What does the One Ring actually DO?

[Traab]

Heh, if you want to see a ripoff read Dennis Mckiernan's Iron Tower Trilogy. Holy MOLEY was that a ripoff of tolkien. Its a good story and all, but there is one part, where a group of heroes, (including an elf, a dwarf, a halfling analogue, and a future king) are traveling through the underground dwarven kingdom that has been abandoned for a long time, infested with foul creatures, and has a secret terror hidden inside. You know, after they had to run away from a kraken by the gate, which proceeded to tear down the overhang and bury the door shut behind them. All they were missing was a wizard, because they already had a sword that glowed in the presence of these specific evil creatures that are TOTALLY not goblins or orcs. The big scary bad guy wakes up, they flee, and just as they cross the bridge over the bottomless chasm it catches up to them. And in the process of surviving, the bridge is destroyed, and the defeated monster falls into the depths. Since they forgot to bring a wizard this time, none of the good guys had to fall, so that made it totally different. Thank god there was a forest kingdom of elves nearby they could rest and resupply with.

Spoiler

Show

[Eldariel]

from what I understand, Turin's story is even more influenced by the Finnish Kalevala than the story of Sigurd, but I don't know that story at all to bring up examples

Yeah, it has some parallels to the story of Joukahainen. Gandalf is also fairly similar to Väinämöinen and the way the magic works in the world and in general basing everything on song and such is pretty much the same setup as in Kalevala (the word "singing" refers to "spellcasting" in Kalevala). Also, Bombadil would be right at home in a Finnish myth. There's a host of similarities but obviously no equivalencies. Also, Quenyan grammar is basically Finnish with just different suffixes (but basically the same number) so there's that. Celtic words tho.

[Douglas]

In the end, it was another such bond (Gollum's) and a fatal case of clumsiness that did the job rather than anyone willfully destroying it.

Actually, I believe that was a case of the Ring's own power backfiring. Frodo mastered it just enough to give Gollum a supernatural command, specifically to throw himself into the fires of Mount Doom if he ever harms Frodo. Gollum later harms Frodo by biting off his Ring finger, and shortly thereafter Gollum is in the fires of Mount Doom. Too bad about the Ring being carried by Gollum at the time.

[Avilan the Grey]

Regarding what the ring DOES: Has been covered.

As a copy of a certain other ring?
No not really.

The main similarities is the "age" of the era. The point is that both Wagner and Tolkien wrote about an "iron age" past, and both were very aware (Tolkien even more so, probably) of the significance of rings in the real historical era before the middle ages. Rings, and espeically rings made of expensive materials, were symbols, coins, and good luck charms all woven into one.

The ur-germanic and celtic words for "King", means "Ringgiver", meaning a person that gives out rings to his subjects as rewards. The rings were symbols of eternity and magic, because of their shape, for example. So it makes perfect sense that both works' most powerful McGuffins are rings.

[Bulldog Psion]

Yes, as noted, power over the wills of others. I'd assume that it even has power over their bodies, as witness the twisting of orcs, Olog-Hai, etc.

Regardless, Sauron was shown as being able to partly control entire armies with his will. Since a lot of his power (I believe the book says "the greater part of his power" or words to that effect) was put into the ring, it probably allows a fully "attuned" user to direct hosts as well as dominating or destroying the minds of powerful individuals. That's not to say that it makes the armies automatons, but it probably ensures their loyalty, drives them into a high-morale killing frenzy, etc.

[Avilan the Grey]

The ring, and Sauron, also are greater than the sum of "their" parts. At least it seems that by pouring his Self into the ring, he becomes MORE powerful than before when wielding it. The downside of course is that he is at least "half the man" he was when half his Self is gone, and destroying it renders him a powerless shadow, gnawing on his own hatred and self-loathing for eternity (in the books he doesn't die, he just becomes a powerless "ghost", so thinly spread and so low in power that he cannot ever reform himself, as he did before).

[Talakeal]

I wonder whether Aragorn might not have been able to claim the ring. Certainly no other mortal at the time could have done so, but Aragorn was the heir of Isuldur, which meant that, first, at least a couple of his ancestors had defeated Sauron in the past, and second, he legitimately "inherited" the Ring from Isuldur, who legitimately claimed ownership of the Ring as were-geld for the death of his father Elendil. Tolkien, staunch conservative that he was, was pretty big on the concept of legitimacy being a requirement for wielding power in Middle-Earth.

Of course, claiming the Ring didn't work out so well for Isuldur, so it's by no means certain that Aragorn would do any better, but the Ring seems to have a history of causing trouble for its new bearer when it changes hands: It did much the same for Bilbo as it did for Isuldur. It's not clear how Isuldur would have fared if he'd survived the initial betrayal. (Well, obviously he'd have fallen to evil rather quickly, but Gondor might well have been renewed as an Evil Empire under his rule, rather than fallen further into decline.)

In any case, Sauron seems to have been legitimately worried by the possibility that the Heir of Elendil might claim the Ring, to the extent that he launched his attack on Minas Tirith before he was ready, because Aragorn revealed himself to Sauron in the palantír. If Aragorn had no chance of wielding the Ring, Sauron would only have had to sit back and wait for Aragorn to be destroyed, rather than messing up his timetable.

If I recall correctly Tolkien talked about this in his letters. Gandalf, Sarumon, Galadriel, Elrond, and Aragon are the only people who could have claimed the ring and defeated Sauron, although probably not in 1 on 1 personal combat. Each of them would have become corrupt and evil though, and Aragorn in particular would have become a tyrant even crueler and more oppressive than any of the fallen kings of Numenor.