The fetishized ring is a feature borrowed from ancient Germanic and Nordic Myth. We are drawn to it because of its contemporary relavance to the way we percive, and lust after the "rings" or commodities of our own society.

The ring is a fetish in that it becomes the object of desire.

Critics note the lack of sexual activity in "The Lord of the Rings". This can be explained by the corrosive power of the ring. Only with the destruction of the Ring can the characters love, marry, and have children. Those who have born the Ring for any great period of time do not marry at all.

The spider Shelob represents an ancient maternal power that swallows up masculinity.

Sauron actually placed some of his physical power in the ring. Having lost his physical body, he leads a wrathlike existence. Like Gollum, Sauron is empty and there is no purpose in his will for power other than the ring otself. Sauron is completely nihilistic. He seeks to reduce middle-earth to ashes, to render everthing null, as he himself is.