Rings Of Power: Three Rings For Elven 'Kings'

"Three Rings for the Elven-Kings" is the start of the famous verse from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that continues and eventually quotes the inscription on The One Ring itself, put there by Sauron to control all of the rings of power. In this episode of The Tolkien Podcast the origin, ownership and bittersweet end of the rings is explained!

Transcript

One of the last, quite possibly the very last thing that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about Middle-earth and Valinor, and certainly something that was written in the last month of his life in the autumn of 1973, was concerning Galadriel and Celeborn. Now, it's not the topic of today's podcast, but I do like to consider, and maybe you would too, that there is Tolkien, at age 81, who published his final book.

Or rather, the publisher published his final book, finally, of his great work, The Lord of the Rings, almost 20 years earlier. And Tolkien is at home. His wife has passed. He, you know, is a little sad, a little different. He has a little money, he likes his privacy. He's kind of living this life, and he still is writing, notes, thoughts, arcs, character development, if you will, character backstory and history for his hoped-to-be-published, “The Silmarillion,” right up to his death.

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One of the last, quite possibly the very last thing that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about Middle-earth and Valinor, and certainly something that was written in the last month of his life in the autumn of 1973, was concerning Galadriel and Celeborn. Now, it's not the topic of today's podcast, but I do like to consider, and maybe you would too, that there is Tolkien, at age 81, who published his final book.

Or rather, the publisher published his final book, finally, of his great work, The Lord of the Rings, almost 20 years earlier. And Tolkien is at home. His wife has passed. He, you know, is a little sad, a little different. He has a little money, he likes his privacy. He's kind of living this life, and he still is writing, notes, thoughts, arcs, character development, if you will, character backstory and history for his hoped-to-be-published, “The Silmarillion,” right up to his death, nore or less,

He takes ill while, visiting some friends and gets pneumonia and suddenly dies and Christopher Token is left to go through everything, including this thing that we're talking about. This is one of his last, if not the last, writings and make sense of it all.

And Christopher says that Galadriel is one of perhaps the most complicated parts of the story, and the one that, maybe, he revised.

So J.R.R. Tolkien, in this final bit, emphasized Galadriel's commanding stature. While not the same, she was equal or not less than, one of the great elf words that ever lived, which was her brother Fëanor.

For those who don't know, Fëanor was the creator of the Silmarils, which were stolen by Melkor, who was the Bad Daddy of Sauron and he fled to middle earth. And it is not an overstatement to say that Fëanor was obsessed with getting these Silmarillion, the Silmarils back, creating the story of The Silmarillion that spanned ages, along with saying or many people who followed him.

He (Fëanor) was a great magnetic leader with this obsession to obtain these things he had made. And, a lot of elf problems happened because of fate or so, and writes in this last part that Galadriel, his sister, opposed him every step of the way. She did go to middle earth. She did disobey the Valar, who said, don't go, stay here.

But she went. But she went to oppose, other things that Fëanor did to reclaim the Silmarils and the oath that he swore and an oath that he demanded other elves swore, which led to much sadness in the book of “The Silmarillion.”

Now, just to be perfectly clear, I'm talking about Galadriel in this last thing that Tolkien wrote.

I'm not talking about all the versions of Galadriel or different versions or whatever. I'm talking about this last thing that Tolkien wrote. So some of this doesn't sound right with you or jive with what you might have read. This is why I'm talking about the last writings of Tolkien. She was wise. She was powerful, she was long lived.

And of course, she was a bearer of a ring of power. One of the three made without the knowledge of Sauron. Now there is a recording which you should probably find and listen to of Professor Tolkien reading these verses. I hope it's not disrespectful, but perhaps the definitive version of anyone reading these verses is in McKellen speaking them aloud during the Lord of the rings Fellowship of the ring film.

But there's also book recordings that are very good. You can find them however you want. I'm going to read them as well. And I'm no Ian McKellen, there's a couple things I want to point out for you to listen to before we read them. One is that Gandalf tells Frodo that these are from elf legends.

The case could be made that Gandalf kind of hobnobs with the elite of the elf lords. And perhaps this recording, this verse is not something that Joe Elf or Jane Elf on the Street would know, because there is very much a need for secrecy that's baked into this. All the information about this verse or the information delivered by this verse.

So listen for that. The other thing that you may listen to is that the writer is elven or whomever were actually wrong, and one of the assumptions they made in the verse, they're wrong. There's an error right in the verse. That's kind of interesting. So remember those things. There's a a lie or an error and there is a need to keep something secret.

Actually, there's a third thing I'm going to ask you to think about while I read this verse. And that is that the end of it. The last couple of lines are directly taken from the One Ring itself, written in the Dark speech. But the rest of the, verse is not. It's an elven construction. That's what Gandalf told Frodo we were going to believe.

Gandalf, more or less. So the elves crafted this thing, this lore, this saying to pair with what's on the One Ring. And I think there's a pretty good reason why maybe think that over.

Three rings for the elven kings under the sky
Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone.
Nine for mortal men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
in the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.
One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them.
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
 in the land of Mordor.

Yeah, I told you I wasn't Ian McKellen. In this episode, we are going to talk about The Rings of Power, the three Rings of Power made by elves outside of the attention of Sauron, the dark Lord.

My name is Larry and you are listening to: The Tolkien podcast.

It is worth noting that Tolkien, with his rings verse may and and Peter Jackson's films didn't hurt, may have created one of the most well known verses in all of literature. Now, I think almost certainly in fantasy literature. But at least in literature, it has some competition. But it's in the conversation, which is astounding for a fantasy book of any kind.

I think it'd be fun to read a couple of the others.

One of the best known I think anywhere is Shakespeare's “To be or Not to be. That is the question whether it is blah blah blah,”

You know that one other is, “Quoth the Raven, nevermore.” And how about, “Do not go gentle into that good night rage, rage against the dying of the light, which is in the interstellar film, the 2014 film, which I think made this even more popular.

But it's a Dylan Thomas verse which is already really popular. And there's some others. “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.”

There there's a couple of Robert Frost's, too. And miles to go before I sleep. Is one or the other line that's super famous is two paths diverged in wood, and I chose the one less traveled by.

I think those are conversational for just about anybody in the least in the world of English. There's other things from fantasy or science fiction that are extremely famous, but I don't know that their verse and Tolkien managed to do that in first, but that's not what we're talking about. We're here to talk about The Rings of Power, specifically the Three Rings of Power.

0Now, I want to be clear and transparent. I am not speaking at all about The Rings of Power, the Amazon series, and the transparent part is that I haven't even watched it. I watched season one. I watched just a little Tom Bombadil, specifically episodes in season two, and that was enough for me. And if you love it, I'm so delighted for you.

But that is not the topic of today's podcast, I guess. But the rings, I guess the rings are the topic, and that is sort of the central part of the show. Or at least that's what they chose to name it. So I suppose it's related in that way. As always, I'm going to assume that if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably quite familiar, at least passingly familiar with The Hobbit and The Lord of the rings.

I will base my assumptions on that. I do not assume that all listeners are familiar with The Silmarillion, or the stories contained in the other works of talking, so it's worth a brief scene setting a brief recap to discuss these rings of power in the Hobbit and The Lord of the rings. Readers and characters are quite concerned with rings.

That is not always the case in middle earth. There are a lot of things going on with Dark Lords and elf lords and travel and boats and Balrog and dragons and trolls and orcs and wars and sieges and all kinds of battles, but not so much rings. By the Second Age. Melkor, the baddest bad guy of all that ever batted upon Arda of the world and middle earth, is defeated, and his lieutenant Sauron is present.

In fact, Sauron. The text says that he repented or pretended to repent at least, but it says that many believe the repentance is real. But when he was asked to leave middle earth and appear before the veil are the bosses of the world who are in charge. Number of eight. We're going to talk about them some more today.

