fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5437 ]

[ SECRET POST #5437 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5437 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 13 secrets from Secret Submission Post #778.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know there are a few here. Are hobbits (more specifically Baggins hobbits) the only people able to resist the One Ring for long amounts of time?

If Bilbo had taken the ring when he first got it and gone to Mordor to throw is away, would he had have as much trouble as Frodo? Had Saruman already started building an orc army that would have been hunting for the ring?

I am reading a Hobbit fic that has me wondering how probably things were.

Hobbits are more humble and simple than other species (well, they actually are related to humans, just an offshoot). Even they couldn't resist the Ring completely, and everyone would eventually give into it by the time they reached Mount Doom. No one could have thrown it in, not even Bilbo or Sam.

But Hobbits, because of their humble nature and simple desires, can resist longer. The more powerful a person, the bigger their desires, the easier it is to fall for the Ring. This is why Sam is able to give the Ring back to Frodo and why Frodo lasts all the way up to the fires of Mount Doom. He almost makes it, but he just can't resist in the end. It probably would have been the same for any other Hobbit.

Saruman had already started to go evil by that point in the book timeline, but no one knew it because it was a slower process and he was more subtle about it. And he wasn't working for Sauron so much as trying to get the Ring for himself to use in the books.

In the books, no one has any idea that Bilbo found the One Ring. It never even crosses their mind that this has happened. Gandalf has no suspicions until later on, at the beginning of LOTR, when he sees how difficult it is for Bilbo to give up the Ring. At that point, he doesn't know what it is, but he knows that it is a ring of power of some kind and so goes to research. In the books, his research takes years before he figures out it is the One Ring.

Is the ring magic as in can it move by itself? Like, could they have just thrown it into an ocean?

Why was bilbo able to keep it for decades without going nuts?

The Ring is basically "The Force" from Star Wars. It doesn't do anything, but the universe itself just rearranges itself around it. Throw it into the ocean? Next day a fisherman hauling in his catch will find a suspiciously juicy looking fish, cut it open, and you'll never guess what it has in its belly...

The Ring is sort of attracted towards it's master and creator, and vice versa, but is about the limit of it. The rest of it is the universe rearranging itself to make that union possible. It stayed with Gollum, and Bilbo, and to a limited extent Frodo, for so long because Sauron was inactive himself, but as soon as he became active again, then opportunities started cropping up for it to get closer.

right, plus the only reason it just sat in the River Anduin for so long (I love the meme I saw on reddit that claimed the river is the real lord of the ring since it had the ring for 2000+ years compared to Gollum's 400) was because the area was so sparsely populated that it took that long for someone to be swimming relatively close enough to spot the glint of gold in the mud to locate it. so the ring itself can't do shit but look attractive, so when it does, it looks like the most amazing thing that anyone has ever seen. and even then it's subject to the whims of the bearer to a point - the ring would never have chosen some weird goblin child who was predisposed to murder and hated his family to abscond into the caves under the mountains for hundreds of years.

so the ring isn't fully sentient but I like the comparison to the Force, as a thing that exists but can't actually make people do anything unless they're really really fucking mentally weak and even then, it's easier to get someone to go along with their instincts vs make them do something completely opposite their nature.

So why didn't Sauron just get his Ghoul Boys to get it from the river or steal it from Gollum?

Sauron was diminished at the time and unable to do so. It took him a long time, a looooooooong time, to recover from his wounds and the original loss of the ring. He wasn't in any fit state to be able to do anything until shortly before The Hobbit.

NAYRT

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Sauron does not actually know where the ring is. At most, he can see the wearer magically if they put the ring on, but that's all.

Not that kind of magic, it probably can't move itself (although it is possible it did move itself away from where Gollum had it for Bilbo to find). But Sauron can sense it at all times. throwing it into the ocean wouldn't help, Sauron would just send servants to retrieve it. It is literally made of Sauron as Sauron put himself into the Ring creation.

And the Ring also has a will of its own. It is unclear if it is fully sapient, but it can interact with the world in the sense of influencing people who aren't even touching it. Smeagol (who became Gollum), was tempted by the Ring when his friend had it and so killed his friend and took the Ring. The closer someone is to it, the easier it is for the Ring to influence them. Plus anyone who has a ring of power can be influenced by it as it is the controlling Ring. So the nine Nazgul will obey the Ring's will as much as Sauron's (really their wills are one and the same).

The holders of the Three aren't quite as fully influenced since Sauron didn't help make the Three, but the One Ring still has something of an effect on them, which is why the holders only put their rings on after the One Ring was separated from Sauron.

The reasons Bilbo was able to keep it for a long time and only slowly be influenced are 1. he's a hobbit, 2. he didn't steal the Ring directly from Gollum, and 3. The Ring didn't need him to do anything for it until it sensed Sauron was gaining power, so it didn't need to work as strongly on him.

Edited 2021-11-25 01:48 (UTC)

The holders of the Three aren't quite as fully influenced since Sauron didn't help make the Three, but the One Ring still has something of an effect on them, which is why the holders only put their rings on after the One Ring was separated from Sauron.

It's also why Gandalf and Galadriel seemed especially terrified by even the possibility of taking it: They're currently the keepers of two of the Elven Rings. (Elrond is the other and he seemed more sanguine about it). Even though Sauron did not make the Three, some of their power was still tied to the One, which is why the Elven realms - which had been partly maintained by Ring power - are fated to fade after the One was destroyed.

Yup. A good analogy is that while the Nine and the Seven were partially made by Sauron while the Three weren't, the Three were still made using the template Sauron gave the elves.

With the fading of the elven realms, that was meant to happen and would have happened earlier without the rings. Sauron actually convinced the elves (Celebrimbor and the other elves in Eregion) to help him with the rings because they were afraid of the fading and wanted to avoid it. So from the point of view of the elves, the purpose of the rings was to keep the elves from fading. It is just that it was Sauron who helped them, and he had major ulterior motives and plans of his own.

I'm not sure where, but AFAIK Tolkien wrote that in Mount Doom, at the place of the ring's forging, nobody could have willingly destroyed the ring. Hobbits, being naturally humble and tough minded, are resistant to it, but Frodo got as close to doing it as was possible for any being. Even Sam, if he'd taken up the ring, would have succumbed to it in Mount Doom (and haughty eagles much sooner). Gollum's inadvertent plunge was the only way it could have happened.

So...as long as you don't touch it, you are okay? Like, someone else would be able to push the ring bearer in?

Doubtful, they themselves would be overcome with desire for the ring before they could do it.

Nope. Mount Doom was where the Ring could be destroyed, but it was also the place where it was strongest (well, that and on Sauron's finger). It would have been able to stop someone from willingly pushing its bearer in. It was only able to fall in through accident/fate/Eru's intervention. In the book, Frodo doesn't in any way push Gollum in. Gollum is dancing with joy at having the Ring back and falls in himself.

The ring is an area attack weapon, you don't have to be touching it for it to fuck with you.

So you are saying I could roll a big rock and just knock everyone off the end of that tiny little ledge into some lava.

No, the opposite of that.

I mean roll the rock from really far away. Like Indiana Jones style.

Still no. As soon as your thoughts turn to the Ring its effect starts to work on you. As long as the Ring is at Mount Doom it will cause anyone whose thoughts turn to the Ring to bend to it. You could stand on the moon to hurl the rock, and you'd wonder if it wouldn't be better to find a way to claim it instead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #5437 ]

LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans

Re: LOTR fans