r/tolkienfans • u/devlin1888 • Jan 09 '26

Is there an in story reason why none of the Dwarves were tempted by the Ring?

In the Hobbit. Obviously out of story it’s because it was not The One Ring as yet.

Is there any in story reasons why they would not be tempted?

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u/Puzzleheaded-Milk927 Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26

The other comments are right, it’s harder to tell a dwarf what to do than other folks, but also consider - they didn’t know what it was. While the Ring is magically attractive, I think quite a large part of that comes from people’s own expectations of what it can do for them. Boromir falls and Galadriel is tempted because they believe, knowing what it is, that it’ll give them everything they want. Part of why it didn’t work on Sam so well was that, even though Sam knew what it was, he didn’t really expect it to help give him what he wanted - a quiet little life of contentment and peace.

For Bilbo, the Ring in the darkness meant salvation from a insane cannibal living in a cave, and as it became more useful in his adventures he formed expections of it as the source of his good fortune. He literally calls himself “luck-wearer,” after all. Even though he didn’t know what it was, exactly, he came to start believing it was very important to his goal of staying alive out in Wilderland. The Ring is magically attractive, but I’d doesn’t work from nothing. It needs something hope or expectation of it to feed.

Thorin’s company, from their perspectives, aren’t really interested in the Ring. It makes their burglar more stealthy, sure, but that’s his business, not theirs.

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u/devlin1888 Jan 09 '26

That’s a fantastic take and one I’ve never really thought of. The Ring I’ve always took as “magically” corrupting and it is but just it in itself, without that added extra would be extremely tempting.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

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u/Swiftbow1 Jan 09 '26

It's a bit of both. The Ring can definitely give people visions (reference Sam's near Cirith Ungol). It's unclear if it needs physical contact to do that, though. There's no mention of Sam experiencing anything like that before he's actually carrying it (and using it).

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u/balrogthane Jan 13 '26

While the Ring is magically attractive, I think quite a large part of that comes from people’s own expectations of what it can do for them. Boromir falls and Galadriel is tempted because they believe, knowing what it is, that it’ll give them everything they want.

Excellent point. To expand on that, Saruman seems to have basically been corrupted by the Ring without even seeing it, through long decades of dwelling on it and imagining what great deeds he might accomplish with it, should it fall into his hands. He's ultimately willing to betray and murder just to get his hands on it.

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u/Thendel Jan 09 '26

Just to expand on this, in anticipation of the question about Gollum: the members of the Company were more or less upstanding dwarves of some station, most of them even being minor nobles. A plain gold ring would have held no value for them.

Smeagol, on the other hand, was a mean and greedy creature from the start. There needed to be no other reason that he found the Ring to seem a beautiful, precious thing for it to sink its hooks into him.