What would the ring tempt you with?

[Elmo]

This is coming from this thread. I reckon it would offer me a lot of money and to become a world class football player with the World Cup in my hands. With a supermodel wife of course.

[mormegil]

Power and wealth.

[Thinlómien]

If I don't sound too hypocritical or arrogant now, I will say - like Galadriel and Gandalf: the power to do good. Ask anybody who has heard me telling how, if I was the dictator of the world, I would save the world from the environmental threats and the big multinational companies and totalitarian governments abusing and oppressing people. I really sometimes wish I could do that - a worrying thing, I'd say.

[Hakon]

I think it would tempt me with knowledge of everything to just know all that there is to know and for complete power. Really it would trick me into thinking that I was God.

[miriena]

Knowledge; the ability to learn the secrets of the world and its essence without prying, knowing it in the same way that I know how to breathe, without thinking about it. Just knowing and understanding where the pieces fall and why it is the way it is. And people's silent recognition of my knowledge, and their reverence , never envy or malice. And no one would ask me to come and help their own cause, lead an army, lead a nation, nothing like that, I don't want leadership. I will share the knowledge as it is meant to be shared, and I will know what that means.

Well, when I write it out, I kind of look like a jerk, huh...

I could think of more trivial things like a nice salary, not having to pay back my student loans, finishing my Master's thesis and graduating already, all these things that gnaw at me daily, but I don't think I'd fall for these. Tangible things seem like I can have them if I work hard enough, it's the thing that work can't achieve that I want the most...

[Morsul the Dark]

Power,

I would be tempted to destroy my enemies in wrath.

I would rise up as the new Dark Lord.

All would be within m power...

Ok maybe I Do need therapy...

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

If I don't sound too hypocritical or arrogant now, I will say - like Galadriel and Gandalf: the power to do good. Ask anybody who has heard me telling how, if I was the dictator of the world, I would save the world from the environmental threats and the big multinational companies and totalitarian governments abusing and oppressing people. I really sometimes wish I could do that - a worrying thing, I'd say.

Of course, my power would be for similar purposes but would we also become corrupt?

[miriena]

Originally Posted by mormegil

Of course, my power would be for similar purposes but would we also become corrupt?

I don't think you'd become *corrupt* in the sense where you lose your purpose, and strive only to gain more and more and more of whatever it is you think you want. But what I do think is that if it were to happen--you grab the Ring out of a gumball machine by chance, whoo-hoo!--this will not be a happy situation for the world.

People's views of "good" are so different. Why did people fall into situations where they are controlled by governments? Why do people keep multiplying on the planet, slowly depleting it of resources, and childfree people are still met with disdain and even anger? Why do people work on improving technology to make more things faster, why have people developed murder into an exact science? Why do people fight? Kill? Rise up to oppressors to fill the position with new oppressors? And all these things that a single person may disapprove of... Surely, on a global scale it's not done because people believe it's evil? They aren't purposefully crafting evil. They might think that taking these things away is the utmost evil, and what "greater good" is there then for them?

In general, taking choice away from people is evil, if you were to have everyone follow your agenda, they would be deprived of this right. But having everyone do their own thing may create chaos, there needs to be a fine balance, maybe.

A better use for the Ring if you want to fill your agenda is to make it so everyone thinks like you and believes in the same things, naturally, with no force required

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by mormegil

Of course, my power would be for similar purposes but would we also become corrupt?

Mmh given that Gandalf says:

"Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire to do good. Do not tempt me!"

and Galadriel says:

"I would [put things right and make people pay for their dirty work]. That is how it would begin. But I would not stop with that, alas!"

So I think yes, the Ring corrupts even those who want to use it for good, it makes them desire power and imagine they're the only ones who know what's right and probably makes them only care about power and themselves before long. It is a bit like what so often happens in our world: a charismatic revolution leader who idealistically believes in his beautiful cause and in democracy throws out the dictator and sooner or later becomes a dictator himself.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

If I don't sound too hypocritical or arrogant now, I will say - like Galadriel and Gandalf: the power to do good. Ask anybody who has heard me telling how, if I was the dictator of the world, I would save the world from the environmental threats and the big multinational companies and totalitarian governments abusing and oppressing people. I really sometimes wish I could do that - a worrying thing, I'd say.

But then you'd end up becoming evil yourself. You'd force everyone to do what you think is right (whether it is or not- actually, we could have a whole discussion about the nature of good and bad, but this isn't the right time...), and no-one would be able to do what they wanted. So even if you're making everyone good, you're forcing it on them, oppressing them with it, and that would be evil. So even if what's happening is good, they it's happening is evil. Free will, the Gift of Men (If we're going to Tolkien-connect this) would be gone.

And anyway, originally, didn't Sauron just want power in order to make everything more efficient?

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

But then you'd end up becoming evil yourself. You'd force everyone to do what you think is right (whether it is or not- actually, we could have a whole discussion about the nature of good and bad, but this isn't the right time...), and no-one would be able to do what they wanted. So even if you're making everyone good, you're forcing it on them, oppressing them with it, and that would be evil. So even if what's happening is good, they it's happening is evil. Free will, the Gift of Men (If we're going to Tolkien-connect this) would be gone.

Exactly why I'm happy I never came across the Ring, and probably (at least partly) why Gandalf and Galadriel didn't want to take it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I guess the main problem with the Ring is really that it will eventually turn everybody's best intentions (if they have them and don't simply want just the power and wealth in the first place) to bad ends. Or not even ends, but also means already. And thinking that you would be able to use it and NOT become a Dark Lord is the Ring's trick in itself. It is just impossible, like Eönwë has very well put it, and Lommy as well.

I am not really sure what my temptation would be like, and I guess it would be dangerous enough. Something between setting the world "right" - in the most "Gandalfish" way, in my case, I believe, as I am actually aware of the misuse of power more than of anything else, so I believe in my case the Ring would work really really subtly and that means really really dangerously! - and between having just a few peaceful comforts, the prospect of living in peace with just a few things I need. I think it could start to grow eventually, as the Ring would keep suggesting "and why won't you also want this? And this? And this?"

I am sure there will be more anyway, and I think I can actually imagine it pretty well, but I won't go on lengths here. But oh, now I actually figured what would be the Ring's main temptation for me - the first one anyway, or at least, the one it would have to drag me into anyway to make it possible for me in the first place to succumb to anything else. It would be leading me to the idea of self-sufficiency when it comes to deciding what is right or wrong. Like, convincing me that I am the one who can know it the best for myself! Isn't it just the Garden of Eden all over again? Interesting, I never gave much thought to it up to now. Wow, in that case, "my" Ring sounds quite archetypal. See, after the Ring would manage to do that, it would remove the main "failsafe" from me and I would be open to all other temptations it can offer. Which is just the point. "And the serpent said: Ye shall be like gods, knowing good and evil." I never thought the story was that clever. And neither did I suspect discovering as much about oneself from this thread.