# Did the Ring betray Sauron?



## Ancalagon (Mar 22, 2002)

_Gandalf to Frodo in Bag-End_


> Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-Maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was MEANT to find the ring, and NOT by its maker. In which case you also were MEANT to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought



One wonders if the Ring was so corrupt in its design that it chose to ultimately betray its own maker!


----------



## Niniel (Mar 22, 2002)

What a coincidence, I was just re-reading exactly this same part yesterday, and asked myself the same question. I think the answer is yes, the Ring did betray Sauron. How I understand it, is that Sauron controls the Ring and lets it do this, like betraying Isildur. But according to Gandalf the Ring did something that Sauron didn't want. So it might be said that it did betray him. But when did this treason start? Before or after Gollum lost it?
Unfortunately, this raises other questions: somewhere else it is said 'The Ring is trying to return to its maker'. Why, if it had betrayed him? Is this a contradiction in Tolkien's work? 
And: If the Ring betrayed Sauron, what did it want to do? The Ring is always seen as something with a will of its own, so what did it want? And if it wanted to return to its maker, why did it get harder and harder for Frodo to carry it, the closer he came to Mordor? Or did the Ring understand that Frodo wanted to destroy it? And if so, why didn't the Ring leave Frodo? Somewhere it says: 'The Ring decided to leave Gollum' (the Ring itself, not Sauron mind you!). This little chain that Frodo wore the Ring on, could hardly have stopped it. 
So, you see a simple question can raise more questions than it answers...


----------



## Elanor2 (Mar 22, 2002)

My interpretation is that the forces of good and evil were having a match there. The Ring (force of evil) fell out of Gollum's pocket because the Ring could not use him to get to Sauron. The Forces of Good (Iluvatar, The Valar...???) brought Bilbo to that place so that he picked up the Ring.

I imagine the Ring's thoughts there (if it can think):
"Great, someone is coming. Good! He's picked me up! Let's who he is... Oh, no! NOT another darn Hobbit!


----------



## Dagorlad (Mar 22, 2002)

Ancalogon has been thinking. You devious scoundrel. This is good to have new and interesting ideas for the forum instead of always just a lot of jabber-de-jook. But I'm worn out from my just-completed disertation on "Fearing the Dead?" and I'll not be presently provoked, though this is a neat question that I never pondered.

If I could have applied myself nearly that well in college.... Well, that's why we're called Tolkien-Geeks.


----------



## aragil (Mar 22, 2002)

I agree with Elanor2 here- the passage does not say that 'the ring itself wanted you to have it'. It is never attributed who or what 'meant' for Frodo and Bilbo to get the ring. The ring *is* attributed as wanting to leave Gollum, but not necessarily wanting to end up with Bilbo and Frodo. Best to keep these two things separate, in my opinion.


----------



## Quercus (Mar 22, 2002)

I don’t believe that the Ring wanted to betray Sauron. I’ve always thought of the ring as sort of a separate entity with a mind of its own, but it needed Sauron as much as Sauron needed it. The Ring left Gollum because it realized that it was never going to get back into Sauron’s possession as long as it stayed with Gollum.

I can think of three possible reasons why it ended up in Bilbo’s hands.

1.) It had no intentions of being found by Bilbo specifically, it just wanted to be found by somebody. There were much greater odds that an orc or a goblin would have found it rather than a lost hobbit.

2.) If the Ring was aware that Bilbo was present in the cave, perhaps it was also aware that Bilbo was heading in an easterly direction which fostered some hope of getting back to its master. However, I don’t recall any incident in the Hobbit (and it’s been a while since I read it) where the Ring might have been trying to get away from Bilbo and continue its journey toward Mordor.

3.) Perhaps the Ring was in no great hurry to get back to Sauron. Perhaps three thousand years was just a drop in the bucket of time, and being picked up by Bilbo was just one small systematic step in the right direction. Perhaps it knew that its stay with Bilbo would be a relatively short one, and soon it would be passed on to someone else.

Who? Why Otho Baggins, of course! Bilbo’s closest living relative (according to patrilineal standards). Imagine the Ring in the hands of Otho, Lobelia and Lotho! I suspect that Sauron would have gotten his Ring back in short order under these circumstances. But if the Ring had known all about Bilbo wouldn’t Sauron had known too?



