Power and Desire: The Silmarils vs The One Ring by StarSpray

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Power and Desire: The Silmarils vs The One Ring

Every so often I see discussions in fandom about the Silmarils and the One Ring that end up equating them—treating them as though they are direct parallels to one another. This always happens by way of bringing the Silmarils down to the level of the Ring, often treating characters’ refusal to surrender the one Beren and Lúthien retrieved as the result of the same kind of corrosive possessiveness that the Ring induces, which renders its bearer literally unable to give it up willingly or destroy it. This reading is not just wrong, it undermines the agency of the characters involved and undercuts the tragedy of The Silmarillion. The Silmarils and the One Ring are made by very different characters for very different purposes. They also act in the narratives of their respective stories very differently.

 

What do the Silmarils and the Ring have in common? They are both the titular objects of their respective books around which the major plot turns, it is true. They are both made by powerful individuals, and are desired by many different people, and when they are lost and/or stolen their makers are desperate to retrieve them. Characters die for them, and kill for them. At this extremely surface level reading they do, indeed, seem very similar. But the deeper you look at each object the more glaring differences show themselves, until you realize that they do not parallel, but rather oppose each other.

 

Due to the nature of each narrative it’s much easier to see the full nature of the Ring and the effect it has on people around it. It is an object created explicitly for evil and malicious purposes: One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. Sauron makes it so that he can ensnare all others who hold rings of power, “for 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. If he recovers it, then he will command them all again, wherever they be, even the Three…”

The way the Ring works is that it sneaks into the bearer’s mind and starts to twist their thoughts to its own purposes. It wants to be used, and it wants to isolate its bearer. It makes itself desirable so that its bearer will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify the means by which to take and keep it. See Gollum’s insistence on his “birthday present.” See Bilbo’s tale of winning it in the riddle game. At the Council of Elrond he says: “But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise”—he looked slidelong at Glóin—“I ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me. But perhaps I understand things a little better now” (emphasis mine).

You can see it in Isildur, too. The films misrepresent this scene: Elrond says nothing of dragging Isildur up Mount Doom to try to get him to destroy the Ring; he says that “whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it” but at that time there is no way anyone present could know what kind of effect the Ring would have on someone other than Sauron, because Isildur is the first person after Sauron to hold it. But Elrond telling the story has the benefit of Gandalf’s recent decades of research, and the reader also can see the red flags popping up almost as soon as Isildur touches it. He “will have [the Ring] as weregild for my father, and my brother” he claims, which is a similar kind of justification to Bilbo’s story of winning the Ring instead of finding it. Weregild is, per dictionary.com: a term used in Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic countries for “money paid to the relatives of a murder victim in compensation for loss and to prevent a blood feud.” It’s something paid to prevent further bloodshed. It would have been weregild if Sauron had handed it over after Anárion had died, as part of some kind of peace brokerage. But it can’t be weregild if you’re taking it off the dead body of your enemy; it’s too late by then. Isildur does have every right to it as a spoil of war, and no one disputes that right. But the fact that Isildur has to change it and further justify it even in his own mind is a sign that the Ring is already working on him. And if that is not enough (which it might not be—weregild is a very archaic term), Tolkien further illustrates the effects of the Ring taking hold on Isildur in the document that Gandalf discovers in Minas Tirith’s archives: “But for my part I will risk no hurt to this thing: of all the works of Sauron the only fair. It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain.”

This effect of the Ring is not something that can be defeated easily. Only twice is it given up willingly: once by Bilbo, who needs all of the help Gandalf can give him, and once by Sam, who has borne it for a very short time—and even then “Sam felt reluctant to give up the Ring and burden his master with it again.” There you see another justification—perfectly in character for Sam to want to spare Frodo, but also a thought that the Ring can latch onto and use, to twist for its own purposes.

And though Sam is able to return it to Frodo with relative ease, he tries to compromise: “If it’s too hard a job, I could share it with you, maybe?”

Frodo’s reaction illustrates just how far gone he is—made more tragic by his awareness of it:

“‘No, no!’ cried Frodo, snatching the Ring and chain from Sam’s hands. ‘No you won’t, you thief!’ He panted, staring at Sam with eyes wide with fear and enmity. Then suddenly, clasping the Ring in one clenched fist, he stood aghast. A mist seem to clear form his eyes, and he passed a hand over his aching brow. The hideous vision had seemed so real to him, half bemused as he was still with wound and fear. Sam had changed before his very eyes into an orc again, leering and pawing at his treasure, a foul little creature with greedy eyes and slobbering mouth. But now the vision had passed. There was Sam kneeling before him, his face wrung with pain, as if he had been stabbed in the heart; tears welled from his eyes.