Well, he couldn't humble himself to go do that. It's important to just understand the nature of Sauron and what kind of being he is. Melkor, his boss, was one of the great beings that ever was in existence and helped create the very world Arda with his song. Although he favored discordant songs. Well, Sauron's not quite that he's, analogous or the same as Gandalf, for example.

Not really mortal, and also helped with the creation of the world as a singer and as a crafter, but not at the level of Melkor. And certainly, for example, Gandalf could not have withstood Melkor. Melkor was like Valar, the  big bosses, and Gandalf and Sauron or Maiar, a level down angels, if you will. But Sauron is hanging out in middle earth while Gandalf is across the ocean in Valar and, ocean doesn't quite do the word justice, but it works, and the same with Saruman and Radagast.

These are great beings, angels. So Sauron has the unique ability to be a shape changer, and he did indeed help craft the world where all these lives. He helped craft middle earth. So as a shape changer figure called Annotar, which I'm 100% sure is in the Rings of Power series. In season two, he, gains the trust of some elves, and these elves love crafting as well.

Well, Sauron's an expert at crafting, after all. He sang the world into existence. He helped. At least I think I said a minute ago that there were eight Valar. And what I really meant were there were eight lords, and Melkor was one of those. And was he left? So after Melkor was in rebellion, there were seven lords, seven Valar, and there were seven queens.

So there had been 15. Then there were 14, because Melkor left. Now, this is only important to our story today because we need to understand who Sauron was before. He was just a evil dark Lord, an armor, a great flaming eye, or a guy with a ring on his finger. He was a highly gifted mare and he was an apprentice.

So the Seven Lords, I just mentioned, one of them, his name was Aüle, and he was, he's kind of an earth guy and a crafter, and he, Well, he's the guy who created the dwarves when he wasn't supposed to, and he was prepared to do away with them, kill them, destroy them. But, he was given a reprieve, and the dwarves were allowed to live, but were told to wake up later.

So hourly. Obedient, good guy, craftsman, skilled. Helped create the world. Sauron, also helped create the world. And then he was an apprentice for hourly, two hourly. So there's not a lot of people that, were crafters quite like Sauron. So he understands crafting. And the elves, as great as they are, the greatest of the elves, actually approach these maiar in power and intelligence and ability to craft.

In fact, the Silmarils would be argued, although created by a mortal, were beyond some of them are. That's how great they were, which is why Morgoth wanted them, why Sauron would have wanted them. So Sauron infiltrates these elves, becomes friendly, gains their trust, and teaches them lore. Now, I do want to talk about this world lore for a bit when I use that word in my everyday speech, which is not often, but sometimes we're talking about folklore or stories or mythology.

But when Tolkien uses this word lore, he's using an older version, a middle English or even, older English version where lore means, how to do something, how to create something, how to mix something. So when he says that Sauron, known as an avatar.

He's not saying his knowledge or stories. He's saying that his craft and abilities. And when he teaches that lore to the elves, he teaches them the craft and abilities. And I would also say that lore suggests secrets. He has secret knowledge about the thing that he's teaching, and in this case, it's working metals. And very specifically making rings.

Oh, permit me to do a short one sentence reading from The Silmarillion to use that word lore in context. So here's a quote. It's in the middle of a paragraph. It'll just give you a flavor quote. Since the elven smiths could not have attained to their making without his law and counsel, end quote. So Sauron was definitely using them, and he was definitely entrapping them, but he was definitely also giving them something of value.

Now, in today's language, the easiest analogy for this is that he was teaching them programing of a computer, but he was building in a back door virus that they were unaware of and they would only find out about later. Now, let me say that annotator tried to ingratiate himself with many of the elf lords. He tried with the King, Gil galad, he tried with Galadriel, and he tried with Elrond and was rejected by all of them.

But these, these smiths, these elven smiths, he was able to penetrate. Maybe by flattery, maybe because he had something of great value, or maybe they just failed to have the the hunch or the feeling, the ill feeling that the three people I mentioned did. But he was able to finally kind of worm his way in with these elven smiths.

And because I like a little depth, I'm going to read from The Silmarillion. The purpose here is to give listeners the flavor of Saurons words, and because the more we can get Tolkien's words in the podcast, the better. I should say that not only did Elrond and Gil galad not accept an ATAR, he literally was barred from entering their realm that he was not allowed at all, and they did even send warnings.

But it says the elves they're away from. Elrond and Gil-galad were slow to listen and eager to accept an atar begin quote, for Sauron took to himself the name of an the Lord of gifts, and they had it first much profit from his friendship. And he said to them.

“The great, for a mighty king is Gil galad. And wise in all laws. Master Elrond. And yet they will not aid me in my labors. Can it be that they do not desire to see other lands become as blissful as their own? But wherefore should Middle-earth remain forever desolate and dark, whereas the elves could make it as fair as Erresea? Nay, even as Valinor. And since you have not returned.
Thither as you might, I perceive that you love this Middle-earth, as do I. Is it not, then, our task to labor together for its enrichment, and for the raising of all the oven kindreds that wander here? Untaught to the height of their power and knowledge, which those have who are beyond the sea.”

So Sauron has carefully laid his plans, and he's carefully taught his law and craft and wisdom to these elves, these guys who love to make stuff. Well, chief among these guys was an elf named Caleb Brumbaugh, and he was the grandson of Theodore, and he was second only to Feanor in his ability to craft. So when Sauron came along, he probably learned some things, but he also was great in his own right.

Now, Celebrimbor, kind of on the right side of things all along. He did not swear the oath of his grandfather, though he did flee from Valinor and in return of middle earth to attempt to, get the Silmarils. But he didn't swear the oath, and it's not known if he took part in a great slaying of elves.

But, the fact that he's not named as one of those people is probably a good sign. And he came to a place called it region, and he was friends with, Galadriel, who started this tale, and Caleb born. And all of this happened close to the dwarves of Khazad doom. When the elves learned that the dwarves had mithril.

The door that we're familiar with in The Fellowship of the ring speak, friend, and enter door was actually designed by Celebrimbor. He drew up the plans. He didn't make it. A dwarf did. But on the inscription, his name is listed there. So he was a great leader in the region. He's friends with Galadriel. Galadriel did not trust an entire when he came along.

But, if Celebrimbor had a flaw, well, he definitely did have a flaw. It was that he, in his heart, wanted to be as great a smith, a creator, a maker as his grandfather was. So he couldn't resist the gifts and the wisdom and the lure of an atar. And that was to be the downfall of many things.

He led them in and helped, or allowed. At the very least, he helped to create The Rings of Power. Now, some people are not clear, and they think that since certain of the rings were given to men and certain of the rings are given to dwarves, that there was a difference in the rings, all of the rings were of elven make and weren't necessarily intended for anybody.

There is also a rumor among the dwarves. This is a fun side note that one of the rings of the dwarves was given directly to to the King of the dwarves from the elves, but all the rest, or maybe all of them, were chosen by Sauron to give to nine rings to men and seven to the dwarf lords.

The dwarves, however, were really hard to, take under sway, and they didn't didn't quite work well, but it did seem to make them greedy. By the way, if it were up to me, which it clearly is not, if, the rights for, say, The Silmarillion were ever available, I would tackle it in an entirely different way, and I would follow will follow different characters in different seasons.

But Celebrimbor is really fascinating, and he was along for the ride at all of the action, for the elves, for the first age, in the Second Age, and just his story would make a great sort of main character to follow for a season. Anyway, he was guilty of letting Sauron and Antar into the inner circle and to create these rings.

And like I mentioned before, they sort of had a back door, virus in them so that Sauron secretly could create the One Ring and control them. Well, Celebrimbor didn't make the seven or the nine, which is a total of 16 if I counted right. And then Sauron made one more, which was 17. But Celebrimbor is the person who made those three rings for elven kings, and he did it without the knowledge of Sauron.

So just as Sauron was underestimated by the elves, the elves were underestimated by Sauron. They did more than he thought, and Celebrimbor made the three rings for the elven kings. Now it's way back that there was a mistake. There was an error in the verse in the poem, and we're getting to that part I didn't forget, but I'll say it again.

