Fiction
Like other magical objects in stories, magic rings can act as a plot device, but in two distinct ways. They may give magical abilities to a person who is otherwise lacking in them, or enhance the power of a wizard. Or alternatively, they may function as nothing more than MacGuffins, that is, objects for which it is the characters' desire to obtain them, rather than any innate power that they possess, that moves the story along.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, for example, involves a magical ring which allows Bilbo Baggins to be instrumental in a quest, matching the abilities of the dwarves. In the Volsunga Saga, on the other hand, the magic ring that Sigurd takes from the dragon Fafnir is a symbolic item, cursed by the dwarf Andvari from whom it was stolen by Loki; the ring is a plot device that creates a sense of inevitable disaster as the story unfolds.
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Famous quotes containing the word fiction:
“... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send cheques to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)