I must agree with Elanor2 and go with option #1; the Ring had no intention of be picked up by Bilbo. Whether he knew it or not, Gandalf had set the wheels in motion when he got the notion to send Bilbo off on an adventure with the dwarves. 

If there had been some divine intervention here, as Gandalf suggests, and Bilbo was indeed MEANT to find the Ring, then surely Frodo was doomed to become an orphan in order to someday inherit the Ring and help save ME. 

Does all that make sense - or am I just rambling again?


----------



## Aldanil (Mar 22, 2002)

*the terrors imagined by Master Oak*

Now there's a truly horrifying thought: the One Ring in the hands of the Sackville-Bagginses! Yikes!!


----------



## Eonwe (Mar 22, 2002)

Good post Quercus.

"However, I don’t recall any incident in the Hobbit (and it’s been a while since I read it) where the Ring might have been trying to get away from Bilbo and continue its journey toward Mordor."

The Ring somehow slips off Bilbo's fingers right when he is in front of the Goblin guards at the exit of the Misty Mountains.


----------



## Quercus (Mar 22, 2002)

Eonwe,

You're right! Thank you for reminding me. 

So maybe option #2 is a possibility.

However, I still think that option #1 is most the likely.


----------



## Camille (Mar 22, 2002)

> Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-Maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was MEANT to find the ring, and NOT by its maker. In which case you also were MEANT to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought



I do not think that the ring betray his maker, I think that the meaning of the quote above is that something greater that Sauron's will or the desire of the ring to come back to his master was working, and that somehow Frodo, and Bilbo were part of this master plan, maybe some were predeterminated (Bilbo finding the ring) some others were not (cast the ring into the mount doom) and these two situation combined made the story. My own believe is that we make our destiny but in some points luck or casualties make our day!!


----------



## EverEve (Mar 22, 2002)

hmmmmmmm......interesting thoughts. I personally believe that Bilbo was meant to have the ring, as was Frodo. But, now that yall bring up these points, I am beginning to see that it is possible that these things happened by chance. But, the fact that so many people tried to take the ring from Frodo, but Frodo never gave it to them, suggests that he may in fact was meant to get it. It could have been Frodo sheer will power that gave him the ability to keep the ring, but it is possible that there were other forces at work. 

Frodo knows that if he puts on the ring, it is a dead give-away for Sauron to there position, but he constantly feels the urge to put it on, especialy in moments of stress. So that could be Sauron at work trying to find his ring. But, Frodo also knows that if Boromir (or anyone really) were to get the ring, he would put it on, and sauron would find it anyway. But, Frodo never gives in to that temptation, so that could be Illuvatar, or the Valar at work trying to get the ring destroyed.

Does anybody get that? I might not have explained so well, but it really does make sense in my head.


----------



## Ancalagon (Mar 22, 2002)

let's think of another question; was it by chance that the ring was cut from Saurons finger and picked up by Isildur? Consider the history of the Ring after this point; Sauron always wanted it back, yet the Ring never returned, though it did manage to become his single most burning desire.......and isn't that what the Ring is best at?


----------



## EverEve (Mar 22, 2002)

Another hard question. I think that since the ring was with its master, and his master controlled it, that the ring was cut off Sauron's finger by accident. I dont see Sauron willingly giving up his ring, but if he did not really control the ring..........things are totally different. Im not gonna get into that cuz Ill start babbling .


----------



## aragil (Mar 22, 2002)

I'd say that the tricks the Ring plays on Frodo (wanting to put the ring on in the Shire, at Weathertop, in the Morgul Vale, and slipping on his finger at the Pony, pulling towards the Mirror in Lothlorien) are all instances of the Ring trying to get back to Sauron. In some of these cases Frodo's will is strong enough to resist the Ring, in other cases Aragorn or another outside influence saves the day. However, I wouldn't say that the Ring stays out of Sauron's grasp for lack of effort.


----------



## Dagorlad (Mar 22, 2002)

I basically agree with what Aragil just said, but I also think that...

The ring may have surrendered Sauron to the Men and Elves because it knew that he was too weak a vessel at that time to further withstand the siege of Barad Dur and the Battle of Dagorlad which had gone on for several years. It may have been able to corrupt the mind of he who picked it up, and of coarse at just the right time it chose to liberate Sauron's ring finger from his hand in a manner that the deed was done by one such as Isulder. But at this time, the west was still strong, such that even if it could pull off the full corruption of Isuldur, the ring's defeat and risk of destruction would only be at hand again. So the ring mabye *chose* another route....

