The One Ring when 👁️Sauron was in Numenor?Or those Rings really suck

Phantom718 said:

Good questions. If Sauron had the ring with him in Numenor, then how did the ring get to M-E if his body perished? I suppose maybe somehow the ring could have been bound to his non-corporeal form?

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Tolkien said in a letter (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, #211) that, "Though reduced to ‘a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind’, I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring".

That's what a lot of this argument hinges on. I'll just say that in my own head-canon, he left the Ring at home. 😄

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

That's what a lot of this argument hinges on. I'll just say that in my own head-canon, he left the Ring at home. 😄

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If he left the ring at home, did he leave it in the drawer next to his bed or does he have a safe in Barad-dur - made of mithril with the top secret number combination 3-7-9-1?

Annatar said:

the top secret number combination 3-7-9-1?

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Why 3791? Sounds very familiar to me for some reason...

Lómelindë Lindórië said:

Why 3791? Sounds very familiar to me for some reason...

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Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Moreover, his IT security expert advised him not to use codes like "1-2-3-4"...

Annatar said:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

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Ohhhh....so that's where it came from!

Annatar said:

Moreover, his IT security expert advised him not to use codes like "1-2-3-4"...

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Hmm...I wonder who's his IT security expert? You? Or me?

I'm picturing a jewelry box.


Or maybe hidden in an innocuous-looking knick-knack. . .

Yes, he seems to be his best customer of his own merachandising products. 😁

Annatar said:

Yes, he seems to be his best customer of his own merachandising products. 😁

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In which case, there's technically no need for an IT expert, because he knows himself too well.

Maybe he gave the Ring to his Mini-Me while he was away:

Annatar said:

Maybe he gave the Ring to his Mini-Me while he was away:

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Then you gave it to me, as a token of the long time that hath passed betwixt us...

But would I destroy it? Hmm...

Law-iston... (I don't know...)

Indeed, I am a mediator betwixt (1) the Valar, and (2) Melkor and Annatar....

The question of “Did Sauron have the One Ring physically with him during his time in Numenor?”
Hinges on the following quotes:

From Letter 211 -

He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans.

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And -

Though reduced to 'a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind', I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended.

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From Akallabeth -

But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dûr, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.

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However, this does not necessarily mean that Sauron definitely had the Ring with him in Numenor. There is still some uncertainty surrounding the question.

In the same Letter 211 we find also -

You cannot press the One Ring too hard, for it is of course a mythical feature, even though the world of the tales is conceived in more or less historical terms. The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one's life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. If I were to 'philosophize' this myth, or at least the Ring of Sauron, I should say it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one's direct control. A man who wishes to exert 'power' must have subjects, who are not himself. But he then depends on them.

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It is possible that Sauron left the Ring in a secure place in the Barad-dur. He probably had chambers that only he could access while the tower stood. So then, is it also possible that Sauron could access the part of himself held in the Ring without being in physical contact?

The only time we know with certainty that he was without the Ring was after his defeat in the War of the Last Allience. And we know that he could not control the Elven Rings through the One Ring during that period but he was able to rebuild, or build a new, body. So he was not, it would seem, completely cut off from his power within the Ring. Now, at the time of the his defeat the One Ring was forcibly removed from him along with the finger that it was on. This would be a catastrophic severing of his physical and psychic conection to the Ring and for a time he was worried the Ring would be destroyed. As time went on he knew the Ring still existed but did not know where it was. He was able to control the Ring-wraiths because he was able to take their rings from them either before he lost the One or when he started to rebuild his body. The issue with the Ring and Numenor is, would there be a similar problem for Sauron if he chose to remove the One Ring himself?

For myself, I find the wording in Akallabeth to be telling. He returned to Mordor. Took up his Ring in the Barad-dur. Then dwelt there “until he wrought himself a new guise”. He “Took up his Ring” before creating a new body.

I think that Sauron took off the One Ring himself and placed it in a safe place as he did not need to actively control the Elven Rings while he was in Numenor and was able to access his native power sufficiently to be more that strong enough to achieve his goals.

Lómelindë Lindórië said:

Then you gave it to me, as a token of the long time that hath passed betwixt us...

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Ah, now I recognize you, after your name change. Had already wondered. 👻

Annatar said:

Ah, now I recognize you, after your name change. Had already wondered. 👻

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Yet now I am no longer a Maia - I now count among the Valier!

How does that feel? What say you? Does that make us closer, or further apart?

Gothmog said:

I think that Sauron took off the One Ring himself and placed it in a safe place as he did not need to actively control the Elven Rings while he was in Numenor and was able to access his native power sufficiently to be more that strong enough to achieve his goals.

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Interesting reasoning, but personally I'm not quite convinced of it yet.

For example, why would Sauron take off his ring and leave it in Barad-dur? That would only make sense if he was afraid that the Numenorians would take the Ring from him. But first, they didn't know about the Rings of Power, and second, I believe that Sauron was able to make the Ring invisible to others, just as Galadriel, for example, was able to hide Nenya from others, at least from mortals. Furthermore, he should have feared that the Numenorians would plunder and destroy Barad-dur. And finally, he also needed the Ring on Numenor to exert control over the Nine.

That would basically be like me taking a three-week vacation in New Zealand and leaving my smartphone and laptop at home while my door lock is broken.
And I actually would need the smartphone to plan my trip, book tickets and research information more quickly...

So I'd rather think that he had the Ring with him in Numenor, although of course it's a kind of plot hole how the Ring could come back again. As suggested in an older post, perhaps he could have influenced the ocean current in spirit form, so that his former, rotten Annatar-body, to which the Ring was still attached, was washed to Middle-earth. Or his spirit could exert control over lower (sea) beings, like a kind of possession as with the wargs or the wights, that were also controlled by evil spirits...
In any case, it would be plausible that he could wield more power in spirit form than in the Third Age, since the Ring remained on his destroyed body after Numenor's demise and he therefore knew exactly where it was.

He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans.

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Incidentally, I find this statement of Tolkien's particularly interesting, since nowhere else is it said that the Ring is also capable of manipulating the minds of beings who do not themselves wear a (lesser) Ring.
I explain it as Sauron being able to boost his naturally innate abilities just by wearing the Ring.

This would also fit the concept of increasing power through externalization while at the same time risking loss of control.

Morgoth has in principle done something similar by shifting more and more of his own power into his creatures and pseudo-creations...

Annatar said:

Morgoth has in principle done something similar by shifting more and more of his own power into his creatures and pseudo-creations...

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Though I do feel Melkor shifted more of his power into his creations than Mairon did...am I wrong?

And is it true that Mairon was also cast into the Void? If so, when?

Lómelindë Lindórië said:

How does that feel? What say you? Does that make us closer, or further apart?

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Congratulations. As long as you don't rage through Arda with a 6-handed sword, manspreading in chainmail and living out your new power, I think it's good.
😜👍

Lómelindë Lindórië said:

Though I do feel Melkor shifted more of his power into his creations than Mairon did...am I wrong?

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Yeah, maybe I still left more of my power in my brain than in any.... tools. 😏

Annatar said:

As long as you don't rage through Arda with a 6-handed sword...

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Why 6-handed? What's the reference there? Music and silence are my realms as a Valie. How does that relate to Aule...?

Annatar said:

Yeah, maybe I still left more of my power in my brain than in any.... tools. 😏

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You'd be in the Void soon before you'd realise it...would you have any braincells left...? Are there braincells in the Void?

Lómelindë Lindórië said:

Music and silence are my realms as a Valie.

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Very reasonable. 👍

Annatar said:

Very reasonable. 👍

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I am glad you like it - does it seem intriguing that silence also interlinks with Námo and, more specifically, his Halls?