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Lanovar
Culian- First Marshal Scribe
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re: What does the One Ring actually do?

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A little background: Sauron wants to rule over all the peoples of Middle-earth. His "team" had just lost a huge, earth-shaking war at the end of the First Age of the world and he was "on parole" and stuck around nominally to do some community service/rebuilding and whatnot.

Eventually, his original tendencies took over again ("The best way to get the world back into shape is to make sure that it has effective leadership and I'm just the guy to do it!" - devolving into an intent to do this via domination rather than benign leadership/guidance).

The strategy he took with this was to trick the Elves. He went around (in a pleasing appearance) trying to convince them to accept his help in the creation of Rings that would allow their wielders to halt the decay of time and make Middle-earth more like the Undying Lands across the western sea (this "preservation" aspect was the common power of all Rings - mortals that held them did not age or die, the lands where they were used like Rivendell and Lothlorien had a timeless quality, the foundations of the Dark Tower remained after an age of neglect, etc). The problem is that Sauron included a back-door exploit in the technology: when he created the One it allowed him to behold all that had been done with the lesser Rings and dominate the minds of those who wielded them.

The Elves caught onto him immediately and took their Rings off. He went to war, recovered a bunch and gave them to Men and Dwarves instead (after further tinkering with them to do the whole Nazgul thing).

So, to address the actual question: it holds powers related to preservation of physical things as well as the extra intent to dominate the wills of others. Sauron was already pretty good at the latter, the Ring acted as a focus so that, while he wore it, his powers were actually enhanced (Tolkien said in a letter that the power he put into the Ring was not lost to him just because he did not have possession of it, only that he didn't get to added effect, so him commanding the armies you see in Lord of the Rings is his base level ability). It provides a similar effect for others, but only to the proportion to their spirit. "Small" beings like men and hobbits get shoved into the wraith world (go invisible) when wearing it, but adds to their perceived authority just by holding it (Frodo becomes a daunting figure when commanding Gollum, Sam's assault on the Tower drives orcs before him as they perceive him to be some great champion, etc). This effect is not wasted on the wielder, though, for it is a seductive power and makes the person feel that with it they might do great things, even if they can't really.

Beings of greater inherent "power" like Gandalf or the more learned Elves like Elrond or Galadriel might be able to more fully use the Ring, but since its true purpose is meant to be used to dominate the wills of other intelligent beings, getting into the mindset required to do so makes one more like Sauron to begin with (thus Galadriel's line "All shall love me and despair").


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ZKevin23
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re: What does the One Ring actually do?

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Very interesting there Culian

I learned a couple things I didn't know Happy

Nice!

-Slacking
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