So what are the powers of The One Ring exactly?

[Vronsky]

I'm trying to figure out what powers The One Ring exactly carries. As far as I can discover, the book describes the following effects when the bearer wears it:
- invisibility
- enhances the senses (sight, hearing, smelling)
- slows ageing
- enhances evil personality

Surely there are more. I wonder how Boromir would have used it to save Gondor.

Any thoughts?

[Dunadan]

This is an interesting question; I think it's another element deliberately left a mystery in LOTR. It does say, however, that sight in the normal world is "foggy" while hearing is greatly enhanced.

There are a few references to Power of Command. Gandalf uses a Command to stop the Balrog opening the door in Moria. If you recall, the effort nearly breaks him. Maia vs maia. Here's my theory:

The Ring instantiates the wearer in the "spirit" realm which is inhabited by valar, maiar and calaquendi (the elves who have seen the light of Valinor), not to mention Nazgul. The words and music deriving from this spirit world seem to have real power, for example to inflict fear in the servants of Sauron (can't remember where, but there's a bit where "Elbereth Gilthoniel" is said to inflict more harm to a nazgul than a weapon)

There's an interesting reference to a similar phenomenon in the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag: something about being stripped of your body and being left naked before the lidless eye on "the other side".

Since the Ainur created the world from their music, it would seem plausible that their words could have power to directly influence the world. Maybe the Power of Command is a limited form of this process; maybe the Ring enables a mortal to exert this power if s/he knows how.

But the Ring contains much of the power and identity of the maia Sauron. This, in itself, would grant power, but if the wearer did not previously exist in the spirit world, s/he would be severely limited and would need steely willpower to use it. It would not be their power, but Sauron's, which "fuels" the Command. If the wearer already possessed their own power, however, the Ring would multiply it.

Tolkien closely associates vanity with evil; the Ring works on the user's vanity to pervert them over time. Bilbo, Frodo and Sam completely lack vanity; they are saved by their hobbit-sense, yet none of them are able to give up the Ring completely unprompted.

The only character thought immune to its powers is Bombadil. If we assume he's a maia, I guess it's because he exists in Middle-Earth in an unrestricted form, unlike Gandalf/Olorin, who is limited by, and well aware of, the limitations placed on what the Istari can and cannot do.

I'm sure others have already written stuff about this; I'd be interested in any links to it.

Back to work (goddam real world; much less interesting than speculation)

[Finglas]

Lots of good points there, Dunadan. the 'Boromir's Ring' thread has some more to say about this topic too.

[durin's bane]

I think the Ring has the power to mutate its holder if it is kept by the same bearer too long, and it can also seduce people to try and steal it, which, as I've observed, also leads to a violent death afterwards for the one it's attracted.

[Keith K]

It could be used to lay bare the minds and policies of the bearers of the other rings of power. Or in the case of the Nine, completely control the bearer.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I was always kinda hoping it was also an aphrodisiac.

[Strange-Looking Lurker]

It's interesting to note that Frodo threated to make Gollum choke himself with the fish he was eating. Gollum took the threat quite seriously. And when Isildur (sp?) was attacted on his way to Elrond's, he seemed to think that he could have carried the day if he had learned how to use the ring earlier. It seems that the ring bearer could actually have at least some amount of control over other people using the ring.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I have always thought that gollum falling into the crack of doom was not accident, but the reult of a command inplanted some minutes earlier by Frodo. On the path to the chamber of doom gollum attack Sam and Frodo, and Frodo cows him with the ring, clutching it an d saying (among other things) something like (I do not have the book here)"If you ever try to get it again, you will be cast into the pit".

[Elfhelm]

((Actually, Frodo "commands" Gollum with the oath before they meet Faramir.))

The ring deludes people. Remember all the visions Sam has while he is the temporary ringbearer? They might come from his own mind, but they are encouraged by the ring.

I believe if Boromir had taken the One Ring and used it to destroy Sauron, he would then become the next Dark Lord.

