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I accept that the statement about the Secret Fire in Valquenta is intended metaphysically, but I still can’t help wondering about the nature of the Fires of Orodruin. They clearly have the capacity to destroy objects of a magical or metaphysical nature. What is the exact nature of those fires. Are we dealing with the physical manifestation of the Secret Fire, in some kind of fea/hroa sense. We could almost think of the creation of Arda as being the prototype of something that reached its perfect expression in the Eruhini.
The Ring has its birth & death in those fires. It is born there & dies there. I’m reminded of the Ouroboros, the serpent with its tail inits mouth. It consumes itself & its ‘motto’ is ‘In my end is my beginning’. It is a circle, like the Ring itself. I’m also wondering about the Ring of Barahir in this context - the twin serpents upholding & consuming a crown of flowers.
We are told the One is drawn back to Sauron, its maker, but is it not also, or rather, drawn back to its place of origin? Is there not some kind of ‘pull’ back to the Fires of its birth? Does the Ring seek some kind of ‘consumation’?
Perhaps Sauron was making use of the spiritual aspect of those fires, so that, without truly realising it he had built into the ring a kind of ‘self-destruct’ mechanism. Does all magic in Middle earth have as its power source the Secret Fire - Eru implies that all the Music will be seen to have its origin in Him - even the themes of Melkor.
This is all specualtion, admittedly, but the Fires of Orodruin, with their source in the heart of the Earth, seem to be more than merely a source of intense heat. They do not merely destroy magical/metaphysical objects - they unmake them. Once it enters into the Fire the Ring is unmade. everything done with it is undone. Sauron loses his being, the Barad dur falls into ruin. It is as though once it ceases to be everything it caused also ceases to be.
The Ring enters the Fire & is unmade. If the Palantiri entered the Fire their fate would be the same - even though no other power in Middle earth could do that to any of those things.
The more I consider it the more of a problem I have with the Ring being destroyed by a merely physical force - a very hot fire. Perhaps the physical aspect of the Ring was destroyed by the physical aspect of the Fire & the ‘spiritual’ or metaphysical aspect by the Secret Fire which is its ‘Fea’.
Orodruin is a place of great significance in that it is the place where the single greatest object of evil comes into being & is brought to nothing. The Ring follows a circular path from the Fire to the Fire. Who or what is the ‘Lord of the Rings’? Sauron, or the One Ring itself - is it not the Ruling Ring - the One Ring to rule them all. In so many ways LotR is the story of the Ring, of its birth & death. If Sauron is its ‘father’ (in a symbolic sense) are not the Fires of Orodruin, arising out of the heart of the earth, its ‘mother’? Is the Ring itself the ‘anti-hero’ of LotR, like Milton’s Satan.
Does Sauron have an inkling of this? Does he really fear that one of his enemies would have the strength to cast the Ring into the flames, or does he really fear that his Ring might have its own motives & desires & be seeking the flames itself, for its own ends?
The Fires from the heart of the earth are the antithesis of all magic. they take it in, consume it, unmake it - whether Rings or Palantiri. That Fire has a power over magic, in fact, over all things that enter it. It consumes magic as Ungoliant consumes Light & vomits forth it’s opposite. It is a mystical place not merely a ‘volcano’. Yet, when its ‘child’ dies it too ‘dies’, blasting itself apart - is this merely a result of the destruction of the Ring or has the Ouroboros finally consumed itself, swallowed itself?
Consumatum est?
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