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tolkiens legendarium - Why is invisibility the power granted by the One Ring?


Why is non-optional invisibility the one active supernatural power granted to non-Sauron wearers of the One Ring?


I'm looking for an answer explaining authorial intent, not an in-universe answer. Normally I wouldn't consider such a question answerable but considering the astounding level of Tolkien scholarship I hope it's reasonable.


Some question context is needed and there's no eloquent way to word this. If your exposure to LOTR is the recent movies, the thought may cross your mind:



Wait, what? Did Frodo just put on the ring of ultimate power to... run away!?




With the context and baggage of modern fiction tropes in our minds, this feels weird. In a movie made today we would probably expect a super powerful doomsday ring to grant something along the lines of Superman- or Jedi-style powers at the cost of evil insanity. Invisibility is usually not a power that modern fiction associates with either the upper tiers of power or with villainy.


All of the aspects of the One Ring being evil, corrupting, only loyal and intended only for its creator, and that its true power is control of others do fit in the current ecosystem of fiction. Very specifically, what feels weird is that the one active supernatural power is non-optional invisibility.


I'm not trying to make any judgments, or saying that all modern fiction is or should be identical. I just think these are reasonable, if brief, characterizations.


All of that said, the One Ring breaks with a (modern) audience's expectations. Is this intentional? Would this have felt weird to the original readers? If so, is there a known rationale?


I haven't read any of the books so try to bear with that in your answers.



Answer



Tolkien had not decided on the significance of the ring that Bilbo found when he wrote the Hobbit. Indeed in the first edition of the book Gollum wagers the ring as his stake in the game against Bilbo.


So the out-of-universe reason for why the ring of power grants invisibility is that when it was found it solved the need for the protagonist to get the power to turn invisible. This happened at an out-of-universe time when there was no need for the ring to be the master ring.


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