[Saltheart]

The Chronicles are certainly not a rehash of Lord of the Rings. In The Chronicles, the world personifies the essence Covenant and Linden and the philosophical ideas they represent; whereas in LOTR, the world is its own existing place. In LOTR, Tolkien's aim was to create a world for his language to inhabite. In The Chronicles, each and every person, place, or thing symbolizes something, and Donalson's aim was to showcase philosophical ideas and how a bitter, lonely man learns to accept himself and life.

In The Chronicles, the white gold wedding band represents a vow, as does the name "Covenant", and it is the key to understanding all the other symbols in the first volume of the entire series. It is a binding promise. And Thomas wears it even though his wife abandoned him, because he is still bound by his own personal oath in his wedding vows to support her till his death (as proven in the second volume of the series), even if she herself broke the pact--and as a reminder of the bitterness of reality. When he wears the wedding gold, he has wild, uncontrollable power in which he can save and destroy everything around him, just like his personal vows keeps him living even though he has destroyed almost everything which makes him human. When he takes off his oath, his wedding ring, he is impotent to do anything; he is just a physical, emotional and spiritual leper: he doesn't feel anything, have any purpose or prophecy to fulfill, any personal oath to keep.

In LOTR, the One Ring is power as well, but a lot less symbolic and paradoxal and interconnected with all the elements: Tolkien might has well had made it a glove, or a boot, or a belt, since they all represent Oneness, because only one owner can wear it at a time. He only made it a ring, I bet, because rings are so small, like Hobbits, and common, that he wanted to show that nothing is insignificant--but because the man claimed to hate allegories, we can throw that theory out the window and conclude he did it "just because".