Ring's sentience and Ring detection

[Gordis]

We know that evil creatures (orcs to some extent, but mostly Nazgul) were drawn to the ring. It stands to reason to suppose that the Ring, even when NOT worn, emitted some sort of “homing” signal, drawing the nazgul to it. The question is whether the Ring emitted its signal all the time, or only when it "knew" that the target (a nazgul) was nearby? And if the latter is true, then how could the Ring "know" it?

I don't think the Ring had any usual senses: sight, hearing, smell etc. More likely, it could only process the feelings of its holder – Isildur, Gollum, Bilbo, Frodo.

When Frodo saw the nazgul or knew the nazgul are (or might be) nearby, he got frightened and the Ring sensed it and started to emit its signal. When Frodo was completely unaware of the danger, even when a nazgul was really quite near, then the Ring couldn't sense the nazgul either and didn't emit its signal.

That might explain the incidents with the Gaffer (Frodo was not yet frightened at all, he even considered revealing himself to the stranger) and on the road in the Shire (there Frodo was only slightly frightened and not yet quite sure of what, and the nazgul stopped, also feeling something - but not yet sure what exactly, maybe he only smelled some hobbit flesh nearby).

The following night, Frodo was already quite frightened when he saw the nazgul, so the Ring's signal was stronger and the nazgul was much more "tuned" to the signal - he dismounted and went in the right direction. Also it has happened at night, when nazgul were more powerful. But for the Elves, Khamul would have found the Ring.

After that, the Ring, feeling Frodo's fear, must have been emitting its signal almost constantly, and indeed as we can see in the "Hunt for the Ring", published in the Reader's companion: "But [the Witch-king and Khamûl] remain watching Weathertop. Thus they become aware of the approach of Frodo on Oct. 5." And that is one day before Frodo actually reached Weathertop! Not bad...

Unfortunately the incidents that happened later (Emyn Muil, Dead Marches), are more difficult to explain. Well, perhaps there were lesser nazgul involved, whose ability to sense the Ring was no match for the WK's and Khamul's.

As for the incident in the Morgul Vale, I think it proves my theory.

First Frodo sees the WK and gets frigtened. (Here the Ring likely goes off "like a fire alarm". Then and only then the WK senses the signal and stops. (Note that the WK had time to ride from the Gates down to the Bridge before he felt anything - because Frodo was unaware of him and the Ring was not emitting).

'Even as these thoughts pierced [Frodo] with dread and held him bound as with a spell, the Rider halted suddenly, right before the entrance of the bridge, and behind him all the host stood still"

The Wk stops and tries to locate the source of the signal. Then the Ring "asks" to be put on. Frodo almost complies. But then Frodo finds Galadriel's Phial and gets shielded: As he touched it, for a while all thought of the Ring was banished from his mind. He sighed and bent his head.
Likely, as Frodo's mind becomes blank, the Ring's signal stops and the WK looses it. The Morgul Lord is in a hurry and has no time to investigate the matter - but for the war, the WK wouldn't have been deterred so easily. He had sensed the Ring all right.

Does it fit?

[Earniel]

So what do you see as the actual trigger: Frodo's fear for recognizing the nazgul (and fearing capture), or Frodo's recognition of the nazgul itself?

[The Gaffer]

Yes, I think it fits.

The other thing to factor in, perhaps, is Frodo's experience on Weathertop. Remember Gandalf's observation in Rivendell that he looked "transparent" (or something)?

Anyhow, that experience changed him. His spirit was stronger and he knew the dangers of putting the ring on. I think that must have "dampened" the Ring's "signal" somewhat, and might explain how he could carry it all the way through Mordor, scared witless, without attracting any attention.

Also, I don't think it was an "attraction" for evil creatures per se. Remember the Sam confronting the orc in Cirith Ungol: the orc perceived a threat and a source of great power, which terrified it.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

So what do you see as the actual trigger: Frodo's fear for recognizing the nazgul (and fearing capture), or Frodo's recognition of the nazgul itself?

Isn't it the same thing? recognizing a nazgul means fearing him

Or did you mean simple fear of something: e.g. Old Man Willow or even Lobelia? - No, I think the ring started emitting signal when ot got a nazgul image from Frodo's mind.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Also, I don't think it was an "attraction" for evil creatures per se. Remember the Sam confronting the orc in Cirith Ungol: the orc perceived a threat and a source of great power, which terrified it.

