Is Sauron the Lord of the Rings?

Although some people hear The Lord of the Rings and don’t think twice about its title, others have wracked their brains wondering who exactly the Lord of the Rings is. Unless J. R. R. Tolkien was making a meta reference, it has to be someone in the story. While Sauron, being the Rings’ creator, is a top candidate, other characters have a claim to the title. Thankfully, there’s an in-text answer, which we’ll reveal after eliminating other possibilities.

Other candidates

After Sauron loses the One Ring that rules all others, it falls into the possession of Isildur before passing on to Gollum and later to Bilbo, but none of them “lord” over the Ring; all get corrupted with varying intensity. Sam, whom Tolkien called “a most heroic character,” also becomes a Ring-bearer, but only when Frodo, the primary bearer, bcomes incapacitated. Besides Sauron, Frodo is the most obvious candidate for Lord of the Rings. He not only bears the One Ring, he destroys it in Mount Doom, thereby saving Middle-earth. As Pippin says in the novel, “Here is our noble cousin! Make way for Frodo, Lord of the Ring!”

The actual Lord of the Rings

It’s Gandalf, in response to Pippin, who confirms that Sauron is the Lord of the Ring:

“‘Hush!’ said Gandalf from the shadows at the back of the porch. ‘Èvil things do not come into this valley; but all the same we should not name them. The Lord of the Ring is not Frodo, but the master of the Dark Tower of Mordor, whose power is again stretching out over the world!”

Gandalf makes a similar comment to Saruman in the Fellowship of the Ring movie:

“There is only one Lord of the Ring. Only one who can bend it to his will . . . and he does not share power.”

Granted, Gandalf refers to the Lord of the Ring rather than the Lord of the Rings. Thankfully, further in-text passages remove all ambiguity:

“Indeed I spoke of them once to you; for the Black Riders are the Ringwraiths, the Nine Servants of the Lord of the Rings.”

– Gandalf

“We could not now take it back to him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it.”

– Glorfindel

Lastly, Frodo’s book within the book is titled The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King.

When Tolkien chose Sauron for the title

The first published mention of a Sauron-based title for Tolkien’s Hobbit sequel is in a letter from August 1938: “I have begun again on the sequel to the Hobbit – The Lord of the Ring.” Early the next year, he added an “s.” It’s not known whether Tolkien always had Sauron in mind as the titular Lord, but he unquestionably made it happen when he wrote the novel.