[Formendacil]

The question of the gems proper to the Great Rings makes me think about the exception to that rule, the One Ring, and that makes me think about a couple of things that are only tenuously related to the discussion of the Lesser Rings--nonetheless, it is fun to speculate.

What crops up in my mind is this: in HoME X, aptly titled Morgoth's Ring, there is an essay where Tolkien compares Melkor's diffusion of his own power into the whole matter of Arda to Sauron's infusion of his power into the Ring, and Tolkien says that Sauron specifically used gold in the creation of the One Ring because it had, as an element or ore, particularly high amounts of Melkor-ness. Silver, on the other hand, is singled out as being one of the purest metals (I would speculate that, in a like manner, water could be assumed to be one of the purest elements of Arda's physical matter, and maybe the air of Manwë).

In addition to this is the idea that has been brought up here that the gemstones of the Great Rings might be significant. The Sapphire connection to Manwë in Vilya seems especially apt, and I wonder if it's not too much of a stretch to hope for a diamond-Elbereth connection for Nenya (after all, Galadriel is very much a Varda-figure in The Lord of the Rings). This leaves Narya, and while I can make no obvious connection between it and one of the Valar, its red stone nonetheless makes a fairly close connection to Gandalf's use of it as "kindling" (i.e. lighting a fire--fires being red).

The connection here that I would put forward--as a theory and as nothing but a theory--is that the gemstones in the Great Rings have something of an analogy to the use of gold in the One Ring. What precisely they *DO* is beyond me to explain, or how they do it, but the "magicks" of the Elves are, as has already been pointed out in this thread, an Art--and I would lean on that word a bit to suggest that an Art suggests that it is a Craft (albeit one that can be done well according to the gift of the craftsman), which is something that can be made with materials--and although there is a lot of emphasis on the craftsmanship of Celebrimbor, nothing is said in the text about the significance of his materials.

What I am propounding, therefore, is a suggestion that what sets apart the Lesser Rings from the Great Rings is, in part, their different materials--or that in the Great Rings the natural potencies of the gems were unlocked by a combination of the Ring-Control/Enhancement (as it has been suggested here) already found in the Lesser Rings, not simply working on the user, but allowing him/her to access further power of Arda itself, as most appropriate to the gem.

The thing about this speculative schema that appeals to me is that it makes a connection between the One Ring and the other Great Rings that allows the lesser Rings to have been a purely Elven Art--indeed, it is easy to see Ring-making as an Eregion reinvention of something the Noldor did in Valinor. The idea that the gems have "innate powers" or what-have-you sits a bit uncomfortably with me, seeming not quite-Middle-earth, but I console myself with the Noldor were always gem-makers, and although the Silmarils are the gems par excellence that they made, it is not impossible that the lesser gems might have had a lesser power just as they had a lesser lustre.

In this conception, the Lesser Rings may well have had gems--it is simply that the gems would not have been of any extra benefit compared to an unadorned Lesser Ring. It is the gems specifically then, in the Great Rings, that allowed the ringbearer great power over nature--but because they were opened up to tap into this "matter of Arda" power, Sauron's One Ring, forged of gold specifically to tap into the Melkor-element in the matter of Arda, was able to get in and control the other ringbearers.

Having said all that, I realise it's all unprovable, but hopefully it will be seen as somewhat plausible--or, at the very least, as highlighting an element or two of the Rings that can bear a touch more scrutiny.