Tolkien's number hierarchy

I seem to recall this, maybe in one of the appendices?

"A set of five gold rings also Sauron made, which he gifted to his true love on the fifth day of Christmas, and so they were lost in the depths of her jewellery box."
 
Funnily enough, it's a sequence that was repeated in Star Trek Voyager.
Seven of nine. Tertiary adjuct of unimatrix one.
 
Five films* there were promised to the great galoot Peter Jackson, who, by way of his wizardry, turned the box-office receipts into goodly amounts of gold.

*Though later, seeing that lo! the value of these adaptations were greater than the value of all the Shire, the uncreated Creator, New Line Cinema, inexplicably sanctioned a sixth film. And there was much shaking of heads.
 
One ring for the (corrupt) Maia, three for the Elves, seven for the Dwarves, Nine for Men.

Five for the Ents?
 
One has to remember that Sauron made the One, the seven and the nine. He made seven for the seven dwarven kings and nine for each of the great kings of men at that time. He made the one ring to rule the others so he could have dominance over those races. He didn't make the three eleven rings - the rings of fire, water and air were made by the elves. Indeed, the Eldar made many rings, but only the greatest three were saved from an attack by Sauron and they were thereafter hidden. So, Sauron made the One mainly to try to obtain mastery over the elves through their rings. It didn't work, because the elves perceived his plan and took off their rings and hid them.

From this we can see that Tolkein didn't so much miss out "5". Sauron made one, seven and nine for historical reasons, and the elves made many of which 3 survived. The apparent odd number sequence with a gap is therefore not really a reality. The seven dwarven rings don't survive long anyway - Sauron reclaimed 3 and has them well before LOTR and I think 4 were destroyed by dragons.
 
Stephen Palmer said:
Seems I was seeing patterns where there were none...
Click to expand...
Which is fair enough, based only on the verse regarding the rings, of which the first two lines are inscribed on the One. The famous verse:

Three Rings for 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 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 where the shadows lie.

...does simply make the count of three, seven and nine, and is entirely suggestive of a sequence missing five. The verse in isolation has the capacity to be a little disingenuous without the backstory explained in The Silmarillion (Of the Rings of Power).

Incidentally, Stephen - you wonder about a lack of five, whilst there are five Istari. This is an interesting point. Of course the 5 Istari maiar existed before the sun and the moon, and lived in Valinor under the light of the trees, thousands of years before life awoke on Middle Earth, let alone before any rings were made. The elves made their rings for themselves, and while Sauron made rings for dwarves and mortal men because he knew he could subjugate them, he would never make any for enemy maiar, knowing he would be unlikely to gain mastery over them easily. As a point of fact, Gandalf (Olorin, in Valinor) did take up one of the rings when he came east into Middle Earth, taking over custody (or protection) of the Fire ring Narya from Cirdan the Shipwright who dwelt still in the Grey Havens. But, I don't suppose it was considered by the maiar Istari that they needed to embellish their immortal natures with magical rings. The elven ring carried by Gandalf was never worn I suspect.
 
I think it's possible he used 1, 3, 7 and 9 subconsciously because they feel more significant, as reflected by (or perhaps because of, chicken and egg) their wider use in culture, mysticism, spirituality etc. Five doesn't really have any of those associations that I recall. Even though it's the number of digits we have on each hand and foot, it feels like a fairly lame, "in between" number.
 
I've always found Celebrimbor and the Elves of Hollin quite fascinating, mostly due to the paucity of information available. A bit like the Two Blue Wizards in that aspect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Extollager Tolkien's opposition to illustrating fairy-tales JRR Tolkien 24
B What Would Peoples of Earlier Eras have Thought Of Tolkien's Works ? JRR Tolkien 29
Extollager Tolkien's Late Thoughts 2: Morgoth’s Ring pp. 301-431 JRR Tolkien 3
P.K.Acredon Is there a reason other fantasy stories with detailed worldbuilding don't get the same amount of praise as Tolkien's Middle Earth? JRR Tolkien 17
Extollager Tolkien's Modern Reading by Holly Ordway JRR Tolkien 2

Similar threads


Back
Top