[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by the phantom

The whole Ring thing would've happened with or without Celebrimbor, and he had no part in the One Ring's creation, thus no blame can be placed on him.

Wrong again, my dear phantom. No doubt your misunderstanding is attributable to Feanorophile induced short-sightedness, but you really must stop looking at the matter through those Noldor-tinted spectacles.

Sauron conceived the plan to create the One Ring, yes. He forged the thing himself, yes. But the whole scheme relied upon the Gwaith-i-Mírdain falling for his Annatar guise sufficiently that they listened to what he had to teach them about ringcraft. Had their vanity and greed for knowledge not led them to do so, then they would not have learned how to make such nice little trinkets. Without the Elven Rings being made, there was little point in Sauron going through with his plan and so he would not have bothered putting all his eggs into the One Ring basket.

So, but for Celebrimbor and his pals falling for Sauron's little trick (as a direct result of their own failings), there would have been no One Ring.

Oh, and if you think the Elven Rings so great, you have Sauron to thank for that. It was his teachings that enabled Celebrimbor to craft them. Without Sauron's help, he would never have had the skill to make them himself.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

However no One ring is not the same as no Sauron.

In some ways it is. But for the One Ring, Sauron could have been defeated through one concerted effort. It was the Ring that anchored him to Arda and allowed him to return every time that he was physically overcome.

And the Ring wasn't such a bad scheme, by the way. He would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for that pesky hand of Eru ...