I've been chewing on the idea that Sauron is part of the fellowship lately and this seems like the opening I need to tackle the framing.

I think there's one perspective in which The Eye is an unrelentingly repressive aspect of authoritarianism and The Ring is both part of Sauron and a catalyst for the unnameable evil inherent within her.

Alternatively The Eye's power is identifying the thing that corrupts, and The Hobbit's power is carrying it. Singling anything out is an isolating task for Mean Girls, and in her work separating the Ring from everything else in the universe Sauron grows the thorniest, vilest crows she can to shield her loneliness. Still, when the Hobbits are at their lowest she reveals herself to hold their hands.

It seems that one approach to devils is pointing them out for somebody else to hurl into the fire and another is relegating them to the negative space by directing identity towards the Main Picture.

I thought it was obvious but now I'm not sure. Who did Stuart's nephew kill?