This case was hardly "attraction" - just the opposite. The orc was scared of the ringbearer, not drawn to the ring.
I think it is the rare case of a hobbit (unknowingly) using the Ring for something else than hiding. Sam was in combat mood, detirmined to get to Frodo despite all odds. And the Ring (even unwielded) helped him - because what is an orc to its power?

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Isn't it the same thing? recognizing a nazgul means fearing him

Very funny.

I ask specifically because I think it could define the ring's intentions differently. If fear was the actual trigger, then Ring might have put on it's homing signal to attract a more powerful bearer whose greater ambitions and power may be be easier to manipulate.

If the recognition of the nazgul was the trigger, than the motive is far more obvious, the nazgul were servants of the Ring's master and would enable a very speedy return. In this case the ring could actively understand what the Nazgul were and react on it. This would imply more intelligence but IMO it makes more sense.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Gordis

This case was hardly "attraction" - just the opposite. The orc was scared of the ringbearer, not drawn to the ring.
I think it is the rare case of a hobbit (unknowingly) using the Ring for something else than hiding. Sam was in combat mood, detirmined to get to Frodo despite all odds. And the Ring (even unwielded) helped him - because what is an orc to its power?

More like the Ring responding to its owner, surely?

The ring grants the bearer power according to his stature.

or something; can't recall the exact quote.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

I ask specifically because I think it could define the ring's intentions differently. If fear was the actual trigger, then Ring might have put on it's homing signal to attract a more powerful bearer whose greater ambitions and power may be be easier to manipulate.

If the recognition of the nazgul was the trigger, than the motive is far more obvious, the nazgul were servants of the Ring's master and would enable a very speedy return. In this case the ring could actively understand what the Nazgul were and react on it. This would imply more intelligence but IMO it makes more sense.

I think the Ring knew the nazgul pretty well, maybe could even tell one of them from another. Wasn't Sauron manipulating their minds for centuries via the One Ring he wore?

I believe fear in general was a trigger, but not so powerful trigger as an image of a nazgul. Take the case of the Watcher. The Watcher was sitting quietly in his pool, but Frodo said he was afraid of the pool. (Here I think it was his extra sensitivity to danger gained from the Morgul wound). Frodo was afraid - the Ring started emmitting signal, just in case - the Watcher felt it and chose to grab Frodo out of the company of nine.

The Gaffer: yes, I think you are right.

[CAB]

I like the idea Gordis. Some questions regarding the inconsistencies of the Nazguls' sensitivity to the Ring are still left open, but I think, as far as it goes, this theory fits very well.

[Jon S.]

An oft-discussed topic. For example:

E4. Could the One Ring think, feel, and make choices?

(added 23 May 2002 )

(This FAQ entry is based in part on the May 2002 thread “Was the One Ring sentient?” in r.a.b.t. That word “sentient” is slippery, and discussion focused nearly as much on the question as on the answer. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [Third Edition, 1992] defines “sentient” as “1. Having some perception; conscious. ... 2. Experiencing sensation or feeling”; science-fiction fans tend to equate “sentient” with “self-aware and intelligent”.)

Whether or not the Ring makes choices, it seems able to sense its surroundings. When it grows smaller to stay on a finger (remember that Bilbo’s was less than half the diameter of Sauron’s or even Isildur’s) or larger again to slip off a finger, [LotR I 2 (60)] the Ring adapts to the size of the finger that is wearing it. But we must not push that too far. A thermos will keep a hot liquid hot or a cold liquid cold, but it doesn’t sense the temperature of the liquid and make a decision!

We find evidence in The Lord of the Rings that the Ring could in some sense perceive its surroundings and act accordingly. This is also consistent with the traditions of myth, where objects do think and feel. Does this mean that the Ring was alive (whatever “alive” means)? Most people would hesitate to go that far, and no one on r.a.b.t argued that the Ring could think in anything approaching the human sense.

What in the story suggests that the Ring could sense its surroundings and make decisions?

When telling Frodo about the Ring’s history, Gandalf says “A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else’s care — and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it aside. It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him.” [LotR I 2 (68-69)]

And a little later, Gandalf makes the point again with more examples: “The Ring was trying to get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur’s hand and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Déagol, and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!” [LotR I 2 (68-69)]

After abandoning Gollum and being found “by chance” by Bilbo, the Ring may have slipped off Bilbo’s finger to betray him to the Goblins near their eastern exit: “Yes, they saw him. Whether it was an accident, or a last trick of the ring before it took a new master, it was not on his finger.” [Hobbit V (99)]

This was not the first time that the Ring seemed to try to expose its new master to the Orcs. Recall its betrayal of Isildur in the River near the Gladden Fields: “There suddenly he knew that the Ring had gone. By chance, or chance well used, it had left his hand and gone where he could never hope to find it again.” [UT: GF (275)]

The evidence is open to interpretation. With Isildur’s experience as with Bilbo’s, Tolkien takes pains to keep the question open whether the Ring was acting independently or slipped off by pure mischance. On the other hand, Gandalf was very definite in telling Frodo that the Ring had “decided” to leave Gollum.

If the Ring could act to bring about its purpose of getting back to Sauron, then why did it get itself picked up by Bilbo when “an Orc [would] have suited it better” [LotR I 2 (69)]? Doesn’t such a choice argue that the Ring was not making choices?

Gandalf meets this objection: The fact that Bilbo picked up the Ring was not the Ring’s doing, and not Sauron’s. “There was more than one power at work, Frodo. ... beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker.” [LotR I 2 (69)] In other words, someone other than the Ring chose Bilbo. (Eru? the Valar? we are not told.) On this view, where the Ring made a choice was in slipping off Bilbo’s finger and betraying him to the Orcs, as it had betrayed Isildur. And it’s quite possible that the Ring tried to betray Frodo by slipping onto his finger at the Prancing Pony in Bree [LotR I 9 (176)], though Aragorn seems to blame Frodo (“Why did you do that?” [LotR I 9 (177)]).

While these passages do suggest a sentient Ring, and most people who posted to this thread accept that interpretation, it’s possible to interpret them in other ways: perhaps the Ring operates out of instinct or like a computer program.

Some would argue that the Ring didn’t make choices any more than an ant does: that in effect it operated out of instinct, a sort of Sauron-tropism. True, in a Letter, Tolkien says, “Even from afar [Sauron] had an effect upon it, to make it work for its return to himself.” [L #246 (332), also on the Web] But that word “trying” is not conclusive: we often speak of a lower animal like an insect “trying” to do something where we don’t imply conscious thought or any awareness. We can even say that ivy “tries” to get better sunlight when it grows up the side of a house.

Tim Howe [r.a.b.t article, 14 May 2002, archived here] suggests another intriguing “non-sentient Ring” explanation: Sauron may have programmed the Ring as we program a computer or a robot. (Only some of what follows was in his article.) Computer programs can be fantastically complicated and can seem to make decisions; computer programmers even speak of a program “deciding” to do this or that. Even so, we don’t say that the computer program (or Ring) is thinking; all the sentience lies with the programmer (or Sauron).

Howe points out that the Ring’s actions could be explained by the simple program “slip on or off a finger at any time it will place an enemy in peril, and abandon an owner who holds the Ring too long without using it.” Such a program would have the effect of making the Ring turn up eventually if it were ever separated from Sauron — and as an immortal he could afford to wait. Obviously Tolkien was not familiar with computer programming and would not consciously have intended such an explanation, but that doesn’t mean we cannot use it as an analogy. We would think of Sauron not as programmer but as sorcerer, making these instructions part of the spell he cast when putting his own power into the Ring, so that it would eventually come back to him if he ever lost it. (Against this we must set the fact that Sauron did not seem very good at planning for unexpected contingencies, and ask why he would plan for being separated from the Ring when he had no reason to believe that could ever happen.)

In less modern language, we can simply say that the Ring behaved a lot like a cursed object in traditional myth. A cursed object brings bad fortune to anyone who holds it, and the bad fortune often takes the form of a series of apparent accidents — the woodcutter chopping off each of his limbs over time, the Ring slipping on and off a finger at inconvenient moments.

Some incidents in the story are hard to explain whether we think of the Ring as making choices or not. For instance, why did the Ring help Sam in the Orc-hold at Cirith Ungol? [LotR VI 1 (938)] True, he felt an almost irresistible impulse to put it on (which would have revealed him to Sauron), but he did resist and simply “clasped it to his breast”. Even so, it made him appear great and terrible to Sauron’s servants, thus helping him rescue Frodo and continue with their quest.

The incident at Cirith Ungol perhaps helps us find a middle ground: the Ring had a limited sort of intelligence and purpose, but only limited. It grew greater and more terrible as an object the closer it got to Mount Doom, and Sam benefited from that increased stature as anyone would have. But the Ring couldn’t turn its own nature on and off any more than it could choose whom to make invisible.

Even though one can give explanations that don’t require the Ring to be sentient, having purpose and making choices, it seems likely that Tolkien intended it to be so. The Ring seems to behave in many ways like a dog separated from its humans and making its way back across hundreds of miles. On several occasion Tolkien writes that the Ring tried this or decided that, and the most economical reading is that the Ring did indeed have some will and sense of purpose. This pathetic fallacy, though a logical error in the real world, is a standard part of many myths, and seems to be part of Tolkien’s myth as well.

