Ring Rip-Off Reflections

Pondering possibilities

While contemplating the ripping off of ideas from other works, I considered the One Ring of The Lord of the Rings.

Some things there hint that the Ring is subservient to Sauron, that it will betray its bearer to Sauron as soon as it can, to return to the Dark Lord. The only reason it lingered so long with Gollum was that Sauron lay low. When he arose again, as the Necromancer, it slipped off and blundered into Bilbo’s hands.

On the other hand, some things hint that the Ring can be bent to whoever bears it, if the bearer is strong enough. Gandalf and Galadriel, not to mention Saruman, all think they can take it over and use it. Or be used by it.

Either of which could be ripped off to great effect.

In which the Ring form is, of course, trivial. But handy. Magical rings are useful because they can be easily worn. I will stick to that for rambling purposes, merely noting that it could be a staff, or a spear, or what you will. (Provided you consider its form.¹)

It also raises real metaphysical questions of “To what extent does this Ring have free will? A will of its own? Is the Ring a rational being?” -- which would take this off in a completely different direction, so now I return to riffs possible on the One Ring. With this much, I stick to the One Ring’s character being fixed.

Imagine, oh -- imagine a Ring that is forever desperately trying to return to a Dark Lord who actually died. It empowers all sorts of evil despots and abandons them, in endless, futile search for the true Dark Lord that it will never ever find. Its intelligence has blind spots that will prevent its ever learning the truth.

Or the Dark Lord was imprisoned, and for centuries, this villain and that one were secretly puppets of the Ring as it tried to engineer his release.

Then, if it is, or can be forced to be, independent, you could end up with Thorondor, the Dark Eagle Overlord, or Treebeard, the Dark Ent Overlord. (Hmm. Old Man Willow all across Middle Earth. That could get dark indeed.)

Or perhaps the Ring is the power behind the throne.

The Dark Lord blundered in making it, perhaps. Perhaps even it manipulated him into his fall, and then shifted to other people, whom it could more easily manipulate. If it’s fickle and always abandoning people whenever it picks out a better candidate, that would prove to be one issue. If it picks one and sticks to him, unwilling to sacrifice its work building him up, that would be another. The most dangerous ones would balance the cost of building up against better candidates.

Or perhaps its manipulative style was what the Dark Lord wanted. The Overlord could insist on his schemes being carried out, and the Ring would implement it. Ever since then, the Ring has overborne those who bore it, and manipulated, or forced, them into doing what it wanted, only to abandon them when that seemed more prudent. The one who wore the Ring took the fall. Indeed, often enough, the Ring was claimed as booty, and then it had only to work on what it was given. It might induce fights over the loot, either on the spot, or at a later gathering where someone claimed to be insulted by the division, to jump to a better choice.

There could be an endless cascade of Dark Lords, until finally someone deduces that the common powers and common tactics have a common source, and you have the Final Quest: track down the latest Dark Lord and get the Ring, at all costs, to destroy it.

The Ring didn’t even have to start out as made by an Dark Lord. Imagine a Wayland figure, a blacksmith, captive, enslaved, crippled to keep him from escaping, pestered by the sons of his captor to make them marvelous gifts. He made them the Ring, so that they would overthrow his captor and then turn on each other. And when those greedy in war continued to fight --

Perhaps he didn’t care. Perhaps he died of old age, perhaps he thought they were all alike, and deserved to suffer.

Or perhaps it grieved him, that he was responsible for more slaves than his captor had been, and he organized those who would, in time, work out how to retrieve and destroy the Ring.

Lots of possibilities.

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