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Originally Posted by jallanite
It is the two quotations that you have presented that state clearly that the secret of who possessed the Three Rings was only known to their possessors which shows conclusively that the quotation I presented from Unfinished Tales does not fit with other material published in Tolkien’s lifetime.
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I am aware of that, hence my posting them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jallanite
Of course I did not accept the point you were trying to make because I had forgotten those clear statements.
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Yes, of course. But again the larger point I was making, the one germane to the previous discussion, and the one you took off the beaten path, was the concept that a ringbearer can wear a Ring of Power unobtrusively so that it remains hidden, unless the ringbearer chooses to reveal it or another Ringbearer sees it, as was the case with Galadriel and Frodo, and then with Gandalf at the Gray Havens with Narya.
We can rightly assume that the Rings never left the persons of Galadriel, Gandalf or Elrond, and it is quite probable the same can be said with Sauron in Numenor. With the One Ring hidden (perhaps hidden in plain sight on Sauron's finger), then it was much easier to delude Ar-Pharazon and subjugate the Numenoreans.
The question remains as to why Frodo or Bilbo could not hide the One Ring in such a way as Galadriel did with her ring (or perhaps as Sauron did in Numenor). It is likely that they did not possess the same innate power as the Eldar or Maiar, hence they were not fully able to exploit the power of the One Ring, using it for what amounts to merely "parlor tricks".
P.S. Sauron certainly did have the One Ring in Numenor. In Letter #211 Tolkien states, “He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans.” And in Letter #131 Tolkien reiterates that Sauron (now in spirit form) wisked the Ring away from the ruin of Numenor: "I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring [from Numenor], upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended."