Free Master of Middle Earth by Paul H. Kocher Page B

the elves made three rings for
themselves, seven that they gave to the dwarf leaders, and nine that they
turned over to Sauron for the use of the chiefs of men. All were rings of
power, but they reflected the characteristics peculiar to the races for which
they were intended. The elf rings, for instance, increased "understanding,
making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained." The dwarf rings,
appealing to the treasure hunger that was the besetting sin of that race,
served "to inflame their hearts with a greed of gold and precious things,
so that if they lacked them all other good things seemed profitless, and they
were filled with wrath and desire for vengeance on all who deprived them."
The rings directed at men stimulated and implemented their ambition for power.
Sauron gave these to chiefs of the Dúnedain, especially Angmar, who had not
gone to Númenor: "Nine he gave to Mortal Men, proud and great, and so ensnared
them. Long ago they fell under the dominion of the One, and they became Ringwraiths,
shadows under his great Shadow, his most terrible servants."
    But this plot of
Sauron's demands a price. He can forge a ruling Ring strong enough to control
all these subordinate rings only by pouring into it a large portion of his own
native vigor, as Gandalf explains: ". . . he made that Ring himself, it is
his, and he let a great part of his own former power pass into it, so that he
could rule all the others." The price is greater than he realizes. As long
as his vigor is undivided Sauron's spirit can survive death after death, living
to fight another day by incarnating itself each time in a new body, as he has
done twice before—after the drowning of Númenor and after his defeat by Elendil
and Gilgalad, in both of which he perished. But once he infuses part of his
strength into a Ring that can be lost he is weakened even while the lost Ring
is intact, and he becomes vulnerable to permanent loss of the power to occupy any
physical body if the Ring is ever destroyed. This, of course, is the one
capital flaw that the West is finally able to exploit.
    Why does Sauron
ever embark on the forging of the rings in the first place under conditions of
such peril? He need not have. The immediate answer must lie somewhere in his
character. In his customary arrogance and blind contempt he never takes
seriously, perhaps never sees at all, the possibility that he may one day lose
the ruling Ring. Besides, he is an obsessed being, driven by his fever to
dominate everything and everybody. He cannot rest. He is always on the
offensive, always reaching out to draw all life to himself in order to subdue
it. As W. H. Auden well remarks, this kind of lust of domination "is not
satisfied if another does what it wants; he must be made to do it against his
will." 1 It would be a mistake, moreover, to generalize Sauron
into a conscious champion of the cause of abstract evil. He is quite simply a
champion of Sauron, so far as his intent goes. That he is being used
unwittingly by a higher power as one protagonist in a conflict between good and
evil has been suggested in the previous chapter.
    Setting aside its
deadly risk to himself, Sauron's plot with the rings has only partial success.
It works perfectly with the human ringwraiths, but with the dwarves it fails to
do more than exacerbate their greed. By nature dwarves are not easily
digestible. "Though they could be slain or broken, they could not be
reduced to shadows enslaved to another will." From the beginning the
dwarves "were made ... of a kind to resist most steadfastly any
domination." Since Sauron's whole appetite is for command of other wills,
he is balked of his purpose here, though his ability to ruin the lives of
individual leaders like Thráin and his partial perversion of general dwarf
nature might count as success enough for a less exacting gourmet. One remembers
the gloating message he sends after seeing Pippin in the Palantír: "Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for