Some thoughts on the Rings of Power

The title of this post has something of a double-meaning today, as I felt like discussing both Amazon's Rings of Power and the self-same rings of power as Tolkien originally conceived them. Now, I'l begin by saying I haven't actually seen Rings of Power, but I've read a number of articles written about it. From what I've read I am generally of the opinion that I'm not missing much, due to a number of changes from the source material which seem to be made solely for the sake of change rather than out of necessity.  People may defend an adaptation by saying that changes must be made; I don't think any sane person would deny that, but not all changes are equal. Or good. I'm not here to quibble with every change made (indeed, not having watched the show, I can hardly do so, and some are fine), but there are some which seem primarily for the sake of cheap drama rather than from a place of measured consideration of what deeper themes Tolkien intended his work to say.

The particulare change which indirectly sparked this post was this: in Tolkien's work, the three rings of power which end up going to the Elves are completed last, using the knowledge learned from Sauron (in his guise as Annatar, Lord of Gifts), but without him being directly involved as with the previous sixteen rings (which eventually get split up seven to the Dwarves and nine to Men). The three Elven rings – Narya, Nenya, and Vilya – are therefore unsullied by Sauron, and could be used safely as long as Sauron didn't possess the One Ring. 

Rings of Power, instead, has switched things around to have the three be forged first by Celebrimbor with Sauron's direct involvement, in what seems like an attempt to generate cheap drama by having the Elves debate about whether they should use them or not, ultimately deciding to do so and having it (seemingly so far) turn out all right. This, of course, runs completely counter to Tolkien's view, where the instruments of evil (such as the One Ring), even if wielded for the best of purposes and with the purest of motives, inevitably corrupt their wielders with a desire for ever-more power and domination. We need look no further than Gandalf and Galadrial's reactions to being offered the One Ring; they both are wise enough to recognize that while they would initially take it up with the best of intentions, in time they would become tyrants to rival Sauron.

But how, in Tolkien's work, did Sauron get the Elves of Eregion to work with him in forging the rings of power in the first place if they proved so dangerous? I was recently thinking about this (read: my brain obsessively decided to focus on this at 4 AM in the morning when I woke up one night after reading Tolkien's essay On Fairy-stories before bed), and I have some thoughts.

The Second Age, in Tolkien's legendarium, was an age of, if not necessarily decay, at least a bit of a slow burn; after the high and heroic deeds of the First Age, ending in the fall and banishment of Morgoth, the Second Age starts out hopeful: the Númenóreans have their island home of Númenór (granted by the Valar as reward for their help), and after the cataclysmic battle against Morgoth the rest of Middle-Earth has peace again, with evil seemingly defeated. But over the centuries and millennia, it become clear that cracks are forming in this idyllic vision; as the average lifespan of the Númenóreans slowly dwindles, they start to become more and more afraid of death, ending ultimately in Ar-Pharazôn's catastrophic attempt (provoked by Sauron) to invade the Undying Lands. Sauron, having escaped the overthrow of his master, lay low for centuries but eventually begins to stir again, fortifying Mordor as his stronghold and seeking to extend his power and influence. The Elves, in general, are not doing a whole lot during this time (though the friendship between the Elves of Eregion and the Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm is notable); after the great deeds of the First Age, they seem to enter something of a holding pattern, more interested in preserving what is rather than making new things.

And this, I think, gives a clue as to how Sauron was able to trick the Elves' best and brightest into forging what would become some of his most potent weapons. His endgame was always Domination; the forceful overwriting of others' wills with his own, as seen most vividly with the Nazgûl, or Ringwraiths. But he could disguise this desire by presenting the rings as agents of Preservation, which the Elves were interested in. The error of the Elves lay in not recognizing that Preservation of things beyond their natural state or lifetime is but little removed from Domination. Preserving may seem to be “freezing things in time,” but what it must actually be is a series of changes undoing those done by time, just as a pure tone may be canceled out by playing another of the same frequency but 180° out of phase with it.

Sauron thus essentially had a backdoor in every ring that was forged; they were already latent instruments of domination, of the imposing of the will upon Nature and Others beyond the natural state. In forging the One Ring to control them he simply, as it were, revealed their true nature and the trap the Elves had fallen into. While the Three were forged without his direct involvement and thus bore no direct taint, even they had the fatal flaw of the others (and could be suborned) because they were built on the same principles and along the same lines. When the Elves perceived this treachery on Sauron's part they removed their rings, and did not wear them again until Sauron was overthrown and the One Ring was lost (closing out the Second Age in the process), but he was able to use the sixteen already made – to devastating effect in the case of the Ringwraiths.

(As an aside, the rings given to the Dwarves don't seem to have had much effect on them, beyond inflaming their natural desire for gold and perhaps extending their lives somewhat. Sauron, as a Maia, was once the student of Aulë, the Vala who created the Dwarves in anticipation of the coming of Men; and perhaps here we may see where the pupil's craft proved unable to surpass the master's.)

It's a shame that Rings of Power doesn't seem interested in telling this arresting tale – of Sauron cunningly working on the Elven smiths of Eregion, promising (real) knowledge and power to help keep things as they are and arrest their natural decay, while secretly sowing the seeds of destruction and domination. A nuanced discussion of when to Preserve and when to let go could have been had, and what the proper place of Magic (really, Technology) is in so doing; but instead we get a flipping of the rings' forging order seemingly for the sake of some cheap drama and uncertainty, without any deeper thought as to what the ramifications of such a change would mean or how the lesson imparted might end up entirely at odds with Tolkien's intended one. It is not (from what I have gleaned) the first such change in Rings of Power, and it will probably not be the last.

What should we take away from all this? One possible moral might be that since Preservation is not so far removed from Domination we shouldn't try to preserve Tolkien, and accept whatever changes others make. I feel, however, that this would be missing a key point: that there is a proper and an improper use of, and time for, preservation. The rings' powers only became problematic when they tried to preserve something beyond its natural state or limit; they did not provide more life, but merely an extension of it, being stretched ever thinner. As Bilbo said, beginning to feel the effects, it was like being “butter, spread over too much bread,” a discomfort which would eventually stretch into a torment had he not freely given up the ring.

But there is still a use for Preservation, when it does not seek to preserve things too far. Elrond in Rivendell and Galadrial in Lórien both preserve their respective locations throughout the Third Age, but when the One Ring was unmade, the Third Age ended, and the Elves knew that the time of Men was come and the time of the Elves was ending, they willingly surrendered their attempts at preservation to higher powers and departed Middle-Earth for Valinor. Tolkien knew and accepted that people would build upon the foundation he laid; but I think there is still room to critique the additions and see if they measure up to what came before, without declaring the entire edifice untouchable and eternally fixed. Preserving Good in the world and not letting it fall into ruin before its time is good, as long as the focus remains on the Good and not solely on the Preserving, as such; a trap, as Tolkien reminds us, all-too-easy to fall into.