Re: The Invisibility of the Ringwraiths

Author:    Steuard Jensen
Email:     sjensen -aaatt- hmc -daht- edu
Date:      1998/09/08
Forums:    rec.arts.books.tolkien
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Quoth <<<s.souter -aaatt- edfac.usyd.edu -daht- au>>> (Stephen Souter):
> Actually, couldn't that "and his eyes glittered" be interpreted as
> meaning they glittered by *reflected* light?
...
> But then invisibility in Tolkien's word is peculiar.

[Snip many examples, in which various things are visible or not.]

> In which case what about some other light source the bearer happened
> to be carrying, be it the magical Phial of Galadriel or a
> non-magical lantern?)

As far as I can tell from the books (and these examples in
particular), the Ring only influences light which passes through a
"skin" around its wearer, and in fact, only light which first hits the
_outside edge_ of that "skin."

In more detail, light running into the "skin" from the outside simply
passes along without being affected by anything inside (or at least,
not much; more on this later).  Thus, we can see right through the
wearer, as if he were not there.  On the other hand, light which runs
into the "skin" from the inside is not affected.  Hence, light sources
borne by the wearer (magical or not) are visible on the outside to
precisely the extent that they would be if the Ring were not involved
at all.

This is really quite a good idea, when it comes right down to it.
Among other things, heat can be emitted as (infrared) light, and it
would be very bad for the Rings to interfere with their wearers'
abilities to regulate their body temperatures.  Also, it means that
the Ring only needs to "worry about" a one sided, two dimensional
surface, rather than a full three dimensional volume, which has got to
make its job much easier.

Of course, the Ring's ability to stop influences on incoming light is
clearly not perfect: Bilbo's shadow in _The Hobbit_ is testament to
that.  However, I don't think we can tell if this "flaw" was
intentional or not.

Finally, (but briefly, as I need to go), I think that the Ring depends
on a sentient being wearing it to be activated (so Frodo's finger
alone didn't cut it).  Once the Ring was activated, the wearer would
have some degree of personal control over its operation.  For the weak
and/or untrained, that would consist only of a subconscious list of
what counted as "carried" and what did not.  For the strong, the
invisibility could be easily limited, as Galadriel confined
invisibility to her Ring alone.

                                        Steuard Jensen