Aragorn and the One Ring

[Pyan]

Were the Wraiths originally of Númenorean stock? If so, it might have taken a long time before the rings utterly corrupted them.

I think that's a given, Teresa - Gandalf actually says:

Nine he gave to Mortal Men, proud and great, and so ensnared them.

FotR, Book 1, Ch. 2, The Shadow of the Past: my emphasis.

I doubt that, at that time and in that place there were any other men in Middle-earth that the phrase would apply to...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Poking around online (since I don't have Tolkien's letters or all my HOME books handy), it appears that Tolkien said that three of the Nazgûl were of the Númenorean race. That leaves six of dubious origins. Khamûl is referred to as "the Easterling" although whether that means he is of that race or that he spent a long time in the East may be open to question.

But to reply to your post:

Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth , yet it turned to their undoing ... And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thralldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's.

– The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"

The emphasis, of course, is mine. So they "became" mighty and they "obtained" glory and great wealth.

Also, it appears that some of them did not fall under the thralldom of their rings so soon or so easily as might be supposed.

 

[Boaz]

Well, we have to remember that Sauron's original impulse was as an organizer and efficiency expert. Get it done, get it on time, and get it in under budget.

That's funny. Sauron's first job for Melkor was as office manager of Utumno.

I always imagined that the other six of the Nazgul were far removed descendents of men like Herumor and Fuinur.

 

[Window Bar]

As a profound admirer of Tolkien for over 40 years, I nevertheless take issue with several aspects of his own world view. Foremost among these is his faith in the blood-line superiority of certain individuals and races.

Aragorn, therefore, wins my interest ONLY by his actions. His long pedigree is of no more interest to me than if it were the sire-and-dam papers of a racehorse. And the group distaste Tolkien felt for the migrating southerners in the early chapters of the FOTR also sticks in my throat.

Perhaps the fact that my own forebears were not royalty--that they did not spring from the loins of certified blue-bloods--has determined my opinion. But the story of my great-great-grandfather, at age twelve, crossing Missouri and Kansas on foot with a runaway slave--that story means something.

Anyway, though Aragorn is a bit wooden, I'm content that he'll be a fine king and that he got there by some other means that the ring.

 

[Isildur's Heir]

It always struck me as odd that there is virtually no mention of what the Ring can actually DO. We know that it renders the wearer invisible - whether they want to be or not.

But this doesn't appear to include Tom Bombadil, over whom the ring has 'no power'.
What are we to assume of Tom Bombadil and his origins and the reasonings for this lack of effect of the ring?