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Originally Posted by Aiwendil
This is something like what I meant by its "mindless desire". But I don't see it as simply being attracted to power - Mt. Doom is the place where the Ring was forged, so I would imagine it is drawn thither more strongly than it is toward other sources of power.
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What I meant was, just as a compass needle not in the vicinity of a magnetic object would be drawn to magnetic North, so the Ring would be drawn to Mount Doom, but if any other 'magnetic' objeact came into its orbit it would be pulled that way. Once it had 'seduced' that individual into itself the pull to Mount Doom would reassert itself. So, the overall pull would be to the Mountain, but the Ring may get sidetracked . It needs bearers to get it to its destination, but it changes them as soon as it finds a better mode of transport.
Basically this means that no-one could master the Ring - it would always retain the power to leave its 'master' & move on. My own feeling is that it is the Fires at the heart of the earth, rather than Sauron, which draw the Ring. I've speculated before that 'the fires which well up from the heart of the earth' (ie the fires of Orodruin) are the same as the Secret Fire which Eru set to burn at the heart of the earth.
The thing that now occurs is, while the Ring may not have 'desired' its own destruction in the fire, it
may have 'desired' to return to, & become one with, its source (which it may not have seen as 'destruction' at all)
Now, all the foregoing may seem to imply a conscious, desiring, will on the Ring's part - which I don't necessarily think is the case. It is, to my mind, perhaps on the level of a moth drawn to a candle flame, which, if it attains its 'desire' will find only its own destruction.