MikeCheck1212, welcome to TTF. This is a great question as your first post!
First of all, none of
the Rings of Power were made for
Men or
Dwarves. That we know for certain from a chapter entitled “Of the Rings of Power and
the Third Age” in
The Silmarillion. The
Noldor of Eregion (Hollin) were making “magic” rings when
Sauron in the guise of “
Annatar” (“Giver of Gifts”) attempted to seduce the remaining Eldar in
Middle-earth.
Gil-galad and
Elrond would not permit him to enter
Lindon: they mistrusted Annatar; and
Galadriel warned the other Noldor in Eregion that she, who had been born and lived in
Valinor and knew
Aulë the
Vala personally, knew of no “Annatar” in the service of Aulë, as he claimed. But the Noldorin smiths, the Mírdain, were eager for Sauron’s knowledge, which he truly had. Under his tutelage and with his help, they made
the Nine and the Seven – for themselves. Somehow he made a “back door” into these Rings, as well as the Three, which were made by
Celebrimbor alone and never touched by Sauron. If you’d like, I think of this “back door” like a piece of malware on a computer: it allows Sauron to control the person wearing
the ring through his
One Ring.
Elves have a strong aversion to “fading”. That’s the process by which their bodies, which
Tolkien calls
hröa, are slowly consumed by their
spirits, or
fëar. For instance, it seemed to
Frodo that “a white light was shining through the form and raiment of [Glorfindel], as if through a thin veil.” When
Legolas ran across the snow in the Redhorn Pass, Frodo noticed that “his feet made little imprint in the snow.” On the way to the Gray Havens, he noticed that Galadriel “seemed to shine with a soft light.” The Rings are made to halt this natural process. They do other things, too, but their principle power is halting the effects of time. In one his letters (
Letter 131 to Milton Waldman, his longest), Tolkien wrote,
[T]he Elves … wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of “The West”, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, [rather] than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They … became obsessed with “fading”, the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them … and their efforts … a kind of embalming… [M]any of the Elves listened to Sauron. He was still fair …, and his motives and those of the Elves seemed to go partly together... Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make ... Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods [i.e., the Valar], an incitement to try and make a separate independent paradise. Gil-galad repulsed all such overtures, as also did Elrond. But at Eregion great work began – and the Elves came their nearest to falling to “magic” and machinery. With the aid of Sauron's lore they made
Rings of Power…
The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. “change” viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance – this is more or less an
Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor – thus approaching “magic”, a motive easily corruptible into
evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron (“the Necromancer”…): such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible.
Now I’m going say something to which others may (strongly) object: I don’t think the Rings made the Elves invisible. That’s what “fading” does to them, and if the Rings made the “fading” worse, the Elves would have shunned them. However, they’re necromantic: they use Black Magic, death magic if you will, to accomplish this. Galadriel uses her
Ring of Power to stop many of the physical effects of time in
Lórien. Elrond uses his Ring to stop forgetfulness and retain his immense memory. Elrond and Galadriel and even
Gandalf are wearing their Three Rings, but none of them are invisible.
A
Dwarf who wore one of the Seven wasn’t invisible, either. Nor did their Rings lengthen their lives. Their Rings inflamed their greed, however, and allowed them to gather more wealth, especially gold, for which they lusted: Sauron was able to use this to his advantage.
Men, however, do not naturally fade. They die and leave
Arda, the physical world. The Nine Rings kept Men tied to Arda. The same black magic that kept Elves from fading by interfering with the natural effects of Time kept Men from dying. One way it did this was by breaking down the barriers between the physical world and spiritual world, “the other side,” sometimes called the “wraith world.” When Frodo was succumbing to
the One Ring, he could see
Glorfindel in the “wraith world,” and at the Ford of Bruinen, Glorfindel appeared as “a shining figure of white light.” Gandalf told him that he had seen Glorfindel “for a moment as he is upon the other side: one of the mighty of the Firstborn.” And to Gandalf, Frodo himself showed “a faint change just a hint as it were of transparency about him, and especially about the left hand”, and told him, “‘You were beginning to fade… You were in gravest peril while you wore the Ring, for then you were half in the wraith-world yourself, and they might have seized you. You could see them, and they could see you.’”
By the way, notice that the “wraith-world” is not necessarily an evil place, but it’s not a place living Men should be in Middle-earth. Wraiths inhabit it, but they’re not supposed to be there, either: they’re using Sauron’s power through their Rings to “break The Rules.”
So long as a Mortal Man wears a Ring of Power, he is the wraith-world, and he’s invisible. Though it’s not mentioned in
The Hobbit, Tolkien says that Frodo and
Sam, and later
Merry when he kills the
Witch-king and suffers
Black Breath from contact with the
Ringwraith, all have trouble seeing the normal world: things are foggy or misty, something Peter Jackson depicts reasonably well in his films. And as Gandalf tells Frodo at the beginning of the tale, if a Mortal “often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he
fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently.” So that’s your last question.
Squint-eyed Southerner has answered your second question, “Why does Sauron not [become] invisible when wearing the ring…”) And he’s also spoken to your first question: “an unconscious mortal remains invisible.”
Bilbo remained invisible after getting hit on the head in the
Battle of Five Armies, and maybe Sam did, too, when he banged himself senseless at the Undergate to
Cirith Ungol in
Shelob’s tunnels. (No one seems to know when Sam took off and put on The Ring at the end of the Book IV and the beginning of Book VI, not even Christopher Tolkien. Christopher Tolkien thinks he probably had it on when he knocked himself out on the doors, but that’s not positively clear.)
My answer to your first question, “Does the invisibility wears off if the wearer dies?” is,
I don’t know. It does make sense, though, doesn’t it? The only catch is,
maybe a Mortal wearing a Ring of Power can’t “die” normally. The Witch-king probably wasn’t wearing his Ring when
Éowyn cut off his head, and his spirit was snatched back to
Barad-dûr (and maybe his invisible, headless body, too) where Sauron held the Nine Rings and so maintained control of the
Ringwraiths.
There’s a discussion currently underway about what Sauron might have done with the Witch-king’s ring after that. Tolkien makes it clear that Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam all had the opportunity to kill
Gollum; but of course he wasn’t wearing the One Ring at the time. Frodo was hammered in
Moria by the
Orc chieftain who tried to skewer him; but he wasn’t wearing the Ring then, either. While he was wearing the Ring, Gollum bit his finger off; and while Sauron was wearing the Ring (and seemingly out cold from fighting
Elendil and Gil-galad),
Isildur cut the Ring from his hand.
Just one thing, though: if “The chief power of all the rings alike was the prevention or slowing of decay,” then maybe a corpse wouldn’t rot. Unless, of course, the wearer has to be alive for the Ring to have any effect.
Now I haven’t answered your question, but I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.
