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Okay... you couldn't be immune from the lure of the ring, but how does the ring corrupt one if one doesn't have political ambitions from the start. I mean... the only one who really held it at any length was Smeagol, and as Tiger Tale so aptly put it, to him the ring would have provided one long Imperial Fish Fest.

So, does the ring always corrupt in a dark lord sort of way, or is Overtaxed more correct when she said that it corrupts according to one's ambition.

Not ambition - desires. The Ring can give you, or so it seems, whatever you want. For Gollum, that's fish. To Boromir, saving Minas Tirith. For Sam, a garden. To Galadriel, a kingdom that would not fade... it's just that many people's desire is for politcal power, so it seems the Ring is offering that only. At least that's how I see it.

By the way, I'm doing the Smeagol Victory Dance - I got 700!

Read something interesting last night in Return of the King that might help our little discussion of yesterday. Legolas was talking to Merry in the House of Healing about Aragorn leading the Dead into battle.

He said.. (I was going to bring the book, but I forgot it... so this is by memory...)

It's a good thing Aragorn never got ahold of the ring. His will is so strong that he could have bent the ring to do his will and become a great and terrible dark lord.

So, it seems the ring is controlled by your will and not your ambition.

Smeagol's will was for fish... so, the ring provided him that.

Then in the next chapter, Gandalf said that destroying the ring was the only way to destroy Sauron. He would not be "destroyed" as in "poof - gone forever", but he could only grovel in shadows and never take power to himself again. The foundation of his fortress was the ring.

In the battle of the palantir, Aragorn was able to convice Sauron that Isildur's heir had the ring. That is why Sauron attacked Gondor.