Tolkien describes some themes/messages here which I think he failed to express well in his fiction.
The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one’s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. If I were to ‘philosophize’ this myth, or at least the Ring of Sauron, I should say it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control. A man who wishes to exert ‘power’ must have subjects, who are not himself. But he then depends on them.
This analogy does not work great IMO. Why does Sauron become much weaker than ever before after his Ring is destroyed?
...these ‘wizards’ were incarnated in the life-forms of Middle-earth, and so suffered the pains both of mind and body. They were also, for the same reason, thus involved in the peril of the incarnate: the possibility of ‘fall’, of sin, if you will.
Sauron and the Balrogs “sinned” and “fell” without being bound to a limited body like the Istari were.
The Enemy in successive forms is always ‘naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others – speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans – is a recurrent motive.
Tolkien barely ever shows this in his fiction. He tells us this, through Gandalf and Galadriel. But we do not see it. The only example I can think of is when Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo. I don’t remember that The Lord of the Rings even mentions the topic that Sauron might once have had good motives. Neither is it at all clear that the evil deeds of e.g. Fëanor derive from good motives.
Tolkien describes some themes/messages here which I think he failed to express well in his fiction.
This analogy does not work great IMO. Why does Sauron become much weaker than ever before after his Ring is destroyed?
Sauron and the Balrogs “sinned” and “fell” without being bound to a limited body like the Istari were.
Tolkien barely ever shows this in his fiction. He tells us this, through Gandalf and Galadriel. But we do not see it. The only example I can think of is when Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo. I don’t remember that The Lord of the Rings even mentions the topic that Sauron might once have had good motives. Neither is it at all clear that the evil deeds of e.g. Fëanor derive from good motives.