“‘O Sam!’ cried Frodo. ‘What have I said? What have I done? Forgive me! After all you have done. It is the horrible power of the Ring. I wish it had never, never, been found. But don’t mind me, Sam. I must carry the burden to the end. It can’t be altered. You can’t come between me and this doom.’”

And that is only looking at what it does to people who possess it. Saruman never comes near it, but the mere desire twists him from someone noble and wise and good into a miniature Sauron. Boromir also falls—he is a good man, an honorable and brave and ambitious man desperate to protect his home, and the Ring takes that and twists it until Boromir breaks and attacks Frodo. The Ring is a thing made with evil and malicious intentions, for explicitly evil purposes, and it cannot be taken and used for good—in fact it will take even the best of intentions and twist them to evil. Gandalf knows this, and that is why when Frodo asks if he will take the Ring his response is immediate and vehement:

‘No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it.’

And Galadriel has a similar response when Frodo offers it to her. There is of course her famous description of what she would become were she to take it, but then Sam says to her:

‘But if you’ll pardon my speaking out, I think my master was right. I wish you’d take his Ring. You’d put things to rights. You’d stop them digging up the gaffer and turning him adrift. You’d make some folk pay for their dirty work.’

‘I would,’ she said. ‘That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas! We will not speak more of it.’

That is why the plot of The Lord of the Rings centers around the Ring’s destruction. Everything else—the battles, the politics, the power struggles, Aragorn’s rise to kingship—all of it is secondary. And the Ring itself is an active player. I will not go so far as to claim it has sentience, or any kind of active thought, but there is a significant part of Sauron’s will and his power held within it, and there is a drive to be found and kept and used—and ultimately to return to its maker.

 

The Silmarils, on the other hand, are the greatest creation of Fëanor at the height of his powers in Valinor:

For Fëanor, being come to his full might, was filled with a new thought, or it may be that some shadow of foreknowledge came to him of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable. Then he began a long and secret labor, and he summoned all his lore, and his power, and his subtle skill; and at the end of all he made the Silmarils.

As three great jewels they were in form. But not until the End, when Fëanor shall return who perished ere the Sun was made … shall it be known of what substance they were made. Like the crystal of diamonds it appeared, and yet was more strong than adamant, so that no violence could mar it or break it within the Kingdom of Arda. Yet that crystal was to the Silmarils but as is the body to the Children of Ilúvatar: the house of its inner fire, that is within it and yet in all parts of it, and is its life. And the inner fire of the Silmarils Fëanor made of the blended light of the Trees of Valinor, which lives in them yet, though the Trees have long withered and shine no more.

Fëanor’s motives in making the Silmarils are not wholly clear—whether he had some foresight of the death of the Trees, or whether he just wanted to see if he could do it, or to show off his skills, or what. But whatever his motive is, it is not to enthrall or ensnare anyone. On the contrary—while the Ring seeks to isolate its bearer, the Silmarils, though “even in the darkness of the deepest treasury [they] of their own radiance shone like the stars of Varda; and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light and received it and gave it back in hues more marvelous than before.” They are at their most beautiful when out in the light, where they are most likely to be seen and enjoyed by everyone.

They are then hallowed by Varda. To hallow a thing is to to make it holy, and in the case of the Silmarils it also means that “thereafter no moral flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, but it was scorched and withered”. The mortal flesh bit is contradicted later when Beren handles one with seemingly no issue, but Beren is an exception to many rules, and what remains consistent is that nothing “of evil will” can touch the Silmarils and come away unharmed.

Like the One Ring, the entire plot of The Silmarillion is the great desire of various characters for the Silmarils. This begins with Melkor, whose lust for them inflames his desire to destroy Fëanor, and the friendship between the Valar and the Elves. But this should come as no surprise to the reader; Melkor has historically lusted after sources of power and Light, going often into the Void in search of the Flame Imperishable. The Silmarils themselves are not doing anything to Melkor; they are the objects of his desires, but not the source.

This pattern continues throughout the The Silmarillion. Fëanor and his sons swear their famous Oath, but the Silmarils don’t make them do it. Then Thingol tells Beren that he must retrieve a Silmaril before he can marry Lúthien, he is setting what seems to everyone present to be an impossible goal, especially after the Dagor Bragollach and the breaking of the Siege of Angband. I’m not saying that Thingol does not actually want a Silmaril; he is very happy to have it once he gets it, but it’s a very different desire from the kind inspired by the Ring much later. Then someone is the bearer of the One Ring, the last thing they want to do is give it up, as discussed above. But the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien retrieve from Morgoth is passed around without any issue through many different hands. Nowhere is it even implied that Elwing, for example, has trouble giving it to Eärendil to take to the Valar, or to take with him when he sets sail in Vingilot.

