Invisibility and the Ring!

[Ancalagon'sFire]

I was always under the impression that none of the 3 great rings conferred invisiblity upon the bearer?

The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the preservation of beauty: they did not confer invisibility.

Letter 131.

I disagree that Elves would not be subject to invisibility however. The Ring itself in effect contains a greater part of Saurons fëar(Spirit/Will). Irrespective of his posession of the Ring, the 9 had already diminished and in effect been devoured of their hröa by Sauron. In other words,through the One he devoured both their will, their dominion (for what it's worth) over their own fëa and the removed their hröa from the physical world. Only as long as the Ring is complete, can these 9 be considered 'living' as wraiths. For Men; fëa and hröa are inseparable, once separated, death occurs. Sauron however manages this through mastery over their spirits, keeping them under his will and unable to depart in the way any mans spirit ought to upon his death. The invisibility incurred directly through the one ring, is a due to the overbearing inbalance of fëa over hröa. The potency of Saurons own spirit conferred to the Ring, combined with the spirit of the bearer, overshadows the body drawing them out of the physical world, and into the spiritual realm. It is instant with the ring directly, but slower and prolonged with lesser rings that are controlled by the One. Continued use of the One Ring by any bearer effectively completes the bearers departure from a physical being to a wraith.

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. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and under the domination of the One, which was Sauron's. And they became for ever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death.

Why would immediate invisibility not directly effect an Elf when their own fëa is combined with the potency of Sauron's through the Ring? Surely if an Elf's own spirit can consume the body that houses it, they would be more susceptible to invisibility than Men!

I can only hope this makes sense to you, because I am finding great difficulty in trying to explain it [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]