The ring *might* have "known" that with Sauron defeated, the people of the west would become ever more lax and weak, until someday the ring could strangle them again. What better way to fall into obscurity until that time than to get itself lost in a river, or a mountain? 

When the years had past, and a shadow returned, the ring *may* have put Sauron at the top of it's list, but *may* still have not cared very much about who was it's vessel. So it had options.

All of this accomplished by corrupting the minds of whoever possessed the ring.

Through all this, I think "the ring" is interchangable with "evil forces". 

The whole thing is just too much speculation for me.


----------



## Ancalagon (Mar 22, 2002)

This is getting back into the realms of 'Does the Ring Think?', which is a tricky combination. Don't look too much into what the ring doesnt yet do, but more what is does! The Ring doesnt like to remain hidden,yet strangely enough, were it so mind-bending that it acheived its ultimate purpose which was to return to Sauron. The Ring led Gollum, to the ends of the earth and back, it eluded Sauron, it found Bilbo and ultimately Frodo, it betrayed Isildur. This ring is a bit of a git!


----------



## Lady_of_Gondor (Mar 22, 2002)

I agree with Ancalogon, in that, we don't really know if the ring thinks or not. IMO, I believe that whatever "instincts" the ring has are to carry out Sauron's intentions. When Sauron forged the ring, didnt he, in a way, make it in his image? The ring doesn't think so much as do what it needs to survive(and by survive I mean get back to Sauron and/or carry out Sauron's intentions), much the same way unsophistocated animals such as rats just act on instinct. 

So to get back to the initial question, could the ring be betraying Sauron? While you make very good points for this, I believe it is stated somewhere in the Council of Elrond that all the ring "wants" is to reach it's master. So, no I don't believe that the ring is betraying Sauron.

Good Post!!!


----------



## Harad (Mar 22, 2002)

The Ring was a part of Sauron. Could your right arm betray you? (counter-example: Dr. Strangelove). Are you envisioning a Gollum/Smeagol Sauron/Ring Dialog:

"Ring...lovely Ring...come here Ring."
"No..musnt go to nasssty masster...Ring wants to be free...freeeeee."


----------



## aragil (Mar 22, 2002)

The recent turn of this thread has reminded me that Tolkien would not allow the Ring to have a free will. Independent thought in Tolkien's world could only be bestowed by Eru. Witness the incident with Sauron's original Vala Aule and his Dwarves. If Aule couldn't make Dwarves with independent thought, then it's highly improbable that Aule's student Sauron could make a Ring with independent thought. In Tolkien's universe anyone less than Eru had sub-creative powers, and could not bestow independent will/thought into their creations.


----------



## Eonwe (Mar 23, 2002)

Does the "no independent thought" apply here, since Sauron moved most of his original power into the Ring? Or if it is a sub-creation, then (like Illuvatar says to Aule regarding his thought controlling the dwarves without independent thought) did Sauron's thought when intent on the Ring possibly make it do things (within what the Ring is capable of), when not intent it would sit idle?


----------



## Niniel (Mar 23, 2002)

I read something very interesting about this yesterday in Paul Kocher's "Master of Middle-earth": Sauron gives his power to the Ring, which means that the Ring is part of himself, and that he himself is weakened as long as he does not have the Ring. He is really missing a part of himself! The will of Sauron and that of the Ring can't be separated, at least not for a long time. As for the Ring developing its own will, I don't know whether Tolkien meant this, but I think it is possible for the Ring to betray Sauron.
Kocher also said that it works the same with the elven-rings: the Elves have given part of their strenght to thier Rings, but because they still have their rings, they are not weakened. This is also the reason why Lorien has to fail if the One Ring is destroyed: this will also cause the elven-rings to fail in their power. The Elves will then lose that part of their power that they have bestowed on their rings, and so lose the power to let the beauty and might of Lorien continue in the same way as it was. They have to chose between becoming lesser on earth, or going to the West.


----------



## Ancalagon (Nov 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by aragil _
> *I'd say that the tricks the Ring plays on Frodo (wanting to put the ring on in the Shire, at Weathertop, in the Morgul Vale, and slipping on his finger at the Pony, pulling towards the Mirror in Lothlorien) are all instances of the Ring trying to get back to Sauron. In some of these cases Frodo's will is strong enough to resist the Ring, in other cases Aragorn or another outside influence saves the day. However, I wouldn't say that the Ring stays out of Sauron's grasp for lack of effort. *



So, let's assume that one of the Nazgul did manage to retrieve the Ring from Frodo, either in The Shire or upon Weathertop. Would the same lust and desire to have mastery of the Ring have overcome them? Consider Gandalf and the flash of temptation that he had to overcome when Frodo offered him the Ring, surely the Nazgul, despite their loyalty to Sauron, could easily have been tempted to wield the Ring, even to make Sauron subservient to their will, as he had made them!!!


----------



## aragil (Nov 23, 2002)

It must be 'blow the dust off of old threads' week here at ttf. I think Sauron was fairly safe from the Nazgul with respect to the Ring. The Ring was powerful, but needed some ingredient in the bearer to be able to work off of. I think the Nazgul were completely devoid of any sort of independent thought by this point- sort of the inverse Aule problem. Sauron (and Aule and Melkor) could certainly not give free will and independent thought to any of their creations. But could Sauron, through the power of his Ring, take this gift away from Eru's creations? Off-hand I'd say no, but there does seem to be some support for this. Incidentally, if anybody wants to type this stuff out, there's great bits in _Letters_, pp.330-332, where it is suggested that Sauron still wielded some sort of remote-control over the One, and had complete control of the Nazgul through their nine. Also on page 353 of my copy of UT:


> At length he resolved that no others would serve him in this case but his mightiest servants, the Ringwraiths, who had no will but his own, being each utterly subservient to the ring that had enslaved him, which Sauron held.


 This quote does suggest that Sauron was able to take away Eru's gift of free will. Kinda scary.


----------



## Ancalagon (Nov 23, 2002)

Yep, dust them off and get em going

The removal of free-will is not new to Sauron, Melkor himself had always sought to control the will of all Middle-Earths inhabitants, so they would call him Master of Arda.


> But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, envying the gifts with which Ilúvatar promised to endow them; and he wished himself to have subject and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills.



In so much as Melkor did not manage to achieve this goal, he certainly made every effort in the attempt. So too then Sauron, who by the power of the Ring could command the will of those bearers of the lesser Rings.


> Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring;


 However, the chink in his control over them all is the fact that he was without the One, which in turn means the slightest possible loss of grip over the 9?


> And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them.


This is where I fear that even the Ring might betray him with his closest and most trusted servants, for without the Ring, his dominion over the wills of others (although potent) was reduced.


----------



## Confusticated (Nov 23, 2002)

Huge question.
I think the Ring was in it for it's self. It could act alone, it desired to do evil, yet it could not adequately fulfill it's need for evil without working through someone.
This is why I think it wasn't being controlled by Sauron:
For Sauron to be in control of the Ring he would have to have known the circumstances it was in. He did not always though, anything the Ring did while away from Sauron, it did on it's own. I reason that this Ring being evil, would want to do the most damage it possibly could. To do this it would have to find Sauron. Sauron was the mastermind, he was the Ring's way to communicate evil thoughts to others, and to give orders to armies. Because we have to base the answer of this question upon what we think the Ring was capable of, here's my thoughts on the Ring:
It was a force that could do whatever it wanted to do and was able to do through interacting with the forces around it. It could not think. It had no foresight. It could not speak. It reacted to the forces around it. It could influence others by interacting with their life force on a level such that the person themself wasn't fully (mentally) aware that they were being spoken to. After a long enough amount of time it's force mingled well enough with the person's life force so that they became like one, the evil of the Ring dominated the force because it's force was greater (bigger/more powerful/more evil) than a person's force. I think the force within Tom Bombadil was either 1)so great that any little whisper from the ring was stiffled before it even knew what hit it. 2) non existant.
That being said I think the Ring wanted to be with Sauron, the evil mind that was in the best position to raise hell, and contained the thoughts that were of the evil which was put into the Ring.
I see no reason it would betray Sauron unless there were some greater evil in Middle-earth that would allow for the Ring to do more damage. I think Had Melkor snuck back into the picture the Ring would have tried to reach him. Melkor was, after all, the orginal master of the evil that came to be within the Ring. Even neverminding that, Melkor would have been able to do more damage than Sauron. Melkor would have kicked Sauron's butt, and taken over Mordor.
The Ring was not faithful to Sauron, only faithful to it's own evil will to get it's self to the best person for dominating the world, which happend to be Sauron.

The Ring did not betray him in action, but it would have if it better suited it.


----------



## aragil (Nov 24, 2002)

Thanks to Anc I can now quote ad nauseum from Letters (I'm sure some people think I'm already there). Here's the bits from pp330-332 of my edition of Letters, letter #246 to Mrs. Eileen Elgar:



> Sauron sent at once the Ringwraiths. They were naturally fully instructed, and in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring. The wearer would not be invisible to them, but the reverse; and the more vulnerable to their weapons. But the situation was now different to that under Weathertop, where Frodo acted merely in fear and wished only to use (in vain) the Ring's subsidiary power of conferring invisibility. He had grown since then. Would they have been immune from its power if he claimed it as an instrument of command and domination?
> Not wholly. I do not think they could have attacked him with violence, nor laid hold upon him or taken him captive; they would have obeyed or feigned to obey any minor commands of his that did not interfere with their errand – laid upon them by Sauron, *who still through their nine rings (which he held) had primary control of their wills*. That errand was to remove Frodo from the Crack. Once he lost the power or opportunity to destroy the Ring, the end could not be in doubt – saving help from outside, which was hardly even remotely possible.
> Frodo had become a considerable person, but of a special kind: in spiritual enlargement rather than in increase of physical or mental power; his will was much stronger than it had been, but so far it had been exercised in resisting not using the Ring and with the object of destroying it. He needed time, much time, before he could control the Ring or (which in such a case is the same) before it could control him; before his will and arrogance could grow to a stature in which he could dominate other major hostile wills. Even so for a long time his acts and commands would still have to seem 'good' to him, to be for the benefit of others beside himself.
> The situation as between Frodo with the Ring and the Eight might be compared to that of a small brave man armed with a devastating weapon, faced by eight savage warriors of great strength and agility armed with poisoned blades. The man's weakness was that he did not know how to use his weapon yet; and he was by temperament and training averse to violence. Their weakness that the man's weapon was a thing that filled them with fear as an object of terror in their religious cult, by which they had been conditioned to treat one who wielded it with servility. I think they would have shown 'servility'. They would have greeted Frodo as 'Lord'. With fair speeches they would have induced him to leave the Sammath Naur – for instance 'to look upon his new kingdom, and behold afar with his new sight the abode of power that he must now claim and turn to his own purposes'. Once outside the chamber while he was gazing some of them would have destroyed the entrance. Frodo would by then probably have been already too enmeshed in great plans of reformed rule – like but far greater and wider than the vision that tempted Sam (III 177)5 – to heed this. But if he still preserved some sanity and partly understood the significance of it, so that he refused now to go with them to Barad-dûr, they would simply have waited. Until Sauron himself came. In any case a confrontation of Frodo and Sauron would soon have taken place, if the Ring was intact. Its result was inevitable. Frodo would have been utterly overthrown: crushed to dust, or preserved in torment as a gibbering slave. *Sauron would not have feared the Ring! It was his own and under his will. Even from afar he had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself*. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of 'mortals' no one, not even Aragorn. ...
> One can imagine the scene in which Gandalf, say, was placed in such a position. It would be a delicate balance. *On one side the true allegiance of the Ring to Sauron*; on the other superior strength because Sauron was not actually in possession, and perhaps also because he was weakened by long corruption and expenditure of will in dominating inferiors. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been destroyed, taken from him for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end. ...



I think the bit about how Gandalf would have been mastered by the Ring in the end supports Nóm's concept of how the Ring works on an individual, but the bit that the Ring's true allegiance was to Sauron and that it was Sauron's own and under his will seem to be against the theory that the Ring could have betrayed Sauron in any manner, even to jump ship and join Morgoth. The fact that not even Aragorn could contest with Sauron for possession of the Ring makes me think a Ringwriaith wouldn't have stood a chance, or even considered it, as each Ringwraith was 'utterly subservient to the ring that had enslaved him, which Sauron held'. Well that's my bit- thanks again, Anc!


----------



## Confusticated (Nov 24, 2002)

> _By aragil_
> *...but the bit that the Ring's true allegiance was to Sauron and that it was Sauron's own and under his will seem to be against the theory that the Ring could have betrayed Sauron in any manner, even to jump ship and join Morgoth.*


Yep. Sure does.


