I've read all the books, and I somehow missed that part
If not being almost the topic sentence, it is for sure the real moral of the book, that you can - out of good will perhaps - make things (technologies) that you can't control once they get out in the world, and that thing you made for betterment in the end lies waste to all that is good and holy.
No one, not Gandalf, nor even the Elf Queen, can control the power of the Ring. In fact, the only person who The Ring does not seem to have power over is the only person in the whole book who is acting out of intentions greater than himself, and that's Sam. In the end, in the final bit, its really Sam that destroys the ring out of his love of Frodo.
What bothered me, and still does, is not so much the reinvented/re-written scenes, including a love deal that never is in the book, its the end that was utterly, completely and totally wiped out, and that's the real lesson of the books. At the end of R&J, a work that Tolkin was pretty conversant with, Willie, in the voice of the Prince gives the real message of the play.
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd.
And indeed, in LotR, all are punish'd too. That's what the end is about. Substitute 'love of control' for 'hate' and its LotR all the way.
The elves who made The Ring, gone. The wizards and ents, and orcs, gone. The hobbits, gone. Only man remains. All were punish'd.
