[Sesquipedalian]

The Witch King of Angmar was already a Nazgul.

I presume that Sauron went to Dol Guldur first because he didn't want to arouse too much suspicion before he regained his strength.  If he'd returned straight to Barad-dur, he'd effectively have been waving a big flag to all his enemies with the words "Sauron is in the house" written all over it while he was yet too weak to face them.  By going to Dol Guldur first, it took a while before the Wise were sure exactly who they were dealing with there (Sauron, a Nazgul, or what?), which made them more cautious about acting against him.  In essence he was trying to be a bit more subtle so as to buy himself some time.

[Flaser]

an0n, Sauron's ring was so powerfull because he poured part of himself into it - therefore he was bound from the very beginning. Only doing so allowed the ring to be the most powerfull. AFAIK this is mentioned in the Silmarils.

BTW you all got one thing wrong: Sauron didn't control the nine through the One - he took their ring one by one and wore them himself. It is mentioned in the trilogy I'm not coming up with my own idea.
The wearers of the nine were just as tortured and bloated by their own ring as Smeagol = Gollam was. They acted pretty much the same way Gollam did with Frodo while he was the ring beaer.

About the power of the rings: it's not an RPG game so they aren't like a super-combo or a powerup. The rings are entities to themselves.

The 7,9 and the One all focused on power, so they granted their user power in one form or another. How much and how depends on the wearer, the more powerfull of powerhungry you are, the more the ring will multiply your power. It is said several times in the trilogy that if the one fall into the hands of someone already powerful - like Gandalf, Saruman or Galadriel - the wearer's power would outshadow Sauron's might and could easly knock the fella out of Mordor's throne. But in doing so the ring would twist the wearer and you'd just end up with another black lord.

[Grey Wolf]

Actually, IIRC, all the Seven could inspire in the Dwarves was greed and a lust for gold.

[Ghostavo]

And yet the One didn't affect Tom B... if it had... hehehe he would be far superior to anything described in any LoTR's book. Unless the One was too weak for him to bear.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by GoulMeister
heres one, WTF do those stupid rings do anyway, the ring of power only turned people invisible, made them live longer and turn into evil freaks, what about the other ones, and how does sauron die when it gets thrown into the volcano, he was alright before he made it.

The rings aren't tools like a hammer (one purpose: drive nails), but are sources of power, like electricity (an endless number of purposes).  So long as the rings retained their power, the bearer of a ring could accomplish a very great deal of whatever he or she willed.  Galadriel and Elrond wanted to keep their kingdoms pure and full of beauty and life, like the world was in the first age, and so the rings enabled them to do that.  The nine men who eventually became the Nazgul wanted to have power over others, and they were able to do that.

To understand why Sauron died (or rather, all but died) when the ring was destroyed, one needs to understand a something about Tolkien's idea of "inherent power."  Essentially, the idea throughout all Tolkien's work is that every being has a certain amount of power/life-force/whatever-you-want-to-call-it which is given to it by virtue of being made.  Great beings have great power, lesser beings have lesser power.  But for all created beings, this power is finite, and it can be lost as one does things with it.  Good beings use their power to help one another, and so the power is never lost (I give to you, you give to me).  Evil beings use their power to crush, enslave, and destroy others, and so their power is poured out and never recovered (no one is giving anything, only forcing one another).  Sauron put much of his power into the making of the ring, and after his body was destroyed, the power he had put into it was the only substantial source of power left to him.  When it is destroyed, he all but disappears entirely, because all the power that gave him his existence is gone.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by Flipside
I don't know if Sauron could truly have resurected himself in physical form though.

No, he couldn't.  Tolkein is pretty consistent about this.  After Huan and Luthien defeat him on Tol Sirion, they tell him that he can either surrender the island to her control, or be killed and never take physical form again.  He surrenders, of course.

After Numenor sinks and Sauron goes down with it, he is never able again to take the fair form he wore then, and when Isildur strikes him and cuts off the ring, even that semblence of physical reality is lost to him.  That is why he appears only as a "lidless eye" in LotR.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
And yet the One didn't affect Tom B... if it had... hehehe he would be far superior to anything described in any LoTR's book. Unless the One was too weak for him to bear.

He's not superior, he's different. He's completely different than anyone in the Valar/Maiar/Orcs/Elves/Men/Dwarves world order. Thats why he isn't affected, I think. You can't actually quantify how powerful he is, because power does not have the usual meaning with Tom Bombadil.

...I suspect it was Tolkien placing himself in the story. It meshes so well with what his beliefs were.

