Q: Why Did Sauron Take Back the Dwarven Rings of Power?
ANSWER: J.R.R. Tolkien never explained, so far as I know, why Sauron decided to take back the Rings of Power he had given to the Dwarves. We only know that he seized Thrain and took his Ring from him, “the last of the Seven”, according to Thrain. The few facts we have about the Dwarven Rings lead (me) to some interesting questions.
For one thing, how did Thrain know that his Ring was the last of the Seven? Did Sauron tell him or did he have knowledge of the history of the other Rings of Power among the Dwarves?
Sauron took the Seven and the Nine back to Mordor after he seized them in the War of the Elves and Sauron. There, Tolkien tells us, he “perverted them” and handed them out to Dwarves and Men respectively. He apparently wanted to use the Rings to control those races. In the end, the Rings failed to accomplish that plan for him.
With the Nine Sauron did corrupt the Men who accepted the Rings and in so doing must have used them to unite many peoples under his own rule. But the Nine became the Ringwraiths, slaves to Sauron’s will, and they don’t seem to have led many new conversions to Sauronic allegiance.
The one notable example is the Witch-realm of Angmar, where the Lord of the Nazgul established a kingdom populated by evil Men, Orcs, and other creatures. Were those Men evil prior to the rise of Angmar? Possibly.
Evil Men also settled in southern Mirkwood near Dol Guldur. These were Easterlings, but Tolkien does not really associate them with any of the Nazgul (except for long after Sauron’s return to life, when he leaves Dol Guldur under the command of one or more of the Nazgul).
So I think it’s safe to say that the Nazgul though Sauron’s most important servants were not nearly powerful enough to sway large populations of Men to Sauron’s cause, unless those populations were already prone toward evil.
With the Dwarves, Sauron doesn’t seem to have had nearly as much success as he did with Men. Of course, in one late note or essay Tolkien suggested that the four eastern “houses” (kingdoms) of the Dwarves probably fell into evil. That does not necessarily mean they became Sauron’s allies or servants, but it could mean as much. Some readers have noted that in “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” Tolkien said that nearly all creatures were divided during the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and that only the Longbeard Dwarves of Khazad-dum stood with Gil-galad and Elendil. Does that mean, therefore, that some Dwarves fought for Sauron?
Tolkien does say that the Seven Rings failed to corrupt the Dwarven kings the way the Nine Rings succeeded with the Nazgul; so I think it is reaching too far to suggest that the Seven, as originally presented by Sauron to the Dwarves, succeeded in turning many of their keepers to evil. The Dwarves were especially resistant to the domination of their wills by an external will. But the Rings may have inflamed their greed, pride, and anger.
So having seized three of the Seven, why would Sauron offer them to Dain II Ironfoot at the end of the Third Age, as reported by Gloin at the Council of Elrond? Some readers speculate that the offer was insincere, that Sauron’s messenger was merely looking for news of Bilbo Baggins. But if the offer were sincere one must ask if Sauron had not done something to the Rings, perhaps hoping to succeed with them in a way he had not before.
When Thror gave the Ring to Thrain he told his son that the Ring needed gold “to breed gold”. And the narrative of the Dwarves’ misfortunes says that rumor held that each of the treasure hoards of the Seven Houses of the Dwarves was founded upon a ring, implying that these were the rings of power. If that reported rumor is meant to imply the truth then by seizing or destroying the Seven Rings (with the aid of dragons) Sauron ensured that the Dwarven kings became impoverished, and that would complement his long-term strategy of dividing his enemies, estranging them from one another, and wearing them down.
We don’t know when the other six Rings were taken or destroyed, but Thrain had his Ring when he called for a war of revenge against the Orcs for the murder of his father. Perhaps Tolkien meant that Thrain was able to use his Ring to unite the Dwarves in common purpose. If that was so, then Sauron might have feared that the Dwarves could use their Rings against him (while he was without the One Ring); such a concern might explain why Sauron would strive to recover as many of the Seven as possible.
It might also explain why Sauron would be willing to give out the three remaining Rings to Dain. If he had further perverted the Rings, perhaps he felt he might have a better chance of enslaving a Dwarven king the second time around. If the Dwarves could be united in war again, Sauron would have much preferred to have them fighting for his side than against it. But as matters turned out he never gave the Three back to the Dwarves and they were presumably destroyed when Barad-dur was destroyed. At the very least they would have lost their powers when the One Ring was destroyed.
See Also
Did the Rings of Power Instill the Dwarves with A Lust for Gold and Jewels?
How Did Sauron Give the Seven Rings to the Dwarven Kings?
Did Dwarves Ever Serve Sauron?
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So what was it then that drew Thrain to Dol Guldor in the first place? Greed? Corruption? either way it seems to me that the ring had SOME effect on the Dwarves. either way you have again got me looking through the books for answers. good job!
We could say maybe bad judgment, influenced by Sauron’s desire to gather all the Great Rings back to him. Thrain was abducted from his camp by Sauron’s servants; perhaps Sauron was able to influence him just enough (through the ring) to draw him close enough to southern Mirkwood for that to happen.
Angmar is the ‘Scotland’ of Middle-earth. Scotland’s dark side is perceived by Tolkien through the lense of his Englishness…the Scotland of Macbeth ‘No man that’s born of woman shall e’er have power upon thee’ and of Mordred, King of Orkney, the enemy of Arthur.
This suggests that the Men of Angmar were not especially evil prior to their molding by the Witch-King. They were probably an amalgam of Easterlings of Eriador(‘Picts’), Gwathuirim (the ‘Kerns’ of Macbeth), fell Northmen (the ‘Gallowglasses’ of Macbeth), and Hillmen of the North (‘Cumbrians of Strathclyde’).