# The Ring Speaks?



## Gamil Zirak (Nov 18, 2004)

> _Mount Doom_
> *'Down, down!' he gasped, clutching his hand to his breast, so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. 'Down you creepy thing, and out of my path! Your time is at an end. You cannot betray me or slay me now.'
> 
> Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than a shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice.
> ...



I know it's a vision but Frodo wasn't using a commanding voice before the vision and he was greathing in gasps after. Was it the ring speaking?


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## DGoeij (Nov 18, 2004)

If you mean that the Ring as an entity speaks (wether or not through Frodo) or that Frodo says this under influence of the Ring, I personally believe the latter. 

A threat to the Ring as Gollem was, would seriously rouse Frodo, giving him the strength to speak up. Sam too was on the brink of exhaustion, so the 'vision' isn't very suprising in that respect either. All that is happening on the very edge of the Chasm were the Ring is at it's most powerfull. Gollem, Sam and Frodo are in my view severely influenced by that, resulting in the events as we know them.

I do not see the Ring as an entity in itself, capable of making descisions and taking actions.


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## alcesta (Nov 18, 2004)

Of course the Ring doesn't speak for itself. If someone could interprete the passage in this way, it must be the influence of the movie. 
DGoeij is right. But it's not the first time Frodo addresses Gollum this way. He acted much the same when Gollum swore not to betray him, before. Anyway, the part *



If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.

Click to expand...

 *is very interesting in itself as a prophecy, for that's exactly what happened, isn't it? 

Btw, that doesn't mean the Ring possesses no elements of an entity at all. It is mentioned in various places, that the Ring is trying to return to its owner, and it's probably the part of Sauron's essence that has been put into it when he forged the One.


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## Gamil Zirak (Nov 18, 2004)

alcesta said:


> Of course the Ring doesn't speak for itself. If someone could interprete the passage in this way, it must be the influence of the movie.
> DGoeij is right.



Not even close to true. This interpretation came on the 4th reading of the passage. There was not even anything close to this in the movie either.


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## alcesta (Nov 19, 2004)

My apologies, I didn't mean anything offensive. But in the movie the Ring does speak, and has a voice, although there isn't this particular scene.


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## Bombadil (Nov 19, 2004)

DGoeij said:


> Sam too was on the brink of exhaustion, so the 'vision' isn't very suprising in that respect either. All that is happening on the very edge of the Chasm were the Ring is at it's most powerfull.


if you mean the 'vision' as a hallucination I personally think it to be a wrong perception. I think that what Sam saw was the reality: Gollum as a creature that barely exists and Frodo bearing the ring which Sam had also held and felt it's power. 

By the end of their journey when Sam asks Frodo if he can remember the Shire, Frodo answers that he can only see darkness and a ring of fire. He is starting to leave this existance to become a wraith. As a ringbearer himself, Sam starts to see the mighty of the one ring. 

Finally I have to say that I think it was Frodo speaking as his mind got resolute to finish his task or at least he was resolute until the moment to cast it away into the fire.


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## DGoeij (Nov 19, 2004)

Bombadil said:


> if you mean the 'vision' as a hallucination I personally think it to be a wrong perception. I think that what Sam saw was the reality: Gollum as a creature that barely exists and Frodo bearing the ring which Sam had also held and felt it's power.



I'm in two minds about it actually. I recognize the 'magic' involved of the power of the Ring and the influence on all three present, but I always tend to look upon things like this from a more realistic (or perhaps cynical  ) point of view. It's a force of habit I cannot let go, even when completely engulfed (and greatly enjoying) a stroy like this.


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## MichaelMartinez (Nov 20, 2004)

In the book, Frodo was not speaking through the Ring (nor was he the speaker of the curse or threat directed at Gollum). Frodo would have to have mastered the Ring in order to use it that way, and Tolkien states in Letter 246 that Frodo had not (prior to the point where he fully claimed the Ring a short time later before the Sammath Naur) used his will to control the Ring.

Furthermore, the commanding voice comes from the wheel of fire, which in a previous passage Frodo identified as the Ring itself.

The Ring acted with deliberate purpose on numerous occasions, as when Gandalf told Frodo it was trying to return to Sauron when it left Gollum. So, it was certainly capable of acting independently of Frodo, and in fact Tolkien specifically says that the Ring WAS acting independently of Frodo, and in the end it was the Ring which mastered Frodo, not the other way around.

Sam did not "have a vision", he SAW with "other vision". He was permitted to see Frodo, Gollum, and the Ring as they appeared spiