Could Gandalf and Saruman have claimed the One Ring and mastered it? What about Galadriel or Elrond?
Whether anyone other than Sauron could attempt to claim the One Ring and manage to wield its power is ultimately uncertain. What I mean by this, is that we only have situations where a being *might be able to or thinks they are capable of this feat, but even then it’s not 100% guaranteed. As J.R.R. Tolkien put it: “In the 'Mirror of Galadriel', 1381, it appears that Galadriel conceived of herself as capable of wielding the Ring and supplanting the Dark Lord. If so, so also were the other guardians of the Three [Elven-rings], especially Elrond. But this is another matter. It was part of the essential deceit of the Ring to fill minds with imaginations of supreme power. “[1] Concept piece for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, by So, ultimately even in the case of Galadriel or Elrond - two of the last great “lords of the Eldar” [2] left in Middle-earth during the Third Age - we are not told if they would actually succeed in wrestling control of the Ring from Sauron and t...