I really should read all of the Letters before I open my mouth about stupid theories.


----------



## aragil (Nov 24, 2002)

Well, we're each entitled to our own theories. That yours doesn't match Tolkien's on this matter doesn't necessarily make it stupid.


----------



## HLGStrider (Nov 25, 2002)

Okay... Elgee barges in...

(Clears throat)

On whether it betrayed Sauron for Isildur (Who's name I am sure I am misspelling). No. 
A. The ring could effect things going around him by physical means. ie It didn't have arms... 
B. The riing could make people want it.
C. If Isildur didn't want it the elves would've thrown it in the stew pot. 
D. Sauron was no help at the moment. 
E. Ring uses influence to save its neck knowing that Sauron is only temporary lost.

It does try to leave Bilbo, however, I don't think it tried to get Bilbo. That was another force, not one of evil. Bilbo was just chance. The ring tried to slip off soon after that and then went along for the ride.

I believe the Ring was needed to thouroughly control the Nazgul and that when wearing the ring Sauron could not only send them out on orders which they would obey to the letter he could control them while they were far from him, having them do anything at the spur of the moment. Also their powers would've increased.

The Ring didn't have exactly a free will but it did have Sauron's will, which was for more power, more domination, more evil. I don't think it would've gone to Melkor. It wouldn't have recognized him. It would, however, probably have given into Melkor if Melkor had found it. Sauron was the master mind. The ring was part of his being.


----------



## Arvedui (Nov 25, 2002)

Why do these questions come up during a week-end when I am unable to participate? Grrrrr....
If I remember right, the Ring consist of two things: Metal, and Sauron (just to simplify matters a bit). Therefore, IMO, it will not betray Sauron. After all it IS Sauron.
But, as some have stated, Sauron is not the only force in Arda. There are others present, not just in physical shape. Forces that want Sauron out of the way for good.
Sauron knows all people in Middle-earth, exept one: The Hobbits. Little is known of the origin of Hobbits. So could it be that the arrival of hobbits is a divine intervention? A people that the Valar, or even Eru placed on Middle-earth while Sauron was 'on vacation'. A people with unknown strength to most others.




Of course Bilbo and Frodo was ment to find the Ring! Tolkien wrote it just like that.....


----------



## dave5264 (Aug 25, 2011)

just have to weigh in....

- the ring does not have free will, it personifies the allure and ultimate corruption of power

- the humans and the elves who fought Sauron had the power and opportunity to destroy the ring

- SO I have to conclude that because Sauron was already at the brink of defeat, the 'transfer' of the ring from Sauron to Isuldur represents the decision Isuldur makes when given the choice between destroying evil or becoming evil. Given that horrible opportunity, Isuldur is immediately corrupted and desires the ring, then the physical transfer is just symbolic of the internal struggle Isuldur has already lost. This supports a major plot theme regarding humans being easily corrupted by power. 

- as for it 'betraying' various people, including sauron, this also seems to be a commentary on the nature of power - that seemingly great power slips from us or is useless when we need it the most

- and as for the ring 'seeking' sauron, i think it does so by default. it is pulled by the collective desire for power of individual will. noble people don't want it. weak people are corrupted too easily and lose it. it is inevitable that it will end up with the strongest, most corrupt will out there, which is established to be Sauron.


----------



## Barliman Butterbur (Aug 26, 2011)

Eonwe said:


> "However, I don’t recall any incident in the Hobbit (and it’s been a while since I read it) where the Ring might have been trying to get away from Bilbo and continue its journey toward Mordor."



Not to get away from Bilbo, but from Gollum: Right in the beginning of TH:V we read: "He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel."

This was, one could say, the ring's second betrayal that we know of; the first was thousands of years previously when it slips off Isildur's finger and is buried in the mud, where we hear the last of it until it is mentioned again when Deagol finds it, it betrays Deagol for Smeagol/Gollum, then betrays Gollum: it leaves him, and Bilbo finds it in the tunnel: it had finally betrayed Gollum in order to latch on to Bilbo in hopes of getting back to the Dark Lord. And from then until Bilbo gave it to Frodo its will grows ever stronger, until Gollum momentarily reclaims it as he falls into the lava.

My understanding is that the Ring had its own will, but no greater than Sauron's; it willed to return to its Master of whom it was a part -- indeed, it was the greater part of Sauron's power.

Barley


----------