[Ghostavo]

I've got a feeling that Tom is kind of a Gaia persona. I remember something about his destiny being linked with the earth itself or something like that being said in the council.

[Grey Wolf]

IIRC, I believe the quote was something along the lines of his power being within the earth itself, followed by someone concluding that made him weaker than Sauron, for Sauron manipulated the land within Mordor.

[Ghostavo]

There are interesting quotes about him...

Gandalf in RoTK
I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil: such a talk as I have not had in all my time. He is a moss-gatherer, and I have been a stone doomed to rolling. But my rolling days are ending, and now we shall have much to say to one another.

Glorfindel in FoTR
And even if we could, soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come

[Flipside]

Actually, the Silmarillion is strongly influenced by Norse Mythology, the Weapon Mjolnir was forged by dwarves, who are far from dissimilar to Tolkeins dwarves, and even the History of the 'Immortals' is along similar lines

[Mongoose]

It's kind of interesting that Tolkien developed "dwarves" as the plural form of dwarf.  He did so to avoid the usual connotations of dwarfs: little jolly men along the line of Snow White's pals.  The Dwarves are obviously anything but .  A similar situation exists with the Elves; outside of Tolkien's writings, they're often thought of as little pixies flying around.  Once again, completely wrong .

Tolkien, being a scholar of Old English language and literature, drew a lot of inspiration from the Anglo-Saxon culture, which in turn was derived from Scandinavia.  His true intent in creating Middle-Earth and its stories was to create a truly British mythology, something that really did not exist.  Beowulf is often cited as a British story, but it takes place in Denmark, and the title character is from Sweden.  Tolkien wanted a truly English story and cosmos.  I respect Tolkien more than any other author simply because he did more than write stories:  he built up an entire world, complete with a creation story, deities, fantastic creatures and races with great power, and amazing locations.  I'm aware that the literary "elite" really despise The Lord of the Rings; they deride Tolkien's writing style and claim that his work is escapist trash.  They can't stand that his work is no popular, with millions of fans worldwide, second-best-selling in the English language only to the Bible, and ranked in many British polls as the greatest work of English literature ever.  Frankly, they're a bunch of @$$holes .  They're so stuck-up in their own sense of "superiority" that they can't even recognize true genius.  I wonder if they've even read the works they criticize.  Only a few pages into The Lord of the Rings, you realize that this book is somehow different, beyond all other books.  Tolkien is a master of words; he can paint elaborate descriptions of setting and make you feel like you're actually in Middle-Earth, without boring you for an instant.  He created characters that are adored the world over, and the success of the recent films only goes to show how much his work is loved.  I'm an avid reader, but I have never and will never find anything as good as Tolkien's work .

P.S.  Wow, that post kind of drifted off-topic .

[Setekh]

This thread rocks. Tolkien just had such a huge mind, we could talk about the stuff he invented for centuries.

[an0n]

Who got 5 rings?

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by an0n
Who got 5 rings?

The Jawas.  But we don't hear too much about them .

[kode]

Originally posted by an0n
Who got 5 rings?

musashi?

[mitac]

Originally posted by an0n
Who got 5 rings?

[Offtopic]





[/Offtopic]

[Flaser]

BTW the reason the 3 rings never corrupted or altered their users was that unlike the rest of the rings - which were forged in pursuit of power - tried to capture values own to the elves.

[an0n]

No, Sauron never got his grubby mitts on them, so he couldn't do the evil-mojo thing to them.

[Grug]

Indeed.

Even after the one ring was destroyed, Sauron isn't completly gone.

Gandalf says it somewhere near the end, that he's nothing more than an evil spirit.

A good source of material is also the Appendice's in the back of the RotK. I'm just starting to go through them again of late. They tell of the history of the different people, and also a bit of what happens in the fourth age. Hinting that Gimil was the only dwarf ever to be accepted into the west over the sea, when he went with Legolas. Maybe even his son also... Can't exactly remember.

The movie's were great. But reading the book you get a much more clearer picture of what is happening and how close it actually came to all things ending. And that Frodo and Sam actually did make it to Mount Doom on a very fine chance.

I also came to understand a bit of Elrond's bitterness towards Aragorn. And in the book, I think he left Arwen on bitter terms also.

Indeed, there is quite a fill of information. Anything I ever concieve for mods / fanfiction and what not, I like to take inspiration from Tolkien's works. It is hard to even make a shimmer with one's own works compared to the brilliance of light that his works generate. But he spent a good deal of his life on the books...
So kudo's to him. And here's hoping that some day someone will create something as good.

Though I would go as far to say that the sci-fi world of Dune comes close with its epic scale as well...