control them. Of the Seven Rings of the Dwarves, it is stated that a Ring was the gift to the
Seven clans of Dwarves, which do have names, but the rings do not. The Seven gave with one
hand and took away with the other. Each became the foundation of treasure hordes and gave long
life and skill to the bearer, but also greed, which made dwarves dig until they unleashed Balrogs
and drew the attention of dragons. At the time of The Lord of the Rings, four of the Seven are
destroyed by dragons, and three have been recaptured by Sauron. The Nine Rings have no
names, and neither do their bearers. They were captains and princes of men, and they became
powerful, but the long life granted them by the rings ate their souls, and they became Wring-
Wraiths, the Nazgul, ghosts in black robes bearing death, servants of Sauron.
So, we have here rings untouched by evil, rings of greed, and rings of pride, and
connected to them, Sauron's own One Ring, The Ring. This is the Maguffin of Maguffins, and
destroyed not by an act of heroic strength or battle-worthiness, but by an act of suffering, of
patiently, gently, through superhuman endurance bearing it through danger and hunger and
smoke and ash to the place of its origin, and dropping it in. And the person who does this is
neither Man, nor Dwarf-Lord, nor Elven-King, nor anyone of importance at all. Frodo Baggins is
by definition a nobody in Middle-Earth, and yet he, and seemingly, only he, has the capability to
bear this horrid, soul-twisting, thing of Evil to where it must be taken. No one else has the
firmness of purpose and the lack of pretense to see it through.
"And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord
you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the
Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain!
Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All
shall love me and despair!"
She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that
illumined her along and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall
beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she
let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was
shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clade in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and
sad.
"I pass the test," she said, "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel" iii
For Galadriel, as for almost everyone of note in the story, the Ring presents itself as a
Temptation: to seize and use and take for himself the power of Sauron. Everyone understands
that such an act will be folly, yet the temptation remains, beyond reason. For his part, Frodo is so
terrified of the Ring (and nearly everything else) that he can think of nothing else but to destroy
it. This becomes a burden greater than he can bear, which sickens his body and nearly breaks his
mind. Even after all is said and done, Frodo cannot return to his previous normality. Something
really has died within him, and he cannot name it. He feels as the Elves do, weary from life. So