At Comic-Con International in San Diego, Prime Video revealed the first full trailer for the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It primarily focused on the potential danger of the Three Rings that Celebrimbor forged at the end of the first season. Since the creation of the Rings of Power was the idea of Halbrand — who Galadriel learned was secretly the Dark Lord Sauron — Elrond feared that his fellow Elves were playing into his hands by not destroying them. He warned, “In choosing to wear those rings, you have all become his collaborators.” Galadriel agreed that the Rings of Power were key to Sauron’s plan, but she believed that her ring was “guiding” rather than “deceiving” her.

The trailer also showed Durin III wearing one of the Seven Rings, and it seemed to have already corrupted him; when his son begged him to take it off, he slapped him away with seemingly superhuman strength. In The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring inspired evil in everyone around it. It not only tempted its wearers to give in to their darkest desires but also inspired others to use violence in an attempt to claim it. The trailer for The Rings of Power is clearly tapping into this familiar aspect of the corrupting power of rings, but in J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel, did the other Rings of Power have the same effect as the One Ring?

The Rings of Power Corrupted Men and Dwarves

Groups of Rings of Power
Named Wearers

The Three Rings
Galadriel, Gil-galad, Elrond, Círdan, Gandalf

The Seven Rings
Durin III, Thrór, Thráin II

The Nine Rings
The Witch-king of Angmar, Khamûl

The One Ring
Sauron, Isildur, Sméagol / Gollum, Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee

The Nine Rings that Sauron gave to the race of Men were the most obvious in their corrupting power. They enhanced the abilities of their wearers, allowing them to become powerful warriors, spellcasters, and politicians. Yet their wearers also lost their humanity, slowly transforming into the monstrous Nazgûl. They were permanently invisible and trapped in a state between life and death, unable to rest until the One Ring was destroyed. They were completely subservient to Sauron, even when he took the Nine Rings away from them. However, it is unclear how much the Nine Rings affected their morality. Tolkien wrote little about who the Nazgûl were before their transformation, but Sauron likely selected individuals who would be susceptible to villainy. According to the section “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” from The Silmarillion, there was no shortage of such individuals, “for Men proved in this matter as in others the readiest to [Sauron’s] will.”

The Seven Rings that Sauron gave to the Dwarf-lords had subtler effects. The Dwarves of The Lord of the Rings had a reputation for being greedy and quick-tempered, and the Seven Rings amplified these traits. Thorin Oakenshield’s father, Thráin, and grandfather, Thrór, became obsessed with reclaiming their lost wealth, leading both of them to their deaths. However, the wearers of the Seven Rings did not fall under Sauron’s control like the Nazgûl. In the same passage, Tolkien wrote, “[Dwarves] ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom, nor can they be turned to shadows.” Aulë, the godlike being who created the Dwarves, made them physically and mentally resilient so that they could resist the power of Sauron’s master, Morgoth. Though Sauron could not make the Dwarves his minions, the Seven Rings were not a complete failure. The results of the Dwarf-lords’ anger and avarice often “came to the profit of Sauron.” For example, Thráin made himself vulnerable to the Dark Lord’s forces by venturing to Erebor in search of treasure.

The Elves Foiled Sauron’s Master Plan

 

The Three Rings that Celebrimbor created was a more complicated matter. The Elves wore them for roughly a decade without suffering any ill effects, but that was before Sauron forged the One Ring, which gave him control over the other Rings of Power. As soon as he did, the Elves realized that they had been deceived. They removed the Three Rings from their fingers and did not wear them again for the rest of the Second Age. Therefore, the Three Rings never had a chance to even attempt to corrupt the Elves. After Sauron’s defeat in the War of the Last Alliance, the Elves deemed it safe to wear the Three Rings again and did so throughout the Third Age. They had only positive effects, such as keeping the Elven realms of Rivendell and Lothlórien safe. Even once Sauron returned, he had no power over the Three Rings since he still lacked the One Ring. Without the Dark Lord’s influence, the Three Rings posed no threat to their wearers.

It is unclear exactly what the Three Rings would have done to the Elves if they had continued wearing them while Sauron possessed the One Ring. Elves were not as naturally resilient as Dwarves, but they were more resistant to corruption than Men, so the effects probably would have been somewhere between what happened to the Nazgûl and what happened to Thorin’s forebears. Perhaps the Three Rings would have subtly influenced them to do the Dark Lord’s bidding without obviously dominating their minds. In The Rings of Power series, Sauron has not yet forged the One Ring — at least, as far as the audience knows — so Elrond should have nothing to worry about. But The Rings of Power has made other changes to Tolkien’s lore, such as the order in which the Rings of Power were created, so maybe the Three Rings will be more insidious than their novel counterparts even before the One Ring’s creation.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Could Make Sauron Even More Dangerous

In Tolkien’s writing, the corruptive nature of the Rings of Power stemmed from how Sauron created them. When forging the Seven Rings and the Nine Rings, he placed some kind of magic upon them that made them subject to the One Ring. Celebrimbor made the Three Rings without Sauron’s involvement, but since he copied Sauron’s techniques, he inadvertently imbued them with this same connection to the One Ring. The One Ring was a part of Sauron, as he needed to transfer some of his power into it to make it strong enough to control the other Rings. As Galadriel put it in the prologue to Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film, “Into this Ring, he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life.” That is why Sauron became weaker after he lost the One Ring to Isildur and lost all power when Frodo destroyed the One Ring.

In The Rings of Power, Sauron might have placed a piece of himself within every Ring instead of just the One Ring. Like in the novel, he did not directly aid in the Three Rings’ creation, but he could have tampered with the materials in his earlier experiments with Celebrimbor. The trailer offered some support for this theory; when Galadriel put on her Ring, she heard ominous, incomprehensible whispers, calling to mind the similar effect that occurred when Frodo wore the One Ring in Jackson’s films. As well as making Sauron even harder to defeat, this would render all the Rings of Power inherently evil and justify Elrond’s concerns. Only time will tell exactly how dangerous The Rings of Power‘s versions of the Three Rings truly are.