Will of the Nazgul/Creating More Nazgul

[Inziladun]

You make a lot of sense, Gordis.
I would wonder, however, if the other Rings would have been as 'free' when Sauron was bereft of the One as the Three were.
The Three were made by Celebrimbor alone, with entirely different powers and purposes from the others. Their connection to the One was therefore weaker, but still there due to Sauron's ultimate influence in their making. For that reason, I do not think the Elves could have been reduced to wraiths in any case, merely dominated and controlled by Sauron with the One.
Any of the Seven given to a Man after the One was lost would, I think, have resulted in the possessor becoming Gollum-like. Ultimately in thrall to the Ring he bore and enduring beyond his years, but not entering the wraith-world due to the lack of Sauron's direct influence through the One.

[JeffF.]

Mithadan, you wrote earlier, "In The Council of Elrond it is stated only that the Three were hid by Celebrimbor. So from LoTR it is clear that Sauron gave at least the Nine to Men, but how the Dwarves got the Seven is not clear."

In the Silmarillion, Of The Rings OF Power in the Third Age (p357 of the Ballantine paerpack) it states that after the Three were saved and hidden, "...Sauron gathered into his hands all the remaining Rings of Power; and he dealt them out to the other peoples of Middle Earth, hoping thus to bring under his sway all those that desired secret power beyond the measure of their kind. Seven rings he gave to the Dwarves; but to Men he gave nine,..."

RotK App.A as already mentioned stated that Durin's Folk said their ring was given to them directly by the elven smiths and not by Sauron.

I've found no other statement regarding the distribution of Rings to the Dwarves but those two make it pretty clear that Sauron gave at least six and maybe all seven of the rings given to Dwarves.

[Hakon]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Any of the Seven given to a Man after the One was lost would, I think, have resulted in the possessor becoming Gollum-like. Ultimately in thrall to the Ring he bore and enduring beyond his years, but not entering the wraith-world due to the lack of Sauron's direct influence through the One.

I am not so sure the man would be become Gollum-like. Tuor posted a quote from one of the letters in a different thread that relates to this.

Letters #246
Sauron sent at once the Ringwraiths. They were naturally fully
instructed, and in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the
Ring... if he still preserved some sanity...thery would simply have
waited. Until Sauron himself came.

Originally Posted by The Might

Tuor provides that interesting quote where Tolkien speaks about what would have happened had Frodo kept the Ring. What is important there is that the Professor underlines the fact that the only thing keeping the Ringwraiths from stabbing him to death is the tranformation that Frodo had gone through during his journey. All of a sudden he wasn't the weak Hobbit on Weathertop, but had seen and gone through so much that he had the authority to keep the Wraiths form hurting him as the master of the Ring.

The Might then does a good job of summing it and both the way The Might sums it up and the actual quote make me think that the man might slowly begin to turn into a wraith. The thing is they would not turn into a wraith instantly and most likely the ring would have been destroyed long before they were even close to becoming a full wraith.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Hakon

The Might then does a good job of summing it and both the way The Might sums it up and the actual quote make me think that the man might slowly begin to turn into a wraith. The thing is they would not turn into a wraith instantly and most likely the ring would have been destroyed long before they were even close to becoming a full wraith.

I'm thinking along the lines of Gordis above- that it was not the Rings themselves that caused the wraith-state, but the lies and deceits of Sauron which he induced by the power of the One.

They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron.

Silm Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (emphasis added)

[Hakon]

I see. I was thinking along the lines that since Sauron put part of himself into the ring, it was that part that affected them. Which is what makes me think if anyone was in possession of the one ring and one of the seven was given to a man, that man would slowly become a servant of the owner of the one ring.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'm thinking along the lines of Gordis above- that it was not the Rings themselves that caused the wraith-state, but the lies and deceits of Sauron which he induced by the power of the One.

I am afraid I have not been clear enough, so you have misunderstood me.

There are several different things that a Ring of Power does to a wearer.

1. A Ring itself mentally affects the wearer. Here the greatest danger is to wear the One, because it has a large embedded ingredient of Sauron's own evilness and power. To wear the Three is not dangerous from that point of view because the Rings themselves are unsullied. To wear the Seven or Nine is something in between - of course in them Sauron-element is noticeably smaller than that in the One (less than 1/20, in fact). I think a strong and good-intentioned Man like Aragorn or Isildur or the future nazgul could well resist the inherent evilness of the Nine Rings, if Sauron had not the One.
And look at Gollum. He had worn the most powerful and the most evil Ring with a large "chunk of Sauron" inside for 500 years. Had he become Sauron's slave? No. He hated Sauron's very guts, was able to resist the Dark Lord, was able to LIE to Sauron! So, even the most evil Ring all by itself doesn't make a Mortal Sauron's servant. Only the second factor - Sauron's DIRECT influence - could assure the enslavement.

2. While Sauron has the Ruling Ring in his possession, using the connection between the One and lesser Rings, Sauron himself mentally affects the wearer of one of the 19, slowly turning him into a willing slave. Here no one is immune: Elves would be as vulnerable as Men, and they didn't dare to wear the Three even for a day in the Second Age. Th Nine Men became Sauron's slaves because, oblivious to the danger, they did use the Rings in the SA and were fully exposed to Sauron's influence. As for the Dwarves, they proved rather resistant due to their stubborn nature, but not wholly: we know some clans of the Dwarves fought on Sauron's side in the Last Alliance.

3. And completely unrelated thing, IMO, is turning mortals into wraiths. I don't think Sauron wished to do that specifically, it was simply an undesired side effect of Men's immortality. It was the effect of the wearing of the rings, unconnected to Sauron.
Sauron had promised Men immortality - and the Nine Rings ALMOST provided it, but with some draw-backs. A Ring prolongs Man's life and binds his spirit to the Circles of Arda. In a way an Elven ring turns a Man into an Elf-like state: he doesn't age, or ages at an elven-rate, he cannot die of old age and receive the Gift of Eru, he continues living. But unlike Elven bodies, the bodies of Men are not supposed to endure for millennia, so very soon, much sooner than in Elves, a totally Elvish phenomenon occurs: the Ringbearers start to fade. Soon they become wraiths, like the Elves-Lingerers, invisible to mortal eyes.

For mortals Elven rings are some sort of life-supporting machine. Fading occurs, IMO, because the Nine Rings are not powerful enough life-supporting machines. The One Ring is more powerful, thus Gollum was able to live without fading much longer than an average nazgul. Perhaps, if the One Ring is indeed about 20 times more powerful than one of the Nine, Gollum would have been able to survive not only 500 years but much longer: maybe 2000-3000 years without fading. The Nine rings were less powerful, so the nazgul started fading much sooner.

For Dwarves the Rings couldn't serve as life-supporting machines, the Elven devices were too unspecific tor this species. The lives of the Dwarves were not prolonged by the Rings, they died naturally, so they had no time and no cause to fade.

[Pitchwife]

Just a few clarifying words from the mouth of the horse (Gandalf in LotR Book I, The Shadow of the Past):

'A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later [...] the dark power will devour him.'[emphasis mine, Pw.]

Much as I like Gordis' line of argumentation (especially the bit about the Rings turning a Man into an Elf-like state!), this doesn't sound as if the process of 'wraithifying' and enslavement to Sauron were entirely unrelated.