Why did Sauron take the Nazgûl's Rings?

In this video, we look at the reasons why Sauron took the nine Rings of Power from his most powerful servants, the Nazgûl, and kept them in Barad-dur.

Thanks to my patrons - Will Harrison, Slowbro96, Vasco Sa Pinto, Gavin, Javi Iñesta ,Brn, JIV, Fipse, W Sean Mason, boi sophies, Stonetruck, ThunderStryken, Hallimar Rathlorn, Habimana, Ben Jeffrey, Harry Evett, Mojtaba Ro, Moe L, Paul Leone, Barbossa, mncb1o, Carrot Ifson, Andrew Welch and Catherine Berry

[ΧρήστοςΠαπαδημητρίου-μπ]

Assuming Sauron had OCD, it would be oddly satisfying to wear all nine of them at once, considering he was missing the finger cut by Isildur.

[patrickswayze]

I had always read ‘he gathered the nine to himself’ etc as the nazgul through the rings

[superslayerguy]

He took the rings because he’s the lord of them 🤓

[nekomimi]

When Tolkien said Sauron "gathered, " "held, " or "kept" the Nine, is it possible Tolkien meant that metaphorically? As in, he controlled them without physically possessing them?

[DCJMS]

and I recall Gandalf telling Frodo that if he had became a wraith, Sauron would have tortured Frodo by taking the One away, I imagine the nine were also hurt by Sauron keeping their rings

[Ice-Cold-Fury]

"Rogue Wraith King" that's basically the plot of Shadow of Modor and Shadow Of War

[paladinbob]

maybe it was metaphorical...Sauron ownes the nine...means he controls/has the nine [the rings and the people?]

[istari]

This was fascinating! It might even explain why Gandalf said at that one point that the Nazgûl still had their Rings; he hadn't thought of the risk Sauron saw in someone else getting a hold of such a Ring until later.

[MikaelKKarlsson]

Sauron was a dick.
- Anonymous Orc captain, who knows nothing of any incident at the tower of Cirith Ungol.

[ryancarter]

Did removing the rings weaken the Nazgul? For example in the Wars of Arnor its suggested the Witch King was powerful enough to summon/control blizzards hundreds of miles from him yet while still a sorcerer the witch king in the books while still capable of magic (breaking the gates of minas tirith) has no feats equal to such magic.

[GravesRWFiA]

in saying they are held by sauron it might well be that they mean symbolically-that by controlling them, suaron has called them to him. he might not actually have the rings in his house but rather he had them under his dominion

[anthonymartell]

Dunno if anyone has dealt with this topic yet but I have an idea for a vid. Why did Eru directly intervene against Sauron but never directly against Morgoth ?

[scottbest]

The nine he wore on his remaining fingers, the 2 dwarf rings he wore in his ears. The final ring he retrieved, the ring of the Longbeards (Durin’s ring) he used as a Prince Albert.

[mcintma]

Excellent reasoning! Also, Gorthaur the Cruel probably enjoyed forcing the Nazgul to surrender their rings to him - this must have been a kind of torture (an ongoing one) for the Ringwraiths.

[pirate]

Sarong played shadow of war and realized what would happen if someone like celimbrimbor got the a ring of power

[jamestalbot]

I highly doubt that Tolkien ever contradicted himself in lotr, he put in too much effort for that even with just minor spelling errors to be sure everything was correct. When He says Sauron holds the nine rings it does not mean he physically holds them, just like he does not physically hold osgiliath, or minas morgul. Putting the ring into the hands of any of saurons servants would likely have been seen as putting it into the hands of the enemy even though it still must travel to reach sauron himself.

Let us also note that Sauron is "The Lord of the Rings", not "The Lord of the Wraiths". I think it likely that the ring wraiths could not be controlled by Sauron without their rings, and just like sauron upon losing his ring they would be vastly weakened. There is no reason to take the nine rings from the nazgul as well unless you intend to give them to others, assuming that the nazgul can persist without rings of power to keep them alive. If he did not give them away to his new potential servants, they would simply be wasted sitting in some vault at barad dur.

As for the dwarven rings there was plenty of reason to gather those again, because the dwarves could not be controlled, the effect of the rings on them was just to make them greedy. They could not be manipulated by sauron so there was no point in allowing them to have the rings. Though it does mention when dain negotiates with black riders that they offered to return rings of power if they swore to help the dark lord. That makes sense because it secures an alliance, but otherwise Sauron cannot afford to let them have new weapons.

[ericstoverink]

I thought it was because the Nazgûl no longer had corporeal forms, and thus, no solid fingers to hold a ring.

[maskedmarvyl]

I assumed that he had gathered as many rings of power to himself as possible, in order to increase his personal power in the absence of the one ring, and to aid him in regaining his physical form.

[wedgeantillies]

so basically, Sauron taking the nine rings of the nazgul back to himself was a security measure, enabling him to keep them, under his thumb and will in the case, that anyone ever got their hands on the one ring and took control of it.

[isomeme]

I was glad to hear you referring to what Sauron added to the lesser rings as a "backdoor". I am a software engineer, and I can't think of a better word for it. I'm fact, I recently riffed on this idea in a post to my (allegedly) humorous "Great Moments in Software Engineering" series on Mastodon. YouTube won't let me include its URL here (sigh), but at least for me, this Google search query brings it up as the only match. Be sure to include the double-quotes as shown.

"gmise" celebrimbor

I've actually done several Tolkien-inspired posts in the GMISE series, including the preceding one. This is what happens when my geekdoms converge. 🙂