Skip to main content

tolkiens legendarium - Would Gandalf be invisible if he wore the One Ring?



If Gandalf wears the One Ring, will he be invisible? Or will he master it and be visible?


Maybe I should ask: is there a chance that the "invisibility" effect of the Ring is a side effect of weakness?



Answer



Here's an argument for no


I am going to say no because of this passage in the Lord of the Rings



‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades[.]


The Lord of the Rings | The Shadow of the Past



Now Gandalf here is referring to the Great Rings (which we can take to include the 9 and the 7) what this tells me that any of the great rings would make a mortal invisible, not just the One Ring.



As he is saying this Gandalf is wearing one of the Three Rings and is visible. The other bearers of the great rings are elves and also are not invisible.


On the question of the great rings


The evidence is that all the great rings make you invisible (they are all dangerous to mortals).




  • The nine make men disappear, so much so that they fade and become wraiths under the dominion of The One. Although it is said in the Silmarillion that



    They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men;


    The Silmarillion | Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age




    The keyword being could, can we take that to mean once they had gained mastery of the ring they could be visible while wearing it?




  • The seven did not make the dwarves invisible, nor did it give the wielder of The One dominion over them, this is because of the way Aüle created them.



    The Dwarves indeed proved tough and hard to tame; they ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom, nor can they be turned to shadows. They used their rings only for the getting of wealth; but wrath and an overmastering greed of gold were kindled in their hearts, of which evil enough after came to the profit of Sauron.


    The Silmarillion | Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age






  • When Frodo wears the one, he sees Glorfindel's true form as it is "on the other side".


    I think that's the key, the immortal spirit doesn't because by their very nature they are already part of the spirit world and cannot be unnaturally drawn to it like a mortal.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...