Q: Would the One Ring Make Sauron Invisible?
ANSWER: This is one of those quantum questions about Middle-earth where almost every possible answer would be correct for the strangest of reasons. In August 2019 I received the following question from a reader:
This morning I was driving with my 5-year-old son in the car and we were listinenig to the radio drama of “The Hobbit’ when he was asking me a question I couldn’t answer. Maybe you can help me out here.
My son wanted to know if Sauron turns also invisible when he wears the one ring. Well, obviously he doesn’t. But why? Everybody else who is wearing the one ring turns invisible. Is it because he is the only one of the ring-bearers so far who can control the powers of the ring?
I wish I had been able to respond in a more timely fashion. But maybe your son is still curious.
I’ll begin by quoting the first part of a lengthy message I received last year (it wasn’t a question but a response to one of my articles):
I believe that in order to actually dominate the ring, you would have to have the strength of will to dominate Sauron himself. Because he is the ring.
Tolkien’s idea that Sauron was able to embed part of himself (his will and power) in the One Ring is hard enough to visualize. It’s inspired many lengthy discussions about the nature of the Ring.
Is it sentient?
Was Sauron in any way aware of the Ring’s attempts to get back to him?
Did the Ring speak to Gollum on Mount Doom? (Yes – read the article for why I say that.)
So, if the Ring is Sauron – or a part of Sauron – can it make him invisible? Isn’t that rather like saying can the motor of an automobile make it move along a roadway? Do your legs allow you to walk across land?
The Ring’s ability to render things invisible wasn’t simply an act of visual obfuscation like Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility. The Ring changed the state of the people who used it to become invisible. They became more like spirits capable of manifesting their wills in the physical world – able to bear and move objects, or to interact with physical things, but in a limited fashion.
How limited?
We don’t know, but we do know that the Ringwraiths could wear clothing over their “faded clothing” and that they needed to be robed in order to interact with the physical world.
Tolkien divided the world into the realms of the Seen and the Unseen, which are more like states of existence, and he describes Sauron’s activity in both states. It is Sauron’s spirit that carries the One Ring from the wreck of Numenor back to Mordor. It is Sauron’s spirit that creates a physical body in which to manifest itself. And it is Sauron’s physical body which wears the One Ring and which is slain (on three occasions).
Sauron Is A Person, A Being or Soul
Sauron is not the Ring or the body that wears the Ring. Sauron is the will that gives the body its physicality and the Ring its power. I think when Tolkien speaks of the Ring as externalizing his will he means something like the Ring is a projection of Sauron’s will – semi-separate from his primary self but not wholly so.
It might be useful to describe Sauron’s separateness from the Ring as similar to a multi-personality disorder – where one personality manifests itself independently of the Ring and the other personality manifests itself in the Ring (or as the Ring). Both personalities are part of Sauron, who intentionally damaged himself in order to externalize his power in the Ring. I don’t mean that is what Tolkien intended – I only mean it may be easier to think of Sauron and the Ring this way, to visualize the two personalities (Sauron and Ring) as parts of a whole that, unlike someone with MPD, are able to physically manifest apart from each other.
Ring-induced Invisibility Is Not Really “Invisibility”
When the Ring makes Bilbo or Frodo invisible, it is Sauron making them invisible. But they are not merely invisible – they are transformed into partially faded states. They are partially disrobed (partially shorn of their physicality) in that their bodies are thinned to the point where they can barely interact with the physical world.
As a Maia Sauron would have the ability to transition into and out of these alternate states. But such a transition would be unnatural for a hobbit or a man like Isildur (the only man who possessed and used the One Ring in any way). The transition would only be possible through the power of the Ring (that is, through Sauron’s power).
The Nazgul were able to use their Nine Rings to achieve this transition between states. But Tolkien doesn’t ascribe any personality to those Rings, or to the Three or the Seven. The transition is the result of Sauron’s will (or the combined will of Sauron and the Mirdain who helped him make the Seven and the Nine).
The Elves wanted to interact with the Unseen. They wanted to be able to transition to that state of semi-bodilessness. Gandalf told Frodo that Glorfindel could see and interact with the Unseen because he had once dwelt in the Blessed Realm – he had the ability to “live at once in both worlds”. Tolkien doesn’t say that Glorfindel faded or became invisible – the reader only sees what Frodo sees, which is a bright and powerful (angry) spirit threatening the Nazgul. We see similar spiritual manifestations when Sam “sees with Other Vision”.
Sauron Changes His State at Will as Ring or as Sauron
To answer the question more directly, I believe that Sauron’s two separate manifestations both possessed the ability to transition between the two states. Since both were parts of Sauron both possessed his innate abilities.
So, Sauron in the Barad-dur would have been able to transition from one physical form to another. He simply wasn’t able to assume a “fair form” any longer.
The One Ring clearly had the ability to take itself and its wearer into the other state. It also had the ability to act on its own. We know that because it intentionally left Gollum (thus allowing Bilbo to find it) and it occasionally tried to leave Bilbo (which is why he put it on a chain). And the story “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields” supposes that the Ring betrayed Isildur, probably also leaving him so that he became visible to his enemies and was slain.
Tolkien included several contemporary descriptions of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings.
There is the off-stage 9-fingered Sauron whom Gollum mentions. Tolkien describes this figure in one of his letters as tall, humanoid, and dark-skinned.
There is the horrifying eye that Frodo and Sam see far off in the distance as they enter Mordor. This is the image that Peter Jackson used in the “Lord of the Rings” movies. Frodo sees (or senses) another variation of this eye manifestation when he wears the Ring on Amon Hen.