But most importantly, the one Ring symbolizes restrained will (as opposed to free will). LotR is basically a Ragnarok story and the destruction of Valhalla, like the destruction of Sauron's stronghold, brings about a liberation of the will (and a passing of old ways, and the dawn of the human era). So the One Ring must be, above all, able to strip beings of free will.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Elfhelm
I believe if Boromir had taken the One Ring and used it to destroy Sauron, he would then become the next Dark Lord.

I thnk more likely that he would not have enough inate power and time to use it effectively, that it would betray him to egotism and overconfidence, that he and his armies would be thrash, and when captured by Sauron he would be subject to more than the standard amount of torment allocated to leaders of the Dunedain.

[Lefty Scaevola]

The command to gullum which I was refering to occurs on the side of Mt doom just before the chamber of fire. There are 3 short paragraphs of Frodo speaking and Sam seeing them with "other vision" ending with Frodo saying, and it seeming to Sam the voice came from the "wheel of Fire" (the ring)


"If you ever touch me agin, you shall yourself be cast into the into the Fire of Doom."

Which is where gollum wound up short minutes later.

[Lief Erikson]

I think Dunadan was very much correct on what he said.

I also think that the One Ring can be used to manipulate the minds of others, and yes, destroy free will. Enormously powerful things can be done through it, but once you open up the Ring to your own use, you open yourself up to its use as well, and it will gain the upper hand simply because of its nature and patience.

"If you ever touch me agin, you shall yourself be cast into the into the Fire of Doom."

Which is where gollum wound up short minutes later.

I agree that Frodo could have, with the Ring, done any of the things to Gollum that he threatened. These are tiny examples of what it can do.

But I don't think that he ended up carrying out his threat, or that traps for the future can be laid by the Ring in the way you're thinking. I think that Frodo could have made Gollum jump into the Crack of Doom, but once the Ring was taken away from him, he didn't have the ability any more. I think it was either chance or Ilúvatar's design from early on.

[azalea]

I agree with what others are saying about the ring giving the bearer the power to dominate others. I said in another thread that I think the more "power" a being has over others to begin with, the greater the ring's influence. This is why IMO even a "good" being could not bear the ring with any success: the intentions would be good, but power over others (that is, their loss of free will) can never in the end be a good thing. That's what I get out of it, that the "power" that the ring gives over others is the main one. The power of invisibility was handled nicely by Tolkien between The Hobbit (where Bilbo needed to be invisible) and LotR, where invisibility is really an existence (SP?) in the "wraith-world."

[Nurvingiel]

When Sam is rescuing Frodo from the desrted guard tower in Mordor, he is wearing the ring around his neck. This along makes him appear huge and dangerous to a long orc, who runs away. I think the ring also gives bonuses to its bearer (as long as it finds its bearer to be convenient and useful) like invisibility and distorting his appearance.

Its true power is mysterious. It is whatever power Sauron possesed that he put into the ring.

Is is just raw power to work magic? Is it pure malice?

Maybe malice is a side effect too.

[Wayfarer]

Is is just raw power to work magic? Is it pure malice?

The ring contained the localized power to do basically anything which one desired. It made anything that was conceivable, achievable.

Galadriel implies that frodo could use the ring to dominate other minds, if he trained himself to do it. I take this to mean that the ring had the power to do something like that, but frodo didn't know how.

Gollum used the ring to find out secrets; he was a naturally sneaky character, and the ring made him into a supernaturally sneaky character.

It is interesting to not that sam was tempted with a vision of himself bearing a flaming sword and leading an army against mordor, and turning the entire country into a garden. I think that it is entirely possible that the ring had enough power to make good on it's promise, and that if sam had learned how to truly use it he could have done exactly that.

Gandalf says that through him the ring 'would gain a power to great and terrible to be imagined'. Let's consider that. Gandalf told saruman that there was only one who could bend the ring to his will-sauron. So what happens to everybody else? I believe that they are bent to the ring's will. The ring, which can do nothing by itself, is capable of working through others. It needs someone to work through-and that person needs to have the mental ability to do what the ring wants.