Re: Ringlords Aplenty Author: Steuard Jensen Email: sjensen -aaatt- hmc -daht- edu Date: 1998/06/12 Forums: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien ----------------------------------------------------------- Quoth <<>> (Michael Martinez): > And all those rings that he governed he perverted, the more easily > since he had a part in their making, and they were accursed, and > they betrayed in the end all those that used them...." > (From "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age") > In article , dsalo -aaatt- usa -daht- net (David Salo) wrote: > > This [passage], I believe, is the source of the misunderstanding > > that Sauron "modified" the Rings. This is not what the passage > > means. Note, please, that this refers to what Sauron did _after_ > > he had already distributed the Rings to Dwarves and Men! _Not_ > > before. The phrasing is "all those rings that he governed he > > perverted" NOT "all those rings that he governed he HAD perverted". > No. Had he been able to corrupt the other Rings merely through the > governance of the One, the Three would have been rendered unusable > through the same means. And yet they remained "unsullied" because > Sauron had never touched them. He could not pervert them through > the One -- he had to take possession of them, as he did with the > Nine and the Seven, and alter them. I had always thought that Sauron altered the rings somehow while they were being made, but now that I've read David's thoughts I am rethinking that position. When you think about it, it would be rather odd if the Elves didn't notice Sauron adding mysterious "features" into the rings. At any rate, perhaps because too many of my friends are computer scientists, I have come up with an analogy that (to my mind, at least) makes David's view fairly clear, and shows how it can avoid the arguments in Michael's response. It's a little odd and certainly anachronistic, but I think it works. Think of the rings as "hardware-only computers" of a sort, with all their operating code permanantly burned into their structure. Now, Sauron was closely involved with the making of the Seven and the Nine, so he got to see (and presumably remember or record) all of the "code" that controlled them. In making the One, he exploited "security holes" that he found in the other rings. Now, because of his complete knowledge of their structure, Sauron was able to do almost anything he wanted with the Seven and the Nine, bringing their users almost entirely under his control. On the other hand, he did not have access to all of the "code" controlling the Three, and hence the One could not have the same effect on their wearers. However, some of the basic ideas behind the rings were Sauron's, so he could still "break in" to them to some degree. Perhaps (based on Galadriel's comments) he was able to get "read access" to the Three (and their wearers' minds) but "read/write access" to the Seven and the Nine. Who knows what mechanism made the entire process stop working upon the destruction of the One. I guess in this sense, LotR can be read as an admonishment to always allow for security updates to your hardware and operating system. :) More seriously, this could actually suggest some additional information about the rings. If Sauron was "breaking in" remotely from the One, then there must have been some sort of communication between the rings from the start. Presumably the Elves knew about it, though I suppose it could have been a hidden side effect of Sauron's contribution to basic "ring technology." (I can just hear Sauron explaining the basics of ringmaking to the Elves: "Here, use these 'Mordorsoft Foundation Classes'! They make everything really easy, and I've carefully tested them to make sure there are no security holes. Really." Has Bill Gates read LotR?) Steuard Jensen