Where Did the Power in the Minor Rings Come From?

Q: Where Did the Power in the Minor Rings Come From?

ANSWER: There would be two sources of power for all the Rings of Power, except for the three made by Celebrimbor and the One Ring. So the “lesser rings” — the ones forged before the 20 Great Rings (the Nine, the Seven, the Three, and the One) — and the first sixteen of the Great Rings all drew their power from both Sauron and the Elven-smiths who made them.

J.R.R. Tolkien addressed the nature of the Rings of Power in a couple of passages. The first and most well-known would be Letter No. 211, which he wrote to Rhona Beare in October 1958. Rhona Beare asked Tolkien several questions on behalf of a group of his readers. Question No. 2 produced the first real insight into how the Rings of Power worked:

‘Question 2’: How could Ar-Pharazôn defeat Sauron when Sauron had the One Ring?

Question 2. This question, & its implications, are answered in the ‘Downfall of Numenor’, which is not yet published, but which I cannot set out now. You cannot press the One Ring too hard, for it is of course a mythical feature, even though the world of the tales is conceived in more or less historical terms. The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one’s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. If I were to ‘philosophize’ this myth, or at least the Ring of Sauron, I should say it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control. A man who wishes to exert ‘power’ must have subjects, who are not himself. But he then depends on them.

Ar-Pharazôn, as is told in the ‘Downfall’ or Akallabêth, conquered a terrified Sauron’s subjects, not Sauron. Sauron’s personal ‘surrender’ was voluntary and cunning*: he got free transport to Numenor! He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans….

Emphasis in bold is mine. Before I cite the other passage I have in mind, let me compare what Tolkien says here with something else that you can find in the published Silmarillion:

Míriel was the name of his mother, who was called Serindë, because of her surpassing skill in weaving and needlework; for her hands were more skilled to fineness than any hands even among the Noldor. The love of Finwë and Míriel was great and glad, for it began in the Blessed Realm in the Days of Bliss. But in the bearing of her son Míriel was consumed in spirit and body; and after his birth she yearned for release from the labours of living. Ana when she had named mm, she said to Finwë: ‘Never again shall I bear child; for strength that would have nourished the life of many has gone forth into Fëanor.’

For the Elves, the bearing of life was a draining experience. We can look at this passage found in “Laws and Customs among the Eldar”, published in Morgoth’s Ring:

Also the Eldar say that in the begetting, and still more in the bearing of children, greater share and strength of their being, in mind and in body, goes forth than in the making of mortal children. For these reasons it came to pass that the Eldar brought forth few children; and also that their time of generation was in their youth or earlier life, unless strange and hard fates befell them. But at whatever age they married, their children were born within a short space of years after their wedding.’ For with regard to generation the power and the will are not among the Eldar distinguishable. Doubtless they would retain for many ages the power of generation, if the will and desire were not satisfied; but with the exercise of the power the desire soon ceases, and the mind turns to other things.

I don’t know if Tolkien ever gave any thought to why Celebrimbor had no children. Anyone who has read “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn” in Unfinished Tales knows that Tolkien revised Celebrimbor’s lineage several times. Some readers even reject the Fëanorian heritage of Celebrimbor set forth in The Lord of the Rings because of an experimental text that Christopher Tolkien included in Unfinished Tales. But I think that Tolkien may have viewed this externalization of one’s power as being similar in some ways — specifically in diminishing the Elvish artisan in his power and capability — with procreation. Whether begetting a child or creating an artifact as great and powerful as one of the Three Rings or the Silmarils, it would seem that the Elf was forever diminished in strength by imparting a spark of his or her essence into the new thing, artifact or child.

It may very well be that everything the Elves made — from the magical ropes and boats of Lorien to the silvery lights of the Noldor — diminished the makers in some way. The Eldar achieved much greater things than the Avari and Sindar, maybe, because the Valar and Maiar taught them how to focus and refine their creativity. The Elves who remained behind in Middle-earth expended their power in procreation and artificing without any real guidance on how to externalize their power to its fullest capability. If this is how Tolkien felt about the Elves, then that explains why Míriel was finished with her life after giving birth to her son. Everything she had to give went into Fëanor. And, of course, that she was later restored to life by the Valar doesn’t alter what happened; her rejuvenation led to a change in her nature. She could not resume her previous life as an Elda but became almost something like one of the Maiar. That’s an interesting issue that deserves further thought at another time.

