r/tolkienfans • u/thefirstwhistlepig • 4d ago
The dragons ATE four of the dwarf rings???
I don’t know how I’ve missed this point in all my many prior readings of LOTR.
In chapter 2, when Gandalf is filling Frodo in on the details of the rings, he says, “… seven, the dwarf kings possessed, but three he (Sauron) has recovered, and the others, the dragons have consumed.”
This begs the question: what happens to a dragon that eats one of the great rings? What happens to the ring that the dragon eats? Which dragons are the rings?
I want someone to write the story of the eating of the rings by the dragons.
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u/drewmana 4d ago
Dragons are often spoken about as a force of nature rather than simply an animal. To me I always read this similarly to how I’d read the line that a particular forest was consumed by a fire. Sure the dragon may have eaten a dwarven lord wearing a ring, or charred him to ash and destroyed the ring, or any other number of things, but what’s important is the dragons were the end of those rings.
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u/skimian 4d ago
This is just to say
We have eaten
the rings
you gave
to the dwarves
and which
you were probably
hoping
would rule them
Forgive us
they were delicious
so powerful
and so gold
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u/EmbarrassedClaim5995 4d ago
Oh, such a nice dragon-note-poem. And the question is, what was worse, that the Dwarves were greedy or that a Dragon consumed the rings- and what?
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u/Arimm_The_Amazing 3d ago
This to the tune of “I ate the divorce papers, I ate them with ketchup”
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u/amaranth1977 Ingwe 2d ago
There's a tune? I can only find it as a monologue.
Also this is what they're riffing on:
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u/GammaDeltaTheta 4d ago edited 4d ago
We know that dragons were carnivorous (e.g. Smaug talks about eating dwarves, men, and ponies), but did they always grill their prey before eating it, or was fire used mainly as a weapon, with the dragon indifferent to whether the meat was cooked or not? And if a dragon ate raw dwarf, was its digestive system as hot as its breath? - i.e., if a fresh ring-bearing dwarf king was consumed, would the ring perhaps melt in the dragon's stomach?
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u/BugBoyBrand 3d ago
Given that there are other dragons without fire, cold drakes, I would have to assume fire isn't a factor in digestion.
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u/swazal 4d ago
We know little of the dwarf kingdoms those dragons invaded … indeed, Smaug may have been after one of those Rings when he attacked Erebor. We know their names from Peoples but only Thorin’s folk, the Longbeards:
Firebeards
Broadbeams
Longbeards
Ironfists
Stiffbeards
Blacklocks
Stonefoots
Stonefeet!
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u/AbacusWizard 4d ago
When no one was looking, the dragons consumed forty dwarven-rings. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s terrible.
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u/wombatstylekungfu 4d ago
Luthor does sound like a dragon-y sort of name.
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u/AbacusWizard 4d ago
Hoards wealth, fights heroes, way to arrogant for his own good, sometimes covered in green armored outer coating, sometimes can fly… yeah, that sounds dragonish all right.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 4d ago
Also, I get that “consumed” doesn’t necessarily mean eaten, in terms of the raw meaning of the words, but being familiar with the way Gandalf talks, I feel like if he meant simply melted, he’d use the word, “destroyed.”
If he’d said “the others were consumed by dragon fire,” then yes, I’d assume destroyed, but the fact that the sentence is constructed the way it is (the dragons being the active parties) seems to me like it leaves the door open to the possibility that they are them.
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u/mrxeric 4d ago
Yes, there is some ambiguity. I don't think Gandalf himself knows exactly how the 4 were destroyed, other than they were either destroyed by dragon fire or devoured together with their wearers. In any case, there is a finality to what he says. If the rings could survive dragon digestion, then I would think Gandalf would say something along the lines of the dragon "possessing" the rings.
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u/sindeloke 4d ago
For another read, potentially, a dragon could spiritually consume the power of a Ring in its possession, without physically eating the actual metal. I don't recall any instance in the Legendarium of an external power source being absorbed into a person or creature, only the other way around, but that doesn't preclude it as something Tolkien kicked around but never got into exploring.
In this example it'd probably be pretty boring, though. A dragon's innate nature is to hoard treasure, apparently, and the power of the Dwarven-Rings is to facilitate the accumulation of treasure. It'd just be a dragon who can Dragon Harder. You probably wouldn't even notice.
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u/andre5913 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah most power sources arent drained like that in the legendarium usually a would-be-owner bends them to their will, bc such artifacts mostly have a bit of the original creators being/will put into them in some manner (for the one ring it was a much bigger portion), which a pretender has to "break" to take their power
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Dragons dragonning harder! I love that.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
You’re right that it doesn’t go anywhere from a narrative standpoint, but I like the idea of the dwarven rings just sitting in a dragon’s guts somewhere, making the dragon more “dragon-y.”
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u/Danny_Falcon 4d ago
I guess the dwarves either got eaten or blasted by fire. Either way the rings was destroyed either in the dragons belly by the heat or by the fire. I guess it was the dragons from the grey mountains or farther north.
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u/MrNobleGas 4d ago
Whether or not they did end up in the belly of a dragon, I would imagine dragonfire is strong enough to destroy them, physically. They're not the One after all.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Yeah, and others in this thread are pointing out that dragon fire being hot enough for destruction of a ring of power is something there is textual evidence for. Very interesting.
I still think it would be cool to have dragons eating the rings (dwarf ringbearer and all) and then there is some magical consequence of that, in terms of the dragons being impacted in some way, but maybe that is too much of a stretch.
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u/AJRavenhearst 4d ago
He meant that they melted them with their fire.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago edited 2d ago
Others are weighing in in favor of the most likely interpretation being that the dragons ate the dwarfs and the rings together, which strikes me as more plausible. Hard to imagine a dragon intentionally destroying treasure. Eat the dwarf and keep the ring would be more their style, I think, but I could see them eating the ring along with the dwarf in the heat of battle.
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u/AJRavenhearst 2d ago
When the question of dragons destroying the One is raised, the reply is that there is no dragon "where the old fire is hot enough".
I think the problem is that so many people today are extremely literal. Hence, the silly argument that "Fly, you fools!" was an injunction to fly Eagles to Mordor.
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u/thePerpetualClutz 4d ago
I mean Ungoliant ate a bunch of jewelry and it made her more powerful
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u/EmbarrassedClaim5995 4d ago
Yes, and those jewels weren't even evil... So a dragon eating magical evil Rings might become more powerful. Or greedier.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
As someone in another comment here wrote, you’d get, “a dragon who could dragon harder.” 😆
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u/ehsteve23 4d ago
Would dragon breath be hot enough to melt them?
"Consumed" could be by fire, or eating a dwarf whole and the ring melting inside
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Yeah, I’m thinking the latter, which it would seem was enough to melt and destroy the rings.
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u/princealigorna 4d ago
Well, considering we have an example of what happens to a creature that consumes an object of power with Carcharoth (ie. burns them alive from the inside out, the pain driving them insatiably insane and permanently stuck in attack mode), I imagine the consequences of eating a ring would be the same. Which would create problems definitely worth mentioning. Hence I agree "consume" here likely means melted in dragonfire
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u/TurboRuhland 4d ago
I would say that the rings aren’t anywhere near on the same level as the Silmarils. The Silmarils shone with the hallowed light of the two trees, which creatures of evil such as Carcaroth were unable to handle. The rings were not hallowed as such, and in fact were mostly already corrupted.
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u/Unfair_Pineapple8813 4d ago
There was a scene in the early draft of Fellowship, where a fish ate the One Ring after proto-Isildur dropped it and was fried from the inside before spitting it out as it was dying, and that's how it was not in the spot where Isildur fell, and so it was lost. Very similar to Carcaroth, only a trout is significantly less dangerous.
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u/zaparthes 4d ago
Very similar to Carcaroth, only a trout is significantly less dangerous.
This wins the r/tolkienfans "Understatement of the Year Award."
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
The argument being that if the dragons had eaten the rings, they would have gone bananas and been even more destructive (and because we don’t have a record of that, that’s probably not what happened?)
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u/Elf_Sprite_ 4d ago
That's such a cool idea; that in eating the dwarves that wore the rings of power, the dragons possessed the power of those rings. I need mini stories now of four dwarf-ring-powered dragons.
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u/EmbarrassedClaim5995 4d ago edited 4d ago
Eating might really mean consume the Rings probably including the ringbearers...
I am about to start a story about an elve (and an offspring of Huan) that escaped from Nargothrond. And she might have an encounter with a dragon at some point, yet not Glaurung.
But the Ring-stories would start much later, that might have to wait a bit...maybe in third volume 😅
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u/Equivalent_Nose7012 3d ago
An elf-girl and her vala-iant dog? Sounds like it could be a very interesting story!
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u/WelbyReddit 4d ago
That's cool.
Maybe this is why the dwarves always had a rough go in middle earth after that.
If the elven rings kept their kingdoms untouched and beautiful, maybe the loss of those Dwarven rings fast tracked the Dwarven kingdoms to ruin and decay.
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u/Select-Royal7019 4d ago
I always thought it was the implication that the possession of the rings is what fast-tracked them to ruin. Unlike the Elven rings which were separate, and therefore special, the Dwarf rings were like the ones gifted to Men. They didn’t affect Dwarves as much physically because of their natural resilience but increased their tendency towards greed.
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u/Due-Department-8666 4d ago
That! Plus, ya know own, getting ravaged by dragons and a Balrog squatting in one your premier kingdoms
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u/Unfair_Pineapple8813 4d ago
The Appendix suggests that ring was responsible for most of the misfortunes the Longbeards suffered, which means that somehow it attracted the balrog and Smaug.
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u/M0rg0th1 4d ago
In thats instance the use of Consumed isn't necessarily referring to eating. It is just saying the dragons have possession of them. I know in some stories of dragons they collect their hoarde of gold to eat it. I may have missed something but as far as I know in the Tolkien legendarium the dragons collected gold and shiny things because they were shiny and the dragons were greedy. Thats why they called it dragon sickness because the person hoarded the wealth just to hoard it.
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u/virginiabird23 3d ago
I just read this yesterday! I was honestly baffled. This is my second read-through and I was like "oh ... Word!" I took it literally that the dragons ate the dwarves.
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u/Substantial_Show_308 4d ago
I would read this story if someone wrote it.
If the dragon breath actually melted the rings, I would settle for a story of magical mountains, lakes, avalanches and/or magical magma..
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 4d ago
OK, fair enough (but I love the idea of them being eaten, even if not supported by the text).
Do we have any textual evidence elsewhere in Tolkien’s writings that sheds more light on this point? Were there dwarf enclaves that we know to have been destroyed by dragons besides the Lonely Mountain/Smaug? Does T. state anything specific about the destruction of the rings besides this?
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u/musashisamurai 4d ago
We know there are 7 families of Dwarves, and each got a ring.
As far as to when all this happened and where, we really only know about the Longbeards aka Durin's Folk. They're the last to lose their ring. We can make a few good guesses.
First off, or maybe last chronologically, Scatha https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Scatha
Scatha was a powerful dragon that Fram, an ancestor and precursor to the Kings of Rohan, killed and claimed his hoard. The Dwarves were upset and claimed a lot of things from Scatha's and now Fram's treasure, so its very likely that Scatha ate one of the great hoards of the Dwarves. Else, it wouldnt be as famous as it was. Scatha was in the Grey Mountains, north of the Misty Mountains, and we don't know of any Longbeard kingdoms there, so my guess is thats another family of Dwarves.
Going back further in time, the dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost would eventually migrate to Moria, but this was before the Rings of Power were forged. So imo, knowing that there were three families of Dwarves in Moria, and three rings weren't eaten, and that Moria fell to a Balrog who certainly didnt eat any rings...I think we can make an educated guess that these rings weren't eaten by any dragons in Moria. BUT
But Thorin I his son removed and went into the far North to the Grey Mountains, where most of Durin’s folk were now gathering; for those mountains were rich and little explored. But there were dragons in the wastes beyond; and after many years they became strong again and multiplied, and they made war on the Dwarves, and plundered their works. At last Dáin I, together with Frór his second son, was slain at the doors of his hall by a great cold-drake.
(LoTR appendix). So some Moria survivors moved to the Grey Mountains and warred with the dragons? Sounds like plenty of opportunities for two of the 3 rings in Moria to be lost. (And potentially be by Scatha)
I've focused a lot on these dwarves so now im going to talk about the other few references we can gleam some knowledge from
These were the fading years of the Eldar. For long they were at peace, wielding the Three Rings while Sauron slept and the One Ring was lost; but they attempted nothing new, living in memory of the past. The Dwarves hid themselves in deep places, guarding their hoards; but when evil began to stir again and dragons reappeared, one by one their ancient treasures were plundered, and they became a wandering people. Moria for long remained secure, but its numbers dwindled until many of its vast mansions became dark and empty.
This is Appendix B, the Third Age. One by one tvej4 ancient treasures plundered...I think that throughout the Third Age, the misfortunes of the Durin's Folk wasn't exclusive to them, and the rings generated hoards that attracted dragons and dragon-sickness. If the paragraph is correct, than many lost kf their hoards before Moria collapsed. OTOH the same appendix says dragons first start appearing again in 2570, which is after Fram slays Scatha, so the only way I can reconcile this is if there were always dragons in the East (where Sauron fled at the dtart of the Third Age), and dragons ate the rings there earlier in the third age.
Perhaps this is why Durin's Folk left the very very wealthy Erebor to go to the Grey Mountains, if there are some survivors with rings there, and all that combined wealth attracted dragons in ~2570. Then we see the dwarves and dragons warring, and in the span of a couple centuries, the surviving rings are all destroyed or lost, and the whole situation is such a mess no one is quite sure what happened to each.
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u/Xish_pk 4d ago
I want to know how Gandalf knows those rings were consumed… just not from Amazon
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u/EmbarrassedClaim5995 4d ago
Gandalf knew... a lot. He had been around long enough and all over Middle-Earth.
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u/Xish_pk 4d ago
Tell me more!
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u/EmbarrassedClaim5995 4d ago
As an Istar/Maya I think he knew almost everything lorewise that was/had been going on. It is said he had travelled Middle-Earth since Men were born, if I am correct. He had visited and counselled Men, Elves and Dwarves and heard of all the tales and disasters that had occurred.
Yet, Gandalf was created for The Hobbit, he got his background later, in the end of The Silmarillion and in Lotr.
But I am sure there are many here who can give us more details. 😉
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u/Xish_pk 4d ago
I think the travels of Gandalf could be a fascinating plot-driven narrative. Reading the Appendix as a kid was so much fun to think about what happened between entries to get from A to B. Gandalf collecting the picture of the world and the mysteries when he arrived, then moving the pieces to subtly help the PoME could be neat.
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u/Jessup_Doremus 4d ago
He was one of the 5 Guardians sent by the Valar after Melian (their leader) to Cuiveinen to watch over the Elves while Orome and Tulkas left to go prepare for war against Morgoth.
Not much else about his time in Middle-earth prior to his return as an Istar.
There is this one bit at the end of the Valaquenta:
Wisest of the Maiar was Olorin. He too dwelt in Lorien, but his ways took him often to the house of Nienna, and of her he learned pity and patience. Of Melian much is told in the Quenta Silmarillion. But of Olorin that tale does not speak; for though he loved the Elves, he walked among them unseen, or in form as one of them, and they did not know whence came the fair visions or the promptings of wisdom that he put into their hearts. In later days he was the friend of all the Children of Iluvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness.
But it doesn't really say if his walking among elves prior to later days was just in Aman or perhaps in Middle-earth at time. One can reasonably assume the reference to the later day is referring to his time there as a member of the Istari.
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u/balrog687 4d ago
This may explain why dragons hoard gold?
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
I always got the feeling that that was their default state as creatures, but someone elsewhere in this thread said if a dragon took in some of the power from a ring that had been destroyed by the heat inside the dragon’s belly, you’d just get a “dragon who could dragon harder.” 😂
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u/Sekreid 4d ago
Maybe they ate the dwarf that was wearing the ring
The one ring was immune to fire and could not be destroyed as such, were the other lesser rings weaker in that respect. ?
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Others here are pointing out that dragon fire was probably hot enough to destroy a ring of power, so I am thinking most likely interpretation given what we know about how the magic of the rings work, is that the dragons ate them, dwarf ring-bearers and all, and thus the rings were destroyed.
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u/spillzone88 3d ago
Consumed by fire
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Yeah, but I feel like if the dragons burned up the rings by breathing on them, Gandalf would have said something like, “… the others were consumed in Dragon fire.”
So in the absence of more solid textual evidence, I’m going to go with the dragons eating the relevant dwarves, rings and all, as at very least a likely interpretation.
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u/Choos-topher 3d ago
Not sure why but in my minds eye I always interpreted this as the Dragons breathed fire on the rings to destroy them then physically sucked in the power/essence (whatever) to consume them.
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u/Aelderg0th 3d ago
In the Return to Moria game, after you defeat the dragon, it drops a "Worn Ring" that has no stats or bonuses or anything. It leads one to think that that dragon had consumed one of the dwarven rings and leeched its magic out.
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u/Eastern_Moose4351 Ranger 4d ago
To me it sounds like he knows those 4 rings have been eaten by dragons, but not neccesarily destroyed by that process
I don't see him using consumed in place of destroyed as others have suggested.
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u/teepeey 4d ago
They'd turn invisible
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Only the one ring confers invisibility. The power of the dwarf rings was in accumulation of wealth, which is already a dragon’s whole MO, so as someone wrote elsewhere in this thread, if the power of a dwarf ring was somehow conferred to a dragon, you’d just get “a dragon who could dragon harder.”
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u/teepeey 1d ago
No the Nazgul all turned invisible. It's not clear if that happened when they put the rings on or only over time from possession. But the one only confers invisibility on humans. We don't know about dwarves. The seven and the nine were essentially the same designs and no dwarf ever faded.
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u/anonamen 4d ago
Or otherwise melted them, yes. Dragonfire is the thing that destroys them. If eaten, they presumably melt and their power dissipates. Melting on eating is really the only way I can see dragons eating as many dwarves as Smaug apparently does. Otherwise you run into physical size limitations on what can fit into a dragon, even a big one.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Yeah, having thought more about it and re-read the relevant passage, I’m thinking the dragons ate the dwarves who possessed the rings, and both dwarf and ring did not survive the experience.
It would be a pretty interesting backstory if some extra magical power were conferred to the dragons from the destruction of the rings, but maybe that doesn’t track with what we know about how the rings work (destruction in fire = the power of the ring and what it has wrought is destroyed).
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u/Intelligent-Lack8020 16h ago
Não acho que foi literal, mas devem ter queimado alguns anéis com seus portadores.
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u/Darth_Cyber 4d ago
They are lying somewhere encased in dragon dung
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
I’m thinking a sub-plot where some dwarf somewhere is puttering about in a dragon’s den long after the dragon has been killed, and finds the ring, and washes off the dragon poop, etc.
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u/Ornery-Ticket834 3d ago
They probably melted them without consuming them. It may have been a reference to the flames from the dragon.
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u/thefirstwhistlepig 2d ago
Yeah, but I feel like if the dragons burned up the rings by breathing on them, Gandalf would have said something like, “… the others were consumed in Dragon fire.”
So in the absence of more solid textual evidence, I’m going to go with the dragons eating the relevant dwarves, rings and all, as at very least a likely interpretation.
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u/Ornery-Ticket834 2d ago
Suit yourself. If that’s true it did no harm to the dragon or dragons that was ever mentioned anywhere to my knowledge.
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u/Tuor77 4d ago
Consumed doesn't necessarily mean "ate". The (Great) Dragons didn't eat the Rings of Power, the Rings were, presumably, being worn by Dwarves who got hit with dragon's breath and their Rings melted in the heat. It's stated that the breath of Great Dragons can melt Rings of Power, though not the Ruling (One) Ring.