See also: Did the One Ring speak on Mount Doom?

http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm#Q1-Sentient

[Butterbeer]

ah... if i but had the time to join in the discussion the more -

In less modern language, we can simply say that the Ring behaved a lot like a cursed object in traditional myth. A cursed object brings bad fortune to anyone who holds it, and the bad fortune often takes the form of a series of apparent accidents — the woodcutter chopping off each of his limbs over time, the Ring slipping on and off a finger at inconvenient moments.

I take what you say about 'programming' as an analogy and note it in the spirit meant: i.e as an expansion of the concept.

As you yourself say, naturally ol' Jrr would not have had that in mind or any sequencing etc.

Given the quote above, i have always felt it at very least of consideration that the whole premise, usually stated by Gandalf - whom himself, by his own admission knows little of the One and is no expert on Ring Lore - that the Ring wanted to get back to it's "Master" is entirely open to debate.

The inconsistences we see here, may in part, i feel be due to us trying to impose this very value system onto the ring in the first place.

have fun all, and a Merry Christmas!
Best BB

[Gordis]

Thanks, Jon S. for the input.
But what interested me, was not how the ring "thought" or made decisions, but just what way it percieved its surroundings without eyes or nose or any obvious sensory elements. This has not been discussed in the text above.

For instance "the Ring’s actions could be explained by the simple program “slip on or off a finger at any time it will place an enemy in peril"
implies that the Ring had ways to see (or feel) what was happening around it and calculate that its bearer was in peril. But how would it know what was happening around?
I proposed a theory that the only way for the Ring to percieve its surroundings was to use the senses and thoughts of its bearer. Without a bearer the Ring saw and felt nothing - so maybe in this case it emitted a homing signal just to attract someone.

[Mari]

This may be a bit off topic, but what interests me is: Why a ring? Why not a necklace or artifact of power? Rings are easy to lose and since they didn't really have specific features it needs a trained and suspecting eye to recognize it as a ring of power, thus once lost it would probably remain lost forever.
Wouldn't a necklace or par ex. a sword make more sense?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

As far as "why a ring", in Anglo-Saxon Britain they symbolized the bond between warriors and their chiefs. There are two traditional motifs in religious imagery, sometimes refered to in astrology as "the cross of matter and the circle of spirit." In the Christ story, those manifest as cross and halo, but they're represented in other traditions as well, and may have their ultimate origin in ...aherm... biology. Rings are often contrasted with swords or wands. There was a sword...so there was a ring. It's also, as a matter of story telling, much easier to conceal.

The ring would be imbued with its creator's essence. That's essential to magical lore. Those stories are full of sorcerors who have placed their vulnerability in an object, (interestingly, often a fingerbone) only to see the object destroyed. Therefore, some 'awareness' on the part of the object might be assumed, particularly as the representative of the extremely aware creator, in this case. It takes power to separate a whole, so there would always be some movement towards joining. Going to Morder with it was "flowing down-hill", as it were. It's a tropism, like sunflowers, rather than a taxis.

[Mari]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

As far as "why a ring", in Anglo-Saxon Britain they symbolized the bond between warriors and their chiefs. There are two traditional motifs in religious imagery, sometimes refered to in astrology as "the cross of matter and the circle of spirit." In the Christ story, those manifest as cross and halo, but they're represented in other traditions as well, and may have their ultimate origin in ...aherm... biology. Rings are often contrasted with swords or wands. There was a sword...so there was a ring. It's also, as a matter of story telling, much easier to conceal.

Thank you for that explanation. It's interesting then that in more contemporary (as in from the 1995's or so) books, the things of power used are often necklaces or weapons rather then rings. But Tolkien came from a different background then I guess.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Mari

Thank you for that explanation. It's interesting then that in more contemporary (as in from the 1995's or so) books, the things of power used are often necklaces or weapons rather then rings. But Tolkien came from a different background then I guess.

For that, I'd refer you to Thorstein Veblen.

You see the quartered circle in the "Dark is Rising' series, for example.

[Jon S.]

Originally Posted by Mari

This may be a bit off topic, but what interests me is: Why a ring?

As a married man, the choice of a ring to control all others seems obvious to me.

P.S. Just joking, really.

[ecthelion]

[QUOTE=Jon S.;599782]As a married man, the choice of a ring to control all others seems obvious to me.

LOL