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:
“My mother ... believed fiction gave one an unrealistic view of the world. Once she caught me reading a novel and chastised me: “Never let me catch you doing that again, remember what happened to Emma Bovary.””
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“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)
“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today—but the core of science fiction, its essence ... has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.”
—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)