The Addictive Ring

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Aragorn says as much to Pippin about the latter's casting away of his treasured Lórien brooch: 'He who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters'.

It only just struck me how deeply that statement foreshadows what happens at Mount Doom

I do think the Ring displays elements of addictive properties, but as Inzil says it is a little more complicated, going back to Tolkien's view that if we externalise our power, be it through Rings, or over-reliance on machines and industry, our through hierarchies, or what have you, we do so to the diminution of ourselves.

If I were to 'philosophize' this myth, or at least the Ring of Sauron, I should say it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one's direct control. A man who wishes to exert 'power' must have subjects, who are not himself. But he then depends on them. -Letter 211

But I would argue this is true of the possessors of the Ring and not solely the Ring-maker, albeit in a psychological rather than metaphysical sense.