And then there is the dark shadow shape of Sauron that rises up out of the ruin of Barad-dur after the Ring has been destroyed, impotent but visible to the naked eye.
Sauron was capable of manifesting himself in many ways. Shape-changing was one of his special talents. But he also had the ability to transition between the two states, thus making himself invisible to a living creature’s vision. They might sense him in some other way (through the fear and dread that the Nazgul clearly inspired) but living things couldn’t normally see in that other realm or state.
I believe Sauron thus had the ability to become invisible regardless of whether he was wearing the Ring. He was able to manifest himself physically in the Third Age from his disembodied state. Tolkien never says he was trapped in that state (whereas Morgoth did so weaken himself he eventually lost the ability to transition between states).
So, yes, Sauron could “turn invisible” if wearing the Ring – but it would have been a willful act for him, rather than an involuntary one. But he most likely did not need the Ring to do this (in his other self). He was both the Ring and not the Ring. Both parts existed equally and with his native ability to transition from Seen to Unseen.
See also …
- What Did Sauron Look Like?
- How Would the Seven Rings Have Affected Mortals?
- Middle-earth Connections: Lore of the Rings
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
Thank you for answering my question. Your answer makes perfect sense. And now that I read it, it almost looks obvious … even for my son. 🙂
He is still a big Tolkien-fan even though upt to now we just read the Comics and listened to the radio drama together. But I’m looking forward to the time when he is old enough to read the books himself.
There’s evidence that invisibility is a more general property of all of the Rings of Power, not just the One – Gandalf certainly expected that behaviour in Shadow of the Past – and also that they only make mortals invisible; the Elven Rings didn’t have this effect on the holders of the Three, and we know that the One didn’t affect Bombadil.
Perhaps there is a “rule” that a Ring will only make members of a lesser order to it’s maker invisible, but that’s going too far into speculation for me. It’s enough to extrapolate that invisibility most likely depends on whether a Ring has power over it’s wearer or not, and it’s definitely confirmed that the One had no power over Bombadil.
I‘m not sure about the 9 rings. But I cannot think of any passage that states that the 7 rings turn the dwarves invisible. As far as I know it increases their greed. But it is not told that Thrain or any of his ancestors turned invisible.
So I would guess the 7 Rings don‘t have that effect or the dwarves are just to stubborn to be affected that way.
In Letter No. 131 J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: “The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the preservation of beauty: they did not confer invisibility.”
Do you think that this statement supports the thesis that all other rings of power have the ability to turn their bearers invisible since it is explicitly stated that the three rings „did not confer invisibility“?
For reference, Gandalf’s statement from Shadow of the Past:
“But the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, they were perilous. A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible… ”
Certainly implies that invisibility is a general property of the Rings.
It’s worth noting that aside from who they were given to, there’s nothing I’m aware of in Tolkien to differentiate the 7 from the 9. The effect of a Ring on it’s bearer is quite explicitly a function of the bearer’s species. So the Rings are more properly divided into the 1, the 3 (which Sauron had no part in making) and the 16.
I have always held that the 7 and the 9 conferred invisibility upon any wearer who wanted it and could be so changed.
If I recall correctly, “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” says that the Rings could not render the Dwarves invisible – or maybe it was the LoTR appendices. But that is because of the Dwarves’ nature, not a lack of ability in the 7.
I also agree with Moose – the Rings were really the “lesser rings”, the 16, the 3, and the 1 (in order of making).
Does this also mean that Sauron put a part of his power in each of the lesser 16 rings? If this is the case would that mean that by destroying some of these rings the dragons also diminshed Sauron‘s power? Al least a small part of it?
I’m not sure I’ve ever given the second question any thought.
Since Tolkien was clear that Sauron had a part in making the 16, I’ve always assumed that some small part of his power/essence flowed into them. I would say it was insignificant compared to that which he poured into the One Ring – but that’s just my guess.
As for what would happen to the essence Sauron might have embedded in any rings that were destroyed, I would guess it was released. I don’t know how to extrapolate from the destruction of the One Ring because, technically, Sauron’s “strength” should have continued to exist without it. It’s not like Tolkien implied the universe changes in some way because of the death of an Ainu. He didn’t provide anything like theoretical physics for us to work with.
Whatever you think might have happened is just as valid and plausible as anything I could suggest.
I would have said the answer is “no” – Sauron put none of his power into the 16. He certainly corrupted them, but the reason why he had to put his power into the One was to control the others, not to give it power. So it seems to make no sense if he had put power into the 16, that he had to put more power into the One to control his own power.
I found this article to be especially enjoyable. Thanks!
I (and others, of course – original ideas are so hard to come by) see strong parallels between the Rings and JK Rowlings’s horcruxes (sorry, you’re the one who cited Harry Potter). A part of Voldemort’s soul lives within each horcrux, Voldemort can’t be destroyed as long as a horcrux remains, destroying a horcrux diminishes Voldemort, Voldemort can act upon and influence others through the horcrux (Ginny Weasley’s actions in ‘Chamber of Secrets’ due to her possession of Tom Riddle’s diary; Harry’s mental connection to Voldemort), the horcruxes seem to have an evil mind of their own…
In many ways, JKR is far more explicit about how this split personality/multi-personality disorder works, perhaps because Dumbledore (and the author) needs to explain it all to kids.
JKR has never admitted a debt to Tolkien, and there are plenty of other ways these parallels could have come about. Regardless, if one needs to explain these aspects of the Rings to a young person I think Rowling’s horcruxes can be a useful example.