The other passage I want to cite is quite lengthy. It is found in the essay “Notes on Motives in the Silmarillion”, also published in Morgoth’s Ring:

…Melkor ‘incarnated’ himself (as Morgoth) permanently. He did this so as to control the hroa, the ‘flesh’ or physical matter, of Arda. He attempted to identify himself with it. A vaster, and more perilous, procedure, though of similar sort to the operations of Sauron with the Rings. Thus, outside the Blessed Realm, all ‘matter’ was likely to have a ‘Melkor ingredient’, and those who had bodies, nourished by the hroa of Arda, had as it were a tendency, small or great, towards Melkor: they were none of them wholly free of him in their incarnate form, and their bodies had an effect upon their spirits.

But in this way Morgoth lost (or exchanged, or transmuted) the greater part of his original ‘angelic’ powers, of mind and spirit, while gaining a terrible grip upon the physical world. For this reason he had to be fought, mainly by physical force, and enormous material ruin was a probable consequence of any direct combat with him, victorious or otherwise. This is the chief explanation of the constant reluctance of the Valar to come into open battle against Morgoth. Manwe’s task and problem was much more difficult than Gandalf’s. Sauron’s, relatively smaller, power was concentrated; Morgoth’s vast power was disseminated. The whole of ‘Middle-earth’ was Morgoth’s Ring, though temporarily his attention was mainly upon the North-west. Unless swiftly successful, War against him might well end in reducing all Middle-earth to chaos, possibly even all Arda. It is easy to say: ‘It was the task and function of the Elder King to govern Arda and make it possible for the Children of Eru to live in it unmolested.’ But the dilemma of the Valar was this: Arda could only be liberated by a physical battle; but a probable result of such a battle was the irretrievable ruin of Arda. Moreover, the final eradication of Sauron (as a power directing evil) was achievable by the destruction of the Ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was possible, since this required the complete disintegration of the ‘matter’ of Arda. Sauron’s power was not (for example) in gold as such, but in a particular form or shape made of a particular portion of total gold. Morgoth’s power was disseminated throughout Gold, if nowhere absolute (for he did not create Gold) it was nowhere absent. (It was this Morgoth-element in matter, indeed, which was a prerequisite for such ‘magic’ and other evils as Sauron practised with it and upon it.)

It is quite possible, of course, that certain ‘elements’ or conditions of matter had attracted Morgoth’s special attention (mainly, unless in the remote past, for reasons of his own plans). For example, all gold (in Middle-earth) seems to have had a specially ‘evil’ trend – but not silver. Water is represented as being almost entirely free of Morgoth. (This, of course, does not mean that any particular sea, stream, river, well, or even vessel of water could not be poisoned or defiled – as all things could.)

Whether in the giving of life or in the creation of a “magical artifact” or in the transference of one’s power to something else there was a cost, an irrevocable diminishment of the self, the spirit and its gifts. I say “irrevocable” because Tolkien provides no examples of any reversal of the process. When the Valar asked Fëanor to relinquish the Silmarils so that they could create new Trees it was apparently because even Yavanna had been diminished by her own acts of sub-creation.

Hence, I think it becomes obvious that the “power” of the various Lesser and Greater Rings of Power had to come from the makers themselves: the Elves and Sauron. Until Sauron began teaching these concepts to the Gwaith-i-Mirdain in Eregion they had no way of creating such artifacts. I think this must mean that the Rings of Power were thus something beyond even Fëanor’s own knowledge and skill. His greatest artifacts, the Silmarils, were themselves the products of post-collaboration; he drew upon the light of the Two Trees, which had been sung into life by Yavanna, and subsequently hallowed by Varda. And the Silmarils did nothing to enhance one’s native talents or magnify them.

Thus when Gandalf tells Frodo that it is perilous for a mortal to use even one of the lesser rings (described as “essays in the craft”) he must mean that the rings were in some way similar to the One Ring: imbued with a propensity for independent action, perhaps a fragment of the thought and purpose of the maker. An Elf might have had the strength to master one of the Lesser Rings; most Elves might not have been capable of mastering any of the Great Rings. Sauron could take control over them because he had a part in making them, and once he made the One Ring all the other rings (great and small) became subject to its power.

So, I hope that answers your question. I think it’s pretty interesting and can lead to many other interesting questions and topics.

See also:

• Why Did Sauron Take Back the Dwarven Rings of Power?
• What Could Sauron Have Done Had he Regained the One Ring?
• Who Made the Rings of Power?
• Shhh! It’s a Secret Ring!

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