Shit argument, hinges entirely on being fucking ignorant enough to only have watched the movies with a preconceived viewpoint.

I know it's a comedy bit, but they channeled Dhalsim because they were hardcore reaching.

Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch... Funny, but a stretch.

The bit about "what does the ring DO?!" in the beginning was interesting to me because that is one thing that I also dislike about Tolkien's works (as a nerdy reader of the Silmarillion like Soren in the video). The three elven rings Narya, Nenya, and Vilya all grant enhanced "elemental" type powers (for example, Gandalf has Narya, which is why he's got the beefy fire magic). Invisibility seems like a pretty poor ultimate power for the *ONE* ring (yes, there are other features, but invisibility is the primary *active* power of the ring).

Personally, I think that it would be cooler if the mighty *one* ring granted the single ability that any individual user would be most tempted to use, and eventually ABuse -- to facilitate its corruption of the wearer. Smeagol/Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo, being Hobbits, are already predisposed to stealthiness, so granting them invisibility on top of that makes sense and would tempt them to use the invisibility to do more morally ambiguous things and possibly eventually outright evil things. Isildur, being human, could/should have been granted a different power by the ring. Extreme combat prowess or something. Certainly overconfidence in that could just as easily have led to his death via the "betrayal" of the ring.

But the point of the One Ring wasn't to corrupt its wearer, no? I thought that was just a side-effect of it a)containing part of some evil dudes soul b) having a sort of will of its own and wanting to get back to aforementioned evil dude. Equally I thought the reason the ring makes people invisible is a byproduct of it pulling the wearer into whatever bizarro interdimension that the ring-wraiths and sauron semi-inhabit. Hence why Sauron et al can immediately see the wearer despite spending the rest of the time frantically scanning every corner of middle earth as a creepy big eye thing. I thought the idea was that the ring was only truly powerful in the hands of Sauron, given it was sort of a large part of him, and in combination with the other rings of power, the owners of which it was _meant_ to control.

No, my complaint would be that despite investing so much into it, it kinda fails. Turns out the Dwarves are basically incorruptible and the elves immediately sense they have been conned and stop using their 3. Perhaps he should have made more than 9 for the men.

No.

There is an unofficial sequel written on the premise that Mordor was Middle-earth's first progressive, technological civilisation; which was thrown down by effectively a crusade of religious fanatics. I didn't get very far into it (because I was reading it as a pdf on a computer monitor), but Saruman's motivation at least makes substantially more sense in that interpretation.

This video gets somewhat hard to follow when half the time I can't tell if they're saying 'Soren' or mispronouncing 'Sauron'.

What I get as the "point" of the One Ring is
A) backup / fallback plan in case Sauron is killed so he won't be completely destroyed (containing some of his soul / essence)
B) a trap to facilitate his control of the other races by tempting and corrupting them

And I think your take on the reason for the invisibility is correct according to the way Tolkien intended it. But it still doesn't sit real well with me. To me it feels better to imagine the whole ring story as a take on "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".

The other rings of power are interesting. The three for the elves are largely free of the influence of the one, because Celebrimbor was already very suspicious of Sauron / Annatar when he made them. So the elves can and do continue to use them, though warily.

The seven for dwarves aren't discussed a lot, but hinted that they help corrupt the dwarves natural appreciation for gems and gold into a darker greed for those things. That dovetails into stuff in The Hobbit pretty well. So, while they don't corrupt dwarves in the same way they do men, they DO lead to isolation and and factionalization of the dwarves, which I suppose could have been Sauron's intent.

The nine for humans seem to work quite well as judged by Sauron's intent for them.


I guess that overall, I just feel like temptation and corruption of wearers of the one ring seems like a very elegant way to achieve Sauron's goals when he made it. A ring that grants the wearer the single ability that they most desire but also will be most tempted to abuse would be very difficult for people (and elves or dwarves or whoever) to resist. Gandalf and Galadriel are directly offered the ring but refuse only because they both *know* that they would be corrupted by it. I don't see invisibility as enough of a game-changing ability for either of them to be so confident that they couldn't handle it.

The ring doesn't grant powers, it boosts the powers of those who wield it...if they already have innate powers.

If they do not have innate powers, basically mortals, then they simply are pulled into the half-spirit realm so that they can be found easier by Sauron and his henchmen (that have power).

The only creature, in the books, with innate powers that put the ring on is Tom Bombadil. He does not seem to be affected by the ring in any way. IF any of the non-mortal characters were to wield it, they would control the Nazgul and would meld a portion of Sauron's power to their own.

Now, in the borders of Mordor, the ring's powers were boosted immensely. When Sam encountered an orc in the Tower of Cirith Ungol while holding the Ring, he appeared to the orc as a powerful warrior cloaked in shadow "[holding] some nameless menace of power and doom." The orc was so terrified that it fled. Similarly at Mount Doom, when Frodo and Sam were attacked by Gollum, Frodo grabbed the Ring and appeared as "a figure robed in white... [that] held a wheel of fire." Frodo told Gollum "in a commanding voice" that "If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom," a statement fulfilled when Gollum fell into Mount Doom with the Ring.

1). The Ring's primary power was control of the other Rings of Power and domination of the wills of their users.

2). The Ring amplified any inherent power its owner possessed.

3). The Ring would also extend the life of a mortal possessor indefinitely by preventing natural aging.

4). Like the Nine Rings, the One Ring could physically corrupt mortals who wear it for extended periods of time, eventually transforming them into wraiths.

5). Galadriel suggested The Ring might also have given its wielder the ability to read minds.

6). The Ring contained a large part of Sauron's power, it was endowed with a malevolent sentience of sorts. It would strive to return to him by manipulating its bearer.

Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring