LOTR Why does Frodo not order the Ringwraths to go away?

[brucewarren]

It's to avoid detection.

Mordor is pretty much devoid of life outside the slave worked fields far to the south east. There's not going to be as much a pigeon in the skies above that dead land. If something the size of a ruddy great eagle tried to fly over the mountains guarding the realms it wouldn't need fancy scanners or anything like that.

They'd be the only thing in the sky for hundreds of miles. The mki eyeball would be enough to spot them in plenty of time to call out the orc archers and shoot them down.

It's also the reason they don't ask the Rohirrin for nine horses. You might think that because hobbits are little guys they can't ride anything bigger than a pony, but we've seen several places where a hobbit is on a horse. If the Rohan horses are as well trained as I think they are, they could probably be instructed not to let the guys fall off no matter how badly they ride. Worst case scenario pair each of the hobbits with an experienced rider. The problem is that while the horses thundering along would cover a lot of ground, probably faster than the black horses if Theoden chose some good ones it would be difficult to hide the fact.

Outside universe the answer is simpler. It would be too easy and the book way too short. Otherwise why bother with eagles? We know from some of the unfinished stuff that Numenor had developed some sort of medieval ICBMs. Diig the plans out of Denethor's archives, stick the hobbits on one of those and they'd be there in a couple of hours. Simples

[pjknibbs]

She may take control of the Ring, may use it, but she would eventually be corrupted and Sauron would eventually regain it, probably doing very nasty things to her, afterwards.

As I said earlier, this is the main point of contention we have and I don't see it getting resolved. I don't believe the Ring contains any part of Sauron's personality, just much of his power. If someone with the will to do so were to wrest control of the Ring away from Sauron he would be powerless to do anything about it, then or forever afterward, but the person wielding the Ring's power would themselves become corrupted and would replace Sauron as the Dark Lord (or Lady, as the case may be).

[mrbadger]

From what little I know (which is primarily from the books), if he used the rings actively in that way he'd have revealed himself to Sauron. I'm guessing this would have been bad.

So really, even doing the hiding thing was risky but there had to be some story advantage to having the thing.

'It's a Ring of Great Power!'
'Yeah? What can it do?'
'Um, it's shiny and it keeps you alive a long time by sort of feeding on your soul if it doesn't get you killed really fast'.
'I'll pass thanks.'

So I imagine the making you invisible thing was needed to keep the reader interested in it.

[brucewarren]

It wouldn't need to be regularly. It would happen at once. When he claims the ring on mount Doom Sauron spots him in a split second and tells the Wraiths to proceed at R17 to grab him.

The invisibility thing was a plot point in the prequel. Handy for avoiding those nasty elves and talking to your dwarf friends. But Smeagol needed no such encouragement. "But's it's shiny" was quite enough to get him to bump off his best buddy Deagol. Of course that might have been because he wasn't a nice hobbit to start with. Bilbo wasn't quite so vulnerable to that sort of thing.

[pjknibbs]

Making you invisible was the power the ring had in the Hobbit, and at that point it was just supposed to be a magic ring of no particular import, as far as I know. It wasn't until Tolkien lost all hope of getting the Silmarillion published that he started work on LOTR, and he perforce had to include hobbits, so it must have been around that time that he thought of giving the Ring much greater significance--however, he obviously had to retain the invisibility power since that's what it already had.

As I recall, Gandalf (or somebody) says that the Ring grants power according to the stature and desire of its wearer. It turns hobbits invisible because they are naturally small and like to hide from the Big Folk. We never actually see anyone other than a hobbit put the ring on during the book, so we don't know what it would have done to them.

[brucewarren]

Tom Bombadil would like a word. It's not that you've hurt his feelings or anything but he'd like to point out that while he's not the tallest man in Middle Earth he's certainly no hobbit.

We do actually do see what happens when he wears it. Nothing happens. He can't be dominated and he can't be made invisible against his will.

BTW when I spoke of "the prequel" I meant "The Hobbit" Sorry for any confusion.

[pjknibbs]

Tom Bombadil would like a word. It's not that you've hurt his feelings or anything but he'd like to point out that while he's not the tallest man in Middle Earth he's certainly no hobbit.

Sorry, I should have said "We never see anybody other than a hobbit that the Ring can affect in any way put it on". Happy now?

[brucewarren]

Actually even that's not quite the case.

We don't see it happen directly, but Gandalf tells Frodo what happened when Isildur put it on. He became invisible to the host of orcs. As he was swimming across the river it slipped off his finger and he became visible again. That's when they saw and shot him. That's how it came to be called Isildur's Bane.

There's also the evidence of what happens when the lesser rings are worn.

The nine human suckers who put them on all became invisible permanently. Forced to wear black cloaks and ride black horses they didn't fare so well.

The dwarves didn't seem to be so effected. It increased their desire for the soft shiny stuff but didn't do much else.

We see two elves wearing Great Rings - Galadrial and Elrond, although I'll concede it's not conclusive because neither ring was ever handled by Sauron so it's possible they might not have the same side effects - at least on an elf. According to what Gandalf says about them in Shadow of the Past both of those rings could be used to turn a mortal invisible.

[Morkonan]

As I said earlier, this is the main point of contention we have and I don't see it getting resolved. I don't believe the Ring contains any part of Sauron's personality, just much of his power. If someone with the will to do so were to wrest control of the Ring away from Sauron he would be powerless to do anything about it, then or forever afterward, but the person wielding the Ring's power would themselves become corrupted and would replace Sauron as the Dark Lord (or Lady, as the case may be).

If someone were to wrest control from Sauron and if the ring doesn't contain anything of Sauron's "personality" (Won't quibble over that term atm), only a great deal of his power, then... why would they eventually become something so corrupt that they would end up replacing Sauron as a "Dark Lord/Lady?"

The Ring isn't a battery. It also has a will of its own. (As Gandalf said, it wants to return to its master.) The ring can also make decisions by itself, like slipping off the finger of a bearer or, perhaps, tempting another.

That we may disagree isn't our fault, by the way. It's Tolkien's fault that he didn't write his story or construct his setting so that fans could argue, in depth, the specific mechanics of magical rings. Some questions were never really meant to be answered fully. I'm sure many questions fans have weren't even considered by Tolkien.

A good story can use a lot of things that, when examined closely, don't necessarily make sense or raise more questions than there are answers. Galadriel's scene with Frodo exposed true elven glory, with a more than a pinch of dread. It was dramatic, terrifying... magical.

How does it all work? It's magic. The only magic the writer or the reader needs to understand are the bits that make the story great.

The One Ring is hella-bad. It's evil. It corrupts all that it touches. Nothing good can come from it and as long as it exists, Middle Earth is ultimately doomed, since Sauron will still retain his strength. Sauron doesn't need to wield the One Ring to overcome "good" in Middle Earth. But, if it is destroyed, he can be vanquished.

Anything beyond that sort of understanding isn't really necessary for the reader to experience a great story. So... it's just not worth the ink delving into. That's what internetz forums and fanclub publications are for.

[brucewarren]

If someone were to wrest control from Sauron and if the ring doesn't contain anything of Sauron's "personality" (Won't quibble over that term atm), only a great deal of his power, then... why would they eventually become something so corrupt that they would end up replacing Sauron as a "Dark Lord/Lady?"

The ring is certainly fraught with Sauran's malice. That much we know, but even if it weren't I think it's an issue with the nature of power and how power in and of itself even without the voice of Sauron constantly giving you "advice" is corrupting.

Gandalf would use the Ring to do good. At least in the beginning but it wouldn't end there.

Hypothetical example:

Suppose he witnessed two hobbits in the bar and one draws a knife[1]. Would it not be tempting to temporarily overrule the will of the knife wielder to prevent the unarmed fellow getting hurt? It's a bit questionable but in a good cause right?

Once he'd started doing that sort of thing it would get easier. Before long he'd set himself as local justice. Using the ring to prevent crimes, or to force the accused to make reparation. Before long he'd be a tyrant. Always acting for the greater good but stripping the hobbits of any vestige of freedom. The hobbits would start to yearn for the days when they were free to have at each other with knives and swords, just to be be free of this domination.

[1] Yes I know hobbits are very law abiding by nature and don't usually wander around packing steel[2] but you get the idea.

[2] For some reason I've now got the image of a Bywater Second Amendment getting drafted by the Thain.

[Rive]

If someone were to wrest control from Sauron and if the ring doesn't contain anything of Sauron's "personality" (Won't quibble over that term atm), only a great deal of his power, then... why would they eventually become something so corrupt that they would end up replacing Sauron as a "Dark Lord/Lady?"

Sauron, as were once a maia, is a kind of world principle too (with personality fitting to the role).
Of course the power of such corrupted principle would corrupt any user (or anyone tempted to use it and too weak to resist) at the same level or below.

[pjknibbs]

Yeah, that pretty much describes perfectly how I think it would go down. Tolkien was a religious man, and so he was quite big on unearned power being a bad thing for anyone.