# Ante-climax ending?



## Noldor_returned (Jan 19, 2006)

We all know how the Ring was destroyed. Gollum bit Frodo's finger off and fell in. _Fell_? A creature who was suitably developed to climbing mountains falls off a cliff with no push or anything. Suicide? Maybe. It is almost certain that he would perish if the Ring did. His soul was entwined with the fate of the Ring, like Saurons. So do you guys and gals think the ending is an ante-climax? Yes or no? Vote now...

PS: Post your thoughts as well. (Optional).


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## e.Blackstar (Jan 19, 2006)

Anti-climatic? Not a chance. It's not like he fell because he did something wrong...he was just so enthralled by the Ring that he danced too close.
Besides, if someone had destroyed the Ring willingly we'd probably be arguing over what a big plot hole that is.


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## Wonko The Sane (Jan 19, 2006)

Aside from the fact that the answer has to be 'no' because of your use of 'ante-climax' rather than 'anti-climax' ('ante-' meaning 'before' and 'anti-' meaning 'against') I do not believe the ending to be anti-climactic.
For one thing, though there are certainly pivotal moments, there is no one climax to the main action of Lord of the Rings. Because the story follows many different interwoven plot lines all at once, and because it is written in an epic style, where description and action often take a very long time to relate and the action often seems to be resolved only to pick up elsewhere in a different vein.
I remember the first time I read LotR with the expectations that it would be like most of the other fantasy stories I'd read. I imagined it would follow the expected course and that the plotline of the story could easily be drawn so as to resemble a mountain range.
Level-up-level-down-up-down-level-level-level-up-up-down-level-level-up-up-up-down-up-up-up-up-down-down-down-down-level-level-up-down-level or some such pattern. Small conflicts each more dire than the last finally culminating in a giant show, a spectacular battle and a calm resolution.

But though there definitely are spectacular battles they are not written with an eye to how dramatic how climactic or how well it would play out on screen. It is related much the same way that old sagas and epics are related. And there is no one climax, because the scene in Orodruin is just as important as battle at the Pelennor Fields and the battle at the Black Gate. In fact it is more important, because even if they had failed, even if they had lost that battle if Frodo and Sam had still succeeded the Dark Lord would have been overthrown and man would still have had a chance. And in the end, the Scouring of the Shire is just as important, at least to the Hobbits, as the battle of the Pelennor fields is to the men of Gondor.
It is their battle to save their home just as the battle of Pelennor is the battle of men to save theirs.
But this action, though pivotal, is not the main focus of the novel. What do we end on? Sam walking through his front door and the small "Well, I'm back." What is the last chapter of the book? The Grey Havens. There are things more important to Tolkien's story than action and battle. In my opinion it is the quiet things, the joy of simple life, of family, of friends, of emotion that Tolkien chooses to feature, while at the same time not appearing to do so.
I think the destruction is fitting, especially in light of a few of the many themes running through the book.
First, the smallest of us each have our part to play for good or for ill, intentionally or not everyone had their fated role to take in the story of the ring. If Frodo was meant to find the ring then Gollum was meant to destroy it in the same way.
Secondly, as I mentioned in another thread, in the end it was beyond the power of any mortal to withstand the ring and cast it into the fire, and fate was beyond even the immense power of the ring.

It is fitting because many of the large events of the story of the ring, the events that shaped the future of Middle-Earth seemed to be small, unassuming things. Chance? Accident? Fate? Whatever way you look at it those chances, those accidents all took their part in shaping the world around the characters of the book. Did Bilbo find the ring by mere chance? Had he not found the ring what might have happened? Was Bilbo's pity that resulted in him not slaying Gollum good luck or bad? What if Gollum had never gone to Mordor and betrayed the whereabouts of the ring to Sauron? What would have happened then?

So much in the story hinges on chance, so much of the direction of the action relies on accidents. A series of them that result in the rings eventual destruction. Gollum's accident on the brink of the fire of Orodruin is in keeping with everything else in the book. So much could have gone wrong but didn't. Gollum's accident is not anti-climactic, it is, in many ways a very satisfying ending. It is not theatrical or dramatic, it's quiet, and real. It just is. It happens, like so many things in life, so many life changing decisions or occurances it just happens in the blink of an eye and nothing will ever be the same.

Gollum's accident was only, in my opinion, intentional in the sense that 'fate' intended it to happen. It was meant to happen. But it was not suicide or sacrifice. In the end the ring was too strong to allow that. The ring could have bent Gollum's will, made him balk at suicide or sacrifice, but it couldn't help his misplaced foot on the brink of that fateful cliff.

No. It's not anti-climactic. It's brilliant!

But, I'm often wrong...and I'm no Tolkien scholar. *shrug* It's all up to you how you want to think of it, but this is how I choose to look at it.


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## YayGollum (Jan 19, 2006)

No, not anti-climactic. A nice plot twist. I would have expected the superly boring Frodo character to toss the One Ring thing into that Crack Of Doom, maybe with a bit of help from the evil sam, who, just two seconds earlier, had given poor Smeagol the throttling that most readers seemed to have been wishing for. Instead, I got to very unexpectedly read that my favorite character saved the day. A very unexpected hero! Yay Gollum! Boo for the superly boring as well as achingly stereotypical heroic types always saving the day! This Tolkien dude decided to do anything differently! Also, in that Scouring Of The Shire bit, Grima got to save the day. In the two most important parts of the story (in my brain, at least. Why care about the boring and large battle scenes?), the most weaselly characters got to save the day.


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## Majimaune (Jan 20, 2006)

I think it is a bit of an ante-climax cause one so nimble as Gollum falls of the edge of a cliff dont think its going to happen but hey I like to be an individual so theres my thoughts


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## e.Blackstar (Jan 20, 2006)

Majimaune said:


> I think it is a bit of an ante-climax cause one so nimble as Gollum falls of the edge of a cliff dont think its going to happen but hey I like to be an individual so theres my thoughts



Like I said earlier, it's not like Gollum was climbig or something, where his skill would be able to save him. He was just so absorbed in the Ring that he wasn't paying attention and walked right off the edge of the cliff; climbing skills wouldn't have done any good anyway.


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## Wonko The Sane (Jan 23, 2006)

e.Blackstar said:


> Like I said earlier, it's not like Gollum was climbig or something, where his skill would be able to save him. He was just so absorbed in the Ring that he wasn't paying attention and walked right off the edge of the cliff; climbing skills wouldn't have done any good anyway.



Too right. I'm sure that even Darcy Bussel trips every now and then.


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## Hammersmith (Jan 23, 2006)

I think there is an anticlimax, but it has nothing to do with Gollum. His part was superbly written, with Tolkien delivering some very poignant moral lessons along with a perfect ending for the ring. Even more, Gollum's role is wrapped up nicely without loose ends. His anticlimax is the long and slow wind-down, capped by the Scouring of the Shire...in which Saruman suddenly makes a reappearance and then dies quietly. I love that part, but looked at objectively it is a little odd.


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## Wonko The Sane (Jan 23, 2006)

Hammersmith said:


> I think there is an anticlimax, but it has nothing to do with Gollum. His part was superbly written, with Tolkien delivering some very poignant moral lessons along with a perfect ending for the ring. Even more, Gollum's role is wrapped up nicely without loose ends. His anticlimax is the long and slow wind-down, capped by the Scouring of the Shire...in which Saruman suddenly makes a reappearance and then dies quietly. I love that part, but looked at objectively it is a little odd.



I would agree. I found it a bit out of place the first time I read it. I enjoyed it after going back and re-reading that section just to understand it more, but at the time I was so confused. I was so bewildered with a sense of "What's this and what is it doing here" that I found it hard to focus on that part of the story.

I think now that the long slow wind down was the perfect ending to a book with a long slow beginning.


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## Noldor_returned (Jan 23, 2006)

The first time I read LOTR I was about 10, and it was hard to understand. 4 years on, having read many times more, I understand it better each time. That part is one that I re-read over and over.


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## Voronwë (Jan 25, 2006)

I think it all happens a little suddenly, which can make it feel a little anti-climatic the first time you read it I suppose. However, I really like the little aftersection (well...its a few chapters actually) that follow the ring's destruction and think it adds a very different feeling to what would be the end of the book. Most stories have a little 'happy ever after' as soon as the goal of it is completed, but in LotR it is not so, and I think that makes it feel more completed.


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## Noldor_returned (Jan 26, 2006)

I agree...Just imagine if Tolkien had left it with the Ring being destroyed...how many questions would we have? How different would the world be? Would it still be one of the best books ever?


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## Voronwë (Jan 26, 2006)

Well, yeah it still would be lol. However, I think its certainly something that makes LotR stand out even more from normal novels. It feels sort of like a little reward, having read 800 odd pages of how hopeless the quest is (and thus, the fight for middle-earth), its only fair you get an extra 200 pages that make everything seem wonderful


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## Annaheru (Jan 26, 2006)

Actually, the first time I read RoTK something happened (I think it was my brother chipping my tooth, and the resulting root-canal), and I never finished it- left off at the end of chapter 4 (The Field of Cormallen). After that first reading the book seemed incomplete and listless. The next time a read it I found out I hadn't finished it, and wow what a difference. So many of the questions left within the text (i.e. Sam's wonderings about his gaffer) were addressed. The story finally felt complete. So no, the finish was not anticlimatic, rather to have left off on the mountain or the Field of Cormallen would have been anteclimatic. It would have left us with a profound feeling of futility: yeah, we won, and now we're going to stay in this moment forever. Tolkien's ending does give place to that true to experience idea that life goes on.
Just my opinion.


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## ingolmo (Jan 27, 2006)

It wasn't an anti-climax.

Gollum had to be the one to be the end of the Ring, because:
-Gandalf had remarked that he thought that Gollum still had a part to play 
in the story. Gandalf had to be right.
-It would only have been right if Frodo would have at some time been corrupted by the Ring. He wasn't a super-hobbit, that he would resist the ring till the end.
-Symbolically too, Gollum had to be the one to bring an end to the ring.
It was because of him that the saga restarted, so he had to finish it.


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## Wonko The Sane (Jan 27, 2006)

ingolmo said:


> It wasn't an anti-climax.
> 
> Gollum had to be the one to be the end of the Ring, because:
> -Gandalf had remarked that he thought that Gollum still had a part to play
> in the story. Gandalf had to be right.



Gandalf could have been right if Gollum had just lead Frodo and Sam to Mordor though couldn't he? That was a part to play, and they couldn't have done it without him...

Sorry, just had to point that out. Many aspects of Gollum's involvement could have proved Gandalf right.


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