Three rings for elven kings. What's the problem there? So Celebrimbor and Anna are, having underestimated each other, thought that to get well together they had made 16 rings unbeknownst to. And it's her who is then gone, who's really Sauron. There were really 19 rings, except that, unbeknownst to Celebrimbor, there was a different ring, the One Ring.

There were actually 20 total rings made. And the way this was discovered is a fantastic moment. Sauron made the One Ring so that anyone who was wearing a ring would be subject to him. Well, he slipped that ring on and it worked. He was aware of all the other rings he could. He knew who had them they were wearing.

But there were three more that he didn't expect now, because he hadn't made the three that Caleb Brumbaugh made on his own, he didn't have the ability to master the people who wear who were wearing them, but he was aware of them. So suddenly he learns that there's three extra rings. Well, the elves also were aware of the One Ring when this happened.

Suddenly they're aware of each other's treachery. And it's a scary moment. Like quite a moment for both. I'm not, I don't know. I love the idea of that, like sudden awareness of each other. It's really cool. So, Celebrimbor is a trusted ally of Galadriel, visits her and Celeborn nearby, explains the problem and explains these three extra rings and doesn't know what to do with them. Well, she counsels, because remember, she's wise. She counsels that they should be carefully hidden so that Sauron doesn't know where they are, and he agrees with this in fact, he agrees so much with Galadriel's wisdom that he leaves one of the three with her.

In fact, it's Narnia, which is a ring of water. Now, the you know, in classic like science, ancient human science, there are four elements, and everything was believed to be made up of a of four elements, plus the fifth element, which there's a movie titled that, which is definitely about that which we're not going to talk about, but that exists.

So that's Earth Air, fire and water. Well, the elves were not Earth creatures, so they didn't get an Earth ring, but they got a water air and firing. Those were the three rings of the elven kings. So the water rings stayed with Galadriel, called Nina. What's it called? Narnia. Business. If you have a hard time remembering. That's how I remember it.

It was untouched, uncorrupted by Sauron. But as long as he had the One Ring on the wearer would be made known to him. So she had it, but she didn't wear it. Well, good old Caleb Brumbaugh took Galadriel's counsel and also went to find Gil galad, another person who did not trust Sauron in disguise as an avatar. And in fact, if you remember, I mentioned he forbade him to enter his land.
 
So Caleb Rimbaud took the the two other rings narrow the Ring of Fire in Velia, the ring of Air, and took them to Gil galad for safekeeping for hiding, which was good because Sauron was on his way to wipe out Caleb Brumbaugh and Eregion and full open war, he was no longer hiding. He was no longer pretending he was fair.
 
He was now going to get those rings. Sauron engaged in a war with Caleb, rember? And he captured Master Smith, and he tortured him, and he forced him to reveal the location of the Nine rings in the Seven Rings. I guess I should call it the 16 Rings, but Caleb Rimbaud's his credit never disclosed where the three rings for elven Kings were kept.
 
So finally we can come to the error. Perhaps intentional in that elven composed verse that sits on the front of the inscription of the wondering that is written in black speech. This is three rings for elven kings. Well, Galadriel is pretty amazing. She's, you know, wise and smart and brave, but she's no king. So one of the three rings went to a woman, not to a king at all.
 
And I'll have more to say about that. But remember the other part of the thing I suggested that you ponder was that this was a secret only a few people knew. A few elves knew where those rings, the three rings for elven kings slash Queen were hidden, and it needed to remain hidden. So it's quite possible. In fact, to me, it seems likely that this verse that was written by elves was kind of a code and kind of a way to keep the secret of the rings.
 
So the minute Sauron put on the One Ring, he became the Lord of the rings there in the Second Age. Then he engaged in war and and the like, sacked Origen, killed Caleb, remember? Tried to torture him for information. So the the necessity of keeping the rings secret and safe, in the words of Gandalf, was really important. So probably talking about the verse, maybe before he knew that Galadriel was going to be one of the keepers.
 