Thingol’s desire for the Silmaril I mentioned above; it comes closest to mirroring the kind of obsession triggered by the Ring, but it is not the same. Although “as the years passed Thingol’s thought turned unceasingly to the jewel of Fëanor, and became bound to it,” which sounds a lot like Ring-esque obsession, it does not drive him to isolate himself, or to keep the Silmaril hidden away where only he can see or find it, the way Bilbo keeps the Ring in his pocket and never takes it out when others can see it. Thingol does become “minded now to bear it with him always, waking and sleeping,” but by its very nature that can’t be done secretly. There is also no use to the Silmaril the way there is to the Ring—it cannot turn one invisible, and it does not give one power over others. The Silmarils have a power—more on that later—but it’s of a very different kind.

An explanation can be found for Thingol’s obsession through a study of his character arc and his relationship with Valinor and the Trees (which is another essay unto itself). Thingol, along with Ingwë and Finwë, goes to Valinor as an ambassador, and when they return to Cuiviénen there is nothing in the text to indicate that he is more or less enthusiastic than his companions to convince the Eldar to go to dwell with the Valar, and he in fact leads the largest faction of the Eldar over Middle-earth on the Great Journey. It is only by chance (if chance you call it) that he stumbles upon Melian in Nan Elmoth, where “a spell was laid on him, so that they stood thus while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark before they spoke any word.” Famously, they remain lost in Nan Elmoth so long that Ulmo comes back to get the Teleri that have lingered to search for him, and under Olwë many of them depart, and those that remain give up the chance to get to Valinor—and that includes Thingol when he finally returns to them. Thingol does not choose to remain behind; he gets left behind. And when The Silmarillion speaks of Thingol’s desire to go to Valinor, it specifically says that it is the light of the Trees that he desires: “Greatly though he had desired to see again the light of the Trees, in the face of Melian he beheld the light of Aman as in an unclouded mirror, and in that light he was content.”

Fast forward to the Flight of the Noldor, and Thingol learns that Morgoth has destroyed the Trees (and murdered his friend Finwë), so that even if he were to reach Valinor, their light is gone forever. Fast forward to the Dagor Bragollach, and the Siege of Angband has broken and Beleriand is swiftly growing ever more dark and dangerous as the power of Morgoth grows. Then Beren comes, and the Quest happens, and now Thingol has a Silmaril. He no longer has to be content with the reflected light of Aman in Melian’s face, however unclouded a mirror it may be. Now he has the real thing, a real piece of Laurelin and Telperion at Mingling. Of course it might become an obsession.

Less readily explainable is the Dwarves’ decision to insist upon the Silmaril and the Nauglamír as payment, when Thingol commissions them to combine the two. They have been coming and going between their mountain halls and Menegroth for many generations by now, and there is no mention of any kind of prior dispute over payment—certainly not one that results in bloodshed. Yet when Thingol goes to take up the finished Nauglamír they “in that moment withheld it from him, and demanded that he yield it up to them, saying: ‘By what right does the Elvenking lay claim to the Nauglamír, that was made by our fathers for Finrod Felagund who is dead? It has come to him but by the hand of Húrin the Man of Dor-lómin, who took it as a thief out of the darkness of Nargothrond.’”

This does sound rather like the Ring-induced desires we see in The Lord of the Rings, although the Dwarves do not mention the Silmaril. It is Thingol who decides that that is what they want—whether he is correct in this assessment is, in my opinion, debatable. There is another form of treasure that warps people’s minds and desires—dragon gold. And the Nauglamír has just come from Nargothrond, that was for several years under the control of Glaurung. I have thus far only cited the published Silmarillion but at this point I do want to point out that in a previous draft of Thingol’s demise, the gold that Húrin brings to Thingol is, explicitly, cursed.

In the draft of the Quenta Noldorinwa found in The Shaping of Middle-earth Húrin and a few outlaws arrive at Nargothrond “which as yet none, Orc, Elf, or Man, had dared to plunder, for dread of the spirit of Glómund [Glaurung] and his very memory.” There they find the dwarf Mîm, who has come to Nargothrond and “bound [the treasure] to himself with many spells.” Húrin’s companions kill Mîm, “and at his death Mîm cursed the gold.”

This is the gold that, in this version of the story, Húrin takes to throw at Thingol’s feet, and it is this gold that Thingol then summons the Dwarves to make into the Nauglamír in which to hang the Silmaril. The text in this version is extremely explicit about the hold that the cursed gold takes over Thingol and also over the Dwarves who come to work with it. “Yet also they [the Dwarves] lusted for the Silmaril,” is added almost as an afterthought.

In the published Silmarillion there is no explicit curse, though the description of Nargothrond when Húrin comes to it is almost exactly the same as the earlier Quenta, and if one is familiar with The Hobbit, one might remember what else Tolkien has written about dragon hoards. When Bilbo witnesses Thorin’s dealing with Bard after Smaug is slain, the narrator says that “also he did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded … Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him.” This is commonly called the dragon-sickness; its effects are varied in The Hobbit, affecting some more strongly than others—such as Thorin, and also the Master of Lake-town, who “being of the kind that easily catches such disease he fell under the dragon-sickness and took most of the gold and fled with it, and died of starvation in the Waste.”

One can thus infer that both Thingol and the Dwarves of Nogrod are also susceptible to the dragon-sickness, and also to fatal amounts of pride. This puts some of the blame on the Nauglamír, but still none at all on the Silmaril.

None of this is to say that the Silmarils are not desirable. The entire plot of The Silmarillion hinges on their desirability. But in this they are passive objects, unlike the Ring that actively seeks to ensnare new bearers whenever it can. What power lies in the Silmarils lies in the light of the Trees that lives inside them, and that light was made by Yavanna, and is holy and life-giving. The people of Sirion believe that “in the Silmaril lay the healing and the blessing that had come upon their houses and their ships,” and that seems to play a much larger part in their refusal to surrender the Silmaril to Maedhros than the fact that it is an heirloom of Lúthien and Dior. Considering the state of the rest of Beleriand at this time, there seems to be some truth to that belief. It is with the Silmaril also that Eärendil and Elwing are able at last to pass through the barriers around Valinor and come to the shores of Eldamar.

And, much later, it is the light of that Silmaril that Galadriel captures in the phial she gifts to Frodo, and though that phial might be considered as much a reflection of the light of Aman as lives in Melian’s face, there is real tangible power in it—power that works against that of the Ring (and the Witch-king) in the Morgul Vale as the Witch-king and his armies pass by:

There was no longer any answer to that command in his own will, dismayed by terror though it was, and he felt only the beating upon him of a great power from outside. It took his hand, and as Frodo watched with his mind, not willing it but in suspense (as if he looked on some old story far away), it moved the hand inch by inch towards the chain upon his neck. Then his own will stirred; slowly it forced the hand back and set it to find another thing, a thing lying hidden near his breast. Cold and hard it seemed as his grip closed on it: the phial of Galadriel, so long treasured, and almost forgotten till that hour. As he touched it, for a while all thought of the Ring was banished from his mind. He sighed and bent his head.

Later in Shelob’s lair Frodo brings the phial out, and

for a moment it glimmered, faint as a rising star struggling in heavy earthward mists, and then as its power waxed, and hope grew in Frodo’s mind, it began to burn, and kindled to a silver flame, a minute heart of dazzling light, as though Eärendil had himself come down from the high sunset paths with the last Silmaril upon his brow. The darkness receded from it, until it seemed to shine in the center of a globe of airy crystal, and the hand that held it sparkled with white fire.

Frodo gazed in wonder at this marvelous gift that he had so long carried, not guessing its full worth and potency. Seldom had he remembered it on the road, until they came to Morgul Vale, and never had he used it for fear of its revealing light. Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima! he cried, and knew not what he had spoken; for it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit.

And this is only the light of the Silmaril that Galadriel has caught in the water of her mirror, not the Silmaril itself—a fragment of a fragment of the light of the Trees. It stands and acts in opposition of the Shadow, whether of Morgoth or of Sauron.

 

All of this has been to say: one can compare the roles that the Silmarils and the One Ring play in their respective stories, as each lies at the center, but there the similarities end. The Silmarils are desirable for their goodness; the Ring is desirable for the malicious power that it promises any prospective bearer. As objects of power they are the antithesis of one another, and for a reader to treat or regard the Silmarils as they would the Ring is, quite frankly, wrong. The motives of a maker matter in Middle-earth, and whatever his deeds later, one cannot equate Fëanor at the height of his power in Valinor to Sauron at the height of his in Mordor.

Chapter End Notes

Bibliography:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Council of Elrond”, “The Shadow of the Past”, “The Mirror of Galadriel”
2. dictionary.com, entry: weregild
3. The Return of the King, “The Tower of Cirith Ungol"
4. The Silmarillion, “Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor”
5. The Silmarillion, “Of the Ruin of Doriath”
6. The Silmarillion, “Of Thingol and Melian”
7. The Silmarillion, “Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië”
8. The Shaping of Middle-earth, “The Quenta”
9. The Hobbit, “The Gathering of the Clouds”
10. The Hobbit, “The Last Stage”
11. The Two Towers, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol"
12. The Two Towers, “Shelob’s Lair”

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