[Will]

Originally posted by Sabin:
I doubt Tom Badbil would have resisted the ring, if given time and the possesion of it. It seemed that even in his disregard, he had a slight dislike of it.

Now, I wish to pose a question: How was the ring created, and from what matierial? I am fairly sure a dwarf was responsible for the forging of the original rings, with help from Sauron.

However, how did Sauron go about empowering his own ring? Surely, if he made it by himself, it would have been weaker.(He created it in secret)

Therefore, I have an idea as to how it was made.
First, he prepared the other rings for the coming of this new ring, by making their construction weak in certain areas, somewhat like a computer hacker's back doors and trojans.

Then, upon creating the new ring, he placed his own powers(derived from being a former servant of Morgoth) into the ring, to achieve two critical effects: To increase it's power, and to make it "bond" to him, like a sort of DNA test to determine the owner. This being accomplished, it only responded positively to it's real owner.

However, I suspect even then, it was it's own Ring. If the powers of it were derived from Morgoth, then it's real loyalty was to Morgoth, not Sauron, thus how it seemed to allow it's being taken by Isildur, and to eventually travel a great distance from Sauron.

But why take such a course of action?

There is a thread elsewhere on the board (I don't really feel like looking for it), where it was proposed that Tom Bombadil was in fact the Vala Aulë. Aulë was concerned only with the act of creation for creation's sake, and didn't care for control over what he made. It would then fit that Bombadil was immune to the effects of the Ring because he didn't care to have power over the peoples of Middle Earth.

The 'original rings' were forged by the Elves. At the time of the forging of the magic rings and the Rings of Power -- there were more rings than the Nine for Men, Seven for Dwarves, the Three for Elves, and the One, it's just they weren't powerful or important enough to warrant mentioning -- the Elves in Middle Earth were at their height, having overthrown Morgoth/Melkor (with the help of a few Valar...). They were better smiths than even the Dwarves, and began making the magic rings. Sauron showed up, and started giving the Elves gifts and secrets of the Maiar, and had a hand in forging all the Rings of Power excepting the Three for the Elves, which were made by the master smith of the Elves (he is named somewhere in Tolkein's writings, I just cannot recall what the name is).

Sauron learned of the secrets of the Rings of Power from the Elves, and decieved them by creating the One Ring, with the purpose of controlling all the others. That is why he was known, among other names, as Sauron the Deciever. The Elves knew as soon as the One Ring was made what the purpose was, and hid the Three.

The One Ring can pretty much be thought of as Sauron putting half of his 'spirit' into it in the process of forging. It then became a seperate entity, but was still bound to him since it is like a part of him. So possession of the Ring is sort of analogous to having a little 'devil' on your shoulder whispering mean things to do in your ear, and there is no 'angel' to counteract the effects. And so all who possess it are eventually corrupted by a part of the spirit of Sauron.

As for Morgoth/Melkor, he was cast out into the Void long before the creation of the Rings of Power and had no direct affect on their creation. That was all the doing of Sauron.