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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/20148
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/20148
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The ring in LOTR is not a symbol. Because of the timing of its publication many took the ring to be a symbol for the bomb, but Tolkien denied this, and the history of composition makes it impossible. (Lewis talks about this a length in one of his essays.)

A symbol is simply an idea or image that stands for another idea. What matters in a work is that you have a certain unity of theme. Many symbols that point to the same theme will reinforce it. Many symbols pointing in different directions will muddy it. It is not the number of symbols but the way they are used that matters.

The ring, on the other hand, is a McGuffin. The is the thing everyone wants that drives the plot. Too many McGuffin's can fragment and fracture a plot.

LOTR would not be as strong if Frodo had to destroy a jacket and five pebbles because the point of the book is not the objects, but the temptation of power and the capacity of love to resist it (Sam, who acts purely out of his love for Frodo, is the only ringbearer to voluntarily give it back, and the only one able to remain in Middle Earth after carrying it.) The ring is just the object of temptation.

Additional McGuffins would do nothing to add to this theme, and would take the focus away from the central theme and place it in the mechanics of destroying magical objects. And then it would be an ordinary run of the mill fantasy and not one of the great books of the 20th century.

Original score: 2