Battered Up: Fighting with The Ring

When discussing Free Will in relation to the One Ring, the question arises of whether or not Sauron and his Ring are fundamentally separate entities that act in their own self-interest, or if the Ring contains Sauron's essence similar to a Horcrux, to borrow terminology from another fantastical universe. In particular, this helps shed light onto details about what happens when Frodo chooses to be the master of the Ring as he is about to destroy it in Mount Doom. On one hand, details of the forging of the Ring and Sauron's resurrection through the power and influence of the Ring after the downfall of Isildur shows that Sauron's power is held within the Ring. However, in Letters 246, Tolkien relates the relative strength of multiple characters with and without the Ring, which leads to the conclusion that the power of the Ring depends on the user. This gives a contradiction, which should be resolved when studying the Ring in any level of detail.

Sauron's essence and spirit is an integral component of the Ring, a component that is amplified when he wields the Ring. In the epilogue to The Silmarillion entitled "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age", Tolkien describes the transition of state from when Morgoth is overthrown to when Frodo sails west, although with emphasis on setting up the stage for Frodo's quest as opposed to telling his quest in full detail. Notably, this is told from the perspective of Sauron, who is the 'tragic hero' at play here. Sauron forges the Ring of power in secrecy from the elves, with the property that the other Rings of power have "their power...bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last." (The Silmarillion) Specifically, Sauron passes his "strength and will" into the Ring as he forges it in the "Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow." (The Silmarillion) This implies that there exist pieces of Sauron's essence in the Ring, amplified by Sauron's wielding of the Ring, because Sauron could see everything related to the other Rings and their wearers, and the wearers were alerted to Sauron's presence when he put on the Ring. (The Silmarillion)

The viewpoint of Sauron being physically present inside the Ring is strengthened by the return of Sauron after being physically destroyed by Isildur. Long after his destruction in Middle Earth when thoughts of evil are remote at most, Sauron's presence becomes apparent again when "a darkness crept slowly...and fear walked...in shadowy glades; fell beasts came hunting, and cruel and evil creatures laid there their snares." (The Silmarillion) The previous description concerns the forest of Mirkwood, but the spirit of this phenomenon echoes throughout Middle Earth. As this shadow grows and spreads, Sauron's presence becomes increasingly clear, leading to his resurrection in the form of an eye. It is clear that Sauron's spirit is what binds Mordor to his will, and this spirit is sourced from the Ring. For if Isildur had destroyed the Ring when he had the opportunity, Sauron's spirit would have been destroyed and thus unable to reform.

Considering the relationship between characters and the Ring shows a dependence of the Ring's power on the user, which complicates the simpler notion that the Ring is a container for Sauron's power. In Letters 246, Tolkien responds to a Mrs. Eileen Elgar in a draft letter concerning Frodo's "'failure'" to relinquish the Ring at Mount Doom, repeating the legacy of those that came before him. Tolkien enters a thought-experiment where he pits Frodo and Gandalf, each respectively masters of the Ring, against Sauron without the Ring in a battle to the end for superiority. While Frodo with the Ring in battle is an amusing thought, Tolkien immediately asserts that "he would have been utterly overthrown: crushed to dust, or preserved in torment as a gibbering slave." (Letters 246) This result happens because the Ring is solely under Sauron's control, so he can force the wearer, through the Ring, to return the Ring to himself.

However, Gandalf's status in a ficticious fight turns the tables: Tolkien describes the fight between Gandalf with the Ring and Sauron as basically a coin flip, with no expected winner. The factors at play are the "true allegiance of the Ring to Sauron" and the "superior strength" given by Sauron not possessing the Ring. (Letters 246) We should take a step back and comment that these confrontations are random events, and the winner is not determined deterministically, but we can study the expected outcomes of these fights and gain insight from them. Quantitatively, we can think of this as having 1000 imaginary fights and assigning probabilities based on the fraction of victories for each side. Gandalf is expected to win around half of the fights whereas Frodo is expected to win close to none, which raises an interesting contradiction. If the Ring was simply holding the power of Sauron, then we would expect any user to have the same fighting chance, since they had the power of Sauron on their side. Thus, the user-dependent strength of the Ring is important to consider when defining the Ring.

The best resolution to this contradiction is to view the Ring as a battery: a storage device for Sauron's power with variable output levels depending on what the user needs. Specifically, let's consider a car battery. When plugged into a car, it provides power so that the car can operate properly, but a thin wire would be fried if it experienced the full output of the battery - meaning it can only utilize a fraction of the total power. In the case of the Ring, we see that Sauron can utilize the full potential of the Ring since it is his creation, but others can utilize fractions of it depending on their own ability - Gandalf as a Maia is expected to be able to utilize more of the Ring's power than Frodo, a mere Hobbit. Therefore, we should consider the Ring as Sauron, but to different degrees depending on who wears the Ring.

-Calder (BP3)