would probably not even care about it, just like Tom Bombadil, but for opposite reasons
He was though, at first JRRT intended to make him more powerful than all the Valar together. In the Silmarillion he's equal to Manwe, who is the firs among the Ainur.
Better question:since a Balrog is basically a fallen maiar, can he redeem itself?
He ran like a bitch from Tulkas even in the old versions. Tulkas stronk.
>the eye
Movie fag spotted. Begone, thot.
There is only one Lord of the Dance.
And he does not share the floor.
It's an eye in the books too you slobbering shitgulper.
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he
The Dubliners dissagree
I am under strong impression that in Tolkiens writing power doesn't equal to martial prowess but rather to how much influence you have on the world. It's like Galadriel was very powerfull but not actually great fighter. She was basically great figure, wizard etc.
Melkor had great influence: power over the creation. He wasn't espescially that great of a brawler. Tulkas was only that, brawler and nothing else. When Melkor excelled with a lot of things, like creating, maintaining, cunning, spells. Tulkas was one trick pony. Fight and nothing else. And on top of that, Tulkas had a whole Valar army behind him. It might even be possible that Melkor could best him in single combat but Melkor knew that even if he managed to do that rest of the Valar would come after him.
I was abou to let loose on the faggots in this thread that can't read a fucking book but you saved me the trouble. Very concise reply.
Considering Sauron poured most of his own powers into the Ring, and that Morgoth was much, muuuch powerful than Sauron, at most Morgoth would just use the Ring to submit Sauron to his own will, even if Sauron didn't want to. Worst case, he would just have a sensible chuckle at how creative his minion is, pat Sauron on the head and just drop the Ring because it holds no real value for Morgoth. See .
Considering Tolkien regretted making orcs exclusively evil and that Morgoth was deemed redeemable with how the Valar impriosoned him and put him on parole, I think they could. Granted they have all killed many people.
Next you’ll say that Saruman was just a sentient white hand
>DEBATE ME!
Fuck off.
fpbp
>so a little while back someone asked if Durin's Bane could have mastered the Ring and usurped Sauron, and the consensus seemed to be no.
Veeky Forums is full of idiots. Considering that Durin's bane is roughly as powerful as Gandalf, and Letter 246 directly states that Gandalf mastering the ring is a very real possibility, I don't see why Durin's Bane couldn't .
timedotcom.files.wordpress.com
This is also not quite right. The Ring's will is more than just "return to Sauron." Quoting from the aforementioned letter.
>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 for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured, It would have been the master in the end.
>Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained 'righteous' but self-righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for 'good', and the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which was and would have remained great).
>The draft ends here. In the margin Tolkien wrote 'Thus while Sauron multiplied [illegible word] evil, he left "good" clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil.
Considering that it would be in more or less the same boat as Sauron at the end of the first age, or Saruman at the end of RoTK, I would think so, at least in theory.
Which is why you get statements like this.
>'That would be Minas Ithil that Isildur son of Elendil built,'said Frodo. It was Isildur who cut off the finger of the Enemy''
>'Yes, He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough,' said Gollum shuddering. 'And He hated Isildur's city.'
>a Silmaril
Didn't he have all three?
Great contribution, user. Thanks a lot.
Now imagining Morgoth-senpai indulgently head-patting his kohai Sauron and telling him he done good, before handing him the Ring back so he can go lead the Nazgul and others corrupted by the Ring in Morgoth's service.
(For serious, though, I genuinely doubt Sauron would be reluctant to return to Morgoth's service. They worked to the same end for far too long; Sauron's vision for the world is basically Morgoth's, and Morgoth has more ability to bring it about, so to accomplish Sauron's ends it makes sense for him to let Morgoth take the lead again.)
>Sauron's vision for the world is basically Morgoth's,
That is also not quite right. fair-use.org
> Morgoth would no doubt, if he had been victorious, have ultimately destroyed even his own "creatures", such as the Orcs, when they had served his sole purpose in using them: the destruction of Elves and Men. Melkor's final impotence and despair lay in this: that whereas the Valar (and in their degree Elves and Men) could still love "Arda Marred", that is Arda with a Melkor-ingredient, and could still heal this or that hurt, or produce from its very marring, from its state as it was, things beautiful and lovely, Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his own mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of others: even left alone he could only have gone raging on till all was levelled again into a formless chaos. And yet even so he would have been defeated, because it would still have "existed", independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.
>Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it.
tl;dr. Sauron wants to rule, Morgoth just wants to obliterate everything that doesn't come from his own thought.
>He would have remained 'righteous' but self-righteous
So he'd basically be a politician except can get shit done in a timely manner.
And all the shit he does is wrong, but he believes it's right, and since he has the Ultimate Power, of course it's right.
The call of every autocrat ever.
It's not like Sauron is (always) so different from what we can gather from his actions in Rhun and Harad. He's just a bit more rough and clumsy.
sauron is literally walking around and tortures people in the lotr you dumb fucking faggot
HE IS NOT A SHADE IN LOTR GET THIS THROUGH YOUR DOUBBLE NIGGER SKULL AND THE EYE JUST REPRESENTS HIS AWARENESS SPECIFICALLY WHERE HE IS PAYING ATTENTION TO WITH THE PALANTIR HE HAS
>Considering Tolkien regretted making orcs exclusively evil
He didn't. He said that he couldn't justify why they were and he supposed that, in theory at least, they were capable of doing good.
Gandalf's a self-righteous knob throughout LotR anyway, allying with the biggest bullies in the playground to gain victory over his enemies.
Saruman by contrast was elevating the downtrodden (hillmen, orcs) in his quest for power.
You can't look at the histories Tolkien included in the appendices and come to the comclusion that Gondor and Rohan was Noble and Good and deserved to rule middle earth.
After Sauron is destroyed Aragorn and Eomer wage a war of bloody vengeance against all who had dared oppose them in the south.
He explicitly had a body, according to Gollum. He's even still missing his ring finger.
You're wrong.
youre trying too hard moorcock
In fairness it's explicit that the Rohirrim hunted the Woses for sport.
It's also noted that the Reunited Kingdom did wage wars with Harad and Rhun in later days, but eventually they came to peaceful terms.
Also Helm Hammerhand was a total cunt.
Literally the Walder Frey of Middle-Earth.
>fighting back against shitskin demon worshippers trying to kill you is EEEEEBIL
ok
also the wood people literally have glowing red eyes, its not unthinkable that in a hostile world full of devil spawn monsters, they are just another variety of monster. the same thing happened when elves first encountered dwarves
If Morgoth came back, he wouldn't want the fuckin ring. He's evil and darkness itself.
He made Sauron. He made the legions and waged the black war that made Sauron the monster he is. The Rings are so below him and his notice that they don't even really register.
So Tolkien invented, too, the idea of CE vs LE evil dudes we found, like, in D&D with Demons and Devils?
(yes there is no antagonism in Tolkien like in DnD but still there is a radically different point of view).
>implying you wouldn't run down hillniggers with your riderbros on slow Wednesdays if you didn't have basic cable
>He made Sauron
I don't think you should discuss lore with this confidence
There's some sympathy for the human characters in LoTR. "What lies or threats may have compelled him to venture from his home in this great host" etc
But it's pretty much firmly established that the orcs are beyond redemption and don't feel anything but hate and fear, especially for themselves and their masters. The only thing an Orc or Goblin or Uruk hates more than itself and its master is beauty and life. They do not seek to express themselves creatively or be different in any appreciable manner.
Balrogs are even worse than orcs. They're literally fallen angels, basically demons. There hasn't been a redemption arc for a demon in any legitimate work of fantasy because it's a stupid idea, putting good thoughts into an entity of pure evil.
>Who could master the one ring
No one, that's the fucking point. No entity who could benefit from the rings power could master it
>putting good thoughts into an entity of pure evil
I agree with this - putting good in a demon is not redemption, is annihilation
Said this, are we sure that orcs are devoid of any expression and attachment to their crafts?
Why call the siege ram "Grond"?
>Start the rebellion that wins many Ainur (including Sauron) over to his cause of dickshittery
>Raise an enormous army to fuck shit up
>Raise a number of huge fucking fortresses
>Raise an even huger fucking fortress
>Put Sauron in charge of this biggest and fuckingest fortress and put him in charge of legions of orcs and monsters
>Implying Sauron would be anywhere near the point he's at in LoTR without Melkor's favor
You should shut your whore mouth
I would disagree that Orcs feel "nothing but hate and fear". Consider the conversation between Gorbag and Shagrat at the end of the Two Towers. They're fully capable of realizing, at least in theory, concepts of "honor" and that it's a bad thing to leave a comrade behind in danger . They're not always capable of actualizing it (Poor Ufthak's plight is a source of amusement), but they do seem to at least be able to understand such concepts, leading to possibilities of redemption.
Fair enough - he made Sauron what he is.
It was a reference to the weapon of Morgoth, Grond. It was the weapon he used when he battled Fingolfin and Faenor's Oathsworn.
So at least they have an appreciation of their history.
Galadriel, Gothmog, Gandalf, Saruman, basically all the elder characters could have mastered it.
But the issue is that mastering it is not a good thing.
Third age Gothmog is likely a human. I mean, he might be able to "master" it in a similar way that Aragorn could, but that's a long way from an ainur getting hold of it.
Given the industrialized environment and high rate of interpersonal violence in the orcish populations I wouldn't bet on any sort of societal redemption.
Individual moments of neutrality could be possible. I like to imagine those who escaped the battle of the Hornburg had to live out their lives in the mountains, and might have at least come to peace with their wretched lot in life.
He is, however, extremely ugly.
You're pretty much right. Melkor had a shitload of power, but it was all diluted into the world. Tulkas had comparatively less power, but he focused it all on wrasslin' real good. Tulkas kicked Melkor's shit in 1v1, but that doesn't mean Melkor was less 'powerful'.
Sauron wasn't his name originally. It was Mairon first, when he was a Maiar/Ainur.
He only got the name Sauron later, when Melkor turned him to the dark side and he wound up being Melkor's best servant.
Yep, that was my point. There is a bit of nostalgia if you wish.
In that moment, everything is a shadow of what it was.... and this is valid for the Orcs, too.
>Who could master the One Ring
I'd love to give a Balrog The One Ring just to see what would happen.
Why is it that every single picture of Gollum and the Balrog deviates so far from the books descriptions?
What if voldemort had the ring lol
Dude what if the ring was in 40k lol
>I remember back in the days. When Orcs were Orcs. When Elves fled before us in terror. When the Dark Lord himself walked among us....
>mfw Grond will breach it
I could handle the ring, just pass it over
broamir would have actually handled it and become king chad of the world. it would have been the second golden age of the numenorians
>incredible power doesn't make you a great fighter
That cant be right - that doesn't sound anything like my Japanese animes!
Pic unrelated, huh?
>the second golden age of the numenoreans
sounds like fun for everyone
I have basic cable and I still want to run down hillniggers with some riderbros.
>tfw no horse
>tfw no riderbros
Better than beautiful butterfly-lionman
Aragorn’s wars against Harad and Rhun were extensions of his pre-War of The Ring wars against Umbar, and the human sacrificing, Melkor worshiping, piratical, imperialistic, Ar-Pharazon imitating Black Numenorean aristocracy that still ruled there. The Reunited Kingdom wasn’t waging a war against the peoples of Harad and Rhun, but the malevolent sorcerer priest-lords Sauron had installed to dominate them.
I mean you could but anyone powerful enough to overcome what is basically sauron's phylactery could also just break it and make their own fuckoff-strong magic item.
Talion probably could. He mastered the New Ring with Celebrimbor's aid and Isildur's ring without it
Yes the games are canon deal w/it
how does that deviate so much from the books user?
So if aragorn took the ring for himself how far could be have gotten? Is there a chance he may have overthrown Sauron successfully?
The Balrog isn't supposed to be huge. Bigger than a person, but not huge.
oh yeah. that pic is exaggerated. i just took it to be some artistic perspective or something like that. also thats not "a" balrog, its gothmog, chief of melkors armies and his right hand. i think hes allowed to be at least a little bigger than an average balrog
In his defense, Sauron is very much described as "the eye" that is ever watchful. For much of The Two Towers' Frodo and Sam chapters, they refer to "the eye".
Durin's bane's shadow (It's confusing because he was described as shadow-like) reached out "like two vast wings". The problem is he also continued to use metaphor, saying those "wings were spread from wall to wall". Is the shadow-like nature of the balrog a simile with the shadow wings being a metaphor describing it's form, as if the wings are extensions of the body and not just a shadow on the wall, or are the wing-like shadows a simile with their stretching being a metaphor describing the actual shadow on wall?
The best answer is to look to other works. From those, one thing that we know is they couldn't fly. Thus their tendency to fall before death, and the use of simile, such as describing them moving as fast as if they had wings when they went to the scene in your pic. Also that whole struggle for Morgoth to get the secrets of flight from the eagles.
is on the money that Durin's bane at least was only just greater than a man, but could make itself seem a great height. Gandalf does that at one point too though.
no need to defended him user. hes a dumb movie faggot who never read the books but wants to argue lore for aome reason
in his defense, he knows he doesnt have any idea about what hes talking about and should never take the nigger dick out of his mouth for a single second to throw in his two cents
you're clearly a tryhard idiot too. we know they COULD fly, therefore they had real wings in addition to whatever their shadow may have been doing
all dragons we know about fell to their death too, does that mean they dont have wings? both balrogs who "fell" were actively fighting someone that killed them, they didnt slip off a fucking cliff REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE LORELETS GET OUT
Have it your way, user
>we know they COULD fly
Which is of course why there are 0 instances of flying Balrogs anywhere in the legendarium.
>inb4 Appendix A, section 3, any more than Gandalf was advising the Fellowship to literally fly away from the Balrog.
the flew over mountains to come to melkors aid while he was being attacked by spider bitch as seen here you would know this if you ever read any of the books
>Far beneath the ruined halls of Angband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their Lord; now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire.
Nothing in there says or even implies flying.
>all dragons we know about fell to their death too
Glaurung, Scatha.
>quote passage that im not referencing
whoa...so this is the power...of reddit
They were fighting people who couldn't fly though. They fell from high places. The closest we have to them flying is early descriptions of them riding dragons, but I think that was before Tolkien decided there were 7 at most of them.
The phrase used in Morgoth's Ring, "winged speed", is figurative language meaning they moved as fast as if they had wings. As someone else put it, "if one has wings, it is oneself that is winged, not one’s ‘speed’".
That IS the passage about Morgoth being attacked by Ungoliant. Here's more.
>But Ungoliant had grown great, and he less by the power that had gone out of him; and she rose against him, and her cloud closed about him, and she enmeshed him in a web of clinging thongs to strangle him. Then Morgoth sent forth a terrible cry, that echoed in the mountains. Therefore the region was called Lammoth; for the echoes of his voice dwelt there ever after, so that any who cried aloud in that land awoke them, and all the waste between the hills and the sea was filled with a clamour as of voices in anguish. The cry of Morgoth in that hour was the greatest and most dreadful that was ever heard in the northern world; the mountains shook, and the earth trembled, and rocks were riven asunder. Deep in forgotten places that cry was heard. Far beneath the ruined halls of Anband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their Lord; and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire. With their whips of flame they smote asunder the webs of Ungoliant, and she quailed, and turned to flight, belching black vapours to cover her; and fleeing from the north she went down into Beleriand, and dwelt beneath Ered Gorgorth, in that dark valley that was after called Nan Dungortheb, the valley of Dreadful Death, because of the horror that she bred there.
It seems like 'free' orcs have more of an idea what honour is than ones dominated by Sauron. Consider that the reason they fought in the Battle of the Five Armies was to avenge the death of the Great Goblin.
Gandalf really showed his manipulative side in that one, killing two birds with one stone by restablishing the dwarves, killing Smaug, and depopulating the Misty Mountain's orc population in a single quest.
>It seems like 'free' orcs have more of an idea what honour is than ones dominated by Sauron.
Wat? I can't remember which one is which offhand, but one of them was the commander of Cirith Ungol, Sauron's fort inside Mordor, and the other lead a patrol of Orcs from Minas Morgul. They're both Sauron's dudes, or at least as much as any; they both entertain at times thoughts of desertion, albeit they don't go through with them unless and until you count their fratricidal battle.
Vengence doesn't necessarily involve honor user.
you literally have to take everything tolkien ever wrote about balrogs as secret metaphors to make this conspiracy theory work.
Tolkien, one of the most famous and outspoken haters of metaphor and allegory that anyone can think of
can you tell me if balrogs wear pink fuzzy slippers or not?