But it makes logical sense inside middle earth that you would make a verse says, three rings for elven kings because of throw you off the scent right away. You couldn't say three rings for elven kings and a queen because everyone would know it was Galadriel, right? But even worse for Tolkien, it would be bad poetry. There is a lot that happens in the Second Age, and I am not going to detail it here, but I'm going to say it in like two seconds.
 
So Sauron eventually is defeated not once, but twice. The last time at the Last Alliance. Or as it's easier to call it, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. And that is when King Gil galad was killed. But remember, he was keeper of those rings before he went to that last Alliance battle. He gave one to Elrond and he gave one to a guy named King Dan, a ship builder.
 
The the very person who eventually would take the last ship away from middle earth was the last elves to leave and sell it to Valinor. He was, one of the wisest and oldest, also a super interesting guy that has a long history. And he was old enough rare among elves that he had a beard. Thanks to the motion picture trilogy, the Lord of the rings.
 
We saw that last Alliance battle at the beginning of The Fellowship of the ring. We saw Elrond there. We actually saw Gil galad there. We saw Aaron Dale, the Mariner who was in Numenor in, which means he was a race of men that were super cool. He and his dad, who were fighting alongside the elves. It was the last lines of elves and man, his dad was killed.
 
The sword was broken. He cut the ring off the finger. Gil galad was killed. And Elrond and others, care down among them. I'm pretty sure told Aaron Dale to throw the ring in the damn volcano. But he didn't. So the Lord of the rings, although defeated, still existed. And that gets us to the Third Age. So Kieran still had that ring until a fellow named Gandalf, one of the Maya, showed up and he gave that ring to Gandalf.

Kieran was, a ship guy and was going to be sailing out of the West Haven's back and forth. He wasn't going to use the ring in a way that would enrich middle earth. So he gave this assignment to Gandalf, who was, after all, an immortal being and there to help middle earth. That ring was called Moria, the Ring of fire.
 
And Gandalf, you know, kept it, used it, wielded it. His job was to inspire the people of middle earth to stand up against Sauron and to oppose Sauron when he could. And this ring was on a mission for Gandalf. The idea of this mission was to kindle hearts and give people courage, and to resist despair, and to resist, like weariness.
 
So this spring was very much about leadership and resolve. So it suited Gandalf perfectly. The third ring called Velia and Ville. Yeah, but the I guess the e Sam Velia was a sapphire ring. I should have mentioned that Galadriel's ring then. Yeah, it said that it was made of adamant what Adam really meant in the old world.
 
The old language. That token often uses and calls back to is that it was a white diamond. That a white jewel that was very, very hard. So basically, a diamond Adam basically means a diamond. So this was the ring of water, as I mentioned, what's important to know or interesting to know is in the Jacksons films, when Galadriel, wearing that ring, is tempted by Frodo or is offered the One Ring by Frodo, think of miraculous.
 
That might be, by the way, this ring that was going to dominate her and then was lost. She was able to wear and use her ring while it was lost because the Lord of the rings was out of action. This hobbit shows up at her house with the ring in his pocket and says, hey, you can have it.
 
So that was Galadriel's real final test. And it wasn't a small test like in the film. We can't really feel the scope and the weight of that, like the the massiveness of that temptation. In fact, we can't really in the book because we had when it was written, at least because we hadn't yet read the Silmarillion and got all this backstory.
 
But now that you know it, now you can maybe feel it a little bit better, right? Like the very thing, the very ring, the Lord of the rings had the very ring that made her hide. The very ring that threatened her existence. And by the way, its destruction. As soon as the One Ring is destroyed, the other three rings would cease to be powerful.
 
While they were not made by Sauron, they were rings of power, and they were subject to the same rules. So when the One Ring disintegrated, all three of these rings lost their power. That's why Galadriel, hoping that the mission would succeed, said she passed the test and she would diminish and go into the West. Given a lift by Kurt in the Shipwright, by the way.
 
Anyhow, that's what Galadriel was facing. And if she had taken the One Ring, she, Jackson did all those water effects, right? She looked like she was blue and in water. That's, Some people thought it was cheesy a little bit, but that's why it was water. And that's the kind of queen she would have become. But it would have made her laugh more in her home.
 
The elves in middle earth would have made them permanent, at least for a while. She could have kept both. Now, no one really knows what would happen if one person held two rings of power, but we presumably know that Sauron did, because he, in that war against a region where he killed Caleb, remember he he collected and took all the rings.
 
The 16. So he probably had several of them at once, and it didn't seem to make him any more powerful. It's also worth noting when we're talking about the destruction of the wandering that those elven smiths did something else that Sauron didn't probably expect, and that is, they were good enough for their craft. The rings of power that they made were, considerable and mighty to such a degree.
 
This is, in the text. I don't know if it's super, super stated clearly, but it's pretty clear that because the rings of Power were so useful and so well-made and so powerful by themselves, that Sauron was forced to put more of his power into the One Ring, he was forced to. I think people know that concept already.
 
The One Ring literally held like part of Sauron's power, and because he had to do that, because it took him a lot of effort and will and his own vitality in the ring, that also made him vulnerable. And ultimately, if he could just put the ring on without, you know, pouring his own self into it, then he would have been able to dominate those people.
 
But the elves were too much for that. He may have underestimated them again. So because of that, it gave him the vulnerability that allowed Frodo slash Gollum to cast that ring into the mountain, into Mount Doom. And, while you work Sauron's utter destruction. So, Caleb, remember, even though he was killed and even though he, you know, failed in many ways, he also succeeded in many ways.
 
He secretly made the three which helped, and he forced Sauron to be vulnerable. All of this, of course, underlines the brilliance of Mr. J.R.R. Tolkien or Professor Tulk, and he manufactured a really organic and beautiful and yet sad way to have these elves who loved Middle-earth so much have no other choice than to protect it, to save it from Sauron, and at the same time spell their own doom to ensure that they would fade away and have to leave the thing that they loved.
 
That's pretty brilliant writing. That's pretty good talk and stuff. It's also, a clever weaving of The Rings of Power and The Lord of the rings. There's also a lot of subtext here about power and leadership, and you could apply this to today's modern world if you want, but that's totally up to you. But on one hand, we have the Lord of the rings, whose goal and power is to dominate, to force, to overpower, to rule.
 
And that is contrasted beautifully with the keepers of the three rings of the elven kings, one of which didn't go to an elf at all, but to Gandalf, and one of which didn't go to a king at all but a queen. And it's worth noting that Gandalf knew that when he was sitting in Bilbo's house with Frodo, and he recited that verse to him, he knew very well that three elven kings did not have the three elven rings.
 
He knew that he had one of them, in fact, in his hand, or on his hand, or in his pocket. But those rings, and the people who use them were. Instead, their power was in inspiration, preservation, nurturing, healing, all the opposite things of the One Ring. So that is in the subtext. And that is quite a commentary on power and leadership from Tolkien.
 
It also is worth mentioning, at least worth mentioning, that Frodo sacrifice his willingness to save middle earth, but not for himself, his sacrifice, and the bittersweet victory was very much mirrored in Elrond and in Galadriel and the elves who saved middle earth, but not for themselves. It's another theme that Tolkien uses. I don't think it's any wonder. It's not any surprise that, as Tolkien was nearing the end of his own life at 81, of course he didn't know when.
 
But literally some of the last things he thought about, some of the and maybe possibly the very last thing he wrote about was Galadriel and Caleb Borne and their sad sacrifice, I guess. I hope that Tolkien and fantasy reading isn't just.
 
Escapism, although it can be that too. But the hope is that it's, useful in the real world as well. I've said that in other ways over and over again. It's something I believe pretty strongly, but perhaps we live in troubled times. Actually we do, but without any doubt. And hopefully we can emulate the likes of Galadriel and Frodo and Elrond and Gil galad and Celebrimbor, and bless the Lord of the rings.
 
My name is Larry. You've been listening to the Tolkien podcast.