The "if's" of the three Elven-Rings

[gorthaur_cruel]

Greetings, fellow Gorthaur.

Ok, we all know that Sauron bound all the power of the great rings by chanting some sort of an evil spell & by knowing how many great rings exactly to enslave.

We do? I always thought that as Sauron taught the Elves how to make the Rings, he included a technique that allowed him to take control of it. It's as if Sauron gave them a program that the Elves editted a bit to make their own program, without knowing that there was a code included that allowed it to be easily hacked. So though Celebrimbor didn't actually use Sauron's help, his knowledge came from Sauron and so created it with the weakness built into the Ring-knowledge.

Of course, this is all just my speculation.

But even if the Three didn't fade, I think that the Elves would've eventually departed for Valinor. Remember that the Elves were already decreasing bit by bit during the Third Age. The loss of the Three only resulted in Galadriel and Elrond leaving, taking along much of their people.