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Getting rid of beloved possessions can be tough, especially when your most precious belonging is an ancient, all-powerful, corrupted, malignant, semi-sentient gold Ring. Ah, yes, Precious… My Precious.
It's that time of the year again when we all must do a bit of spring cleaning, and it seems that the most difficult items to throw away are the ones with sentimental value. Even if the sentimental item is literal garbage, like a receipt from a first date or your 2nd grader's poorly drawn family portrait, it seems almost impossible to get rid of. Now imagine you're Isildur or Frodo at the gates of Mount Doom. How does one relinquish the most sentimental item in their grasp? Especially if said trinket whispers evil nothings to them in their sleep, rousing them to commit atrocities across all of Middle Earth? See, this hesitation is the reason Isildur sent the world into a spiraling war of good vs. evil 3000 years ago.
Elrond was there; he witnessed it and was still unable to intervene. Oh, the fragility of Man.
Isildur's bane may have been the One Ring of power, but as I tackle my own spring cleaning, I realize that he and I are not too different. It's hard to throw away perfectly functional things because I don't need them anymore. I can donate them, sure, but what if I need this collection of miscellaneous electronic wires one day? I couldn't possibly muster the courage and the strength to cast them into the fiery lava pits of a living volcano.
Perhaps if those under the spell of the One Ring of power could just channel their inner Marie Kondo, asking themselves, "Does this spark joy?" As we all know, as devout Lord of the Rings fans, there's one thing that the Ring of Power sparks, and it's certainly never joy. It sparks the war-cry screeching of the Nazgûl, summons the monster spiders from their lair, and raises armies of orc and uruk-hai from the muddy swamps of a fallen forest.
There's nothing joyful about the Ring, except, of course, the feeling of relief when you finally cast it into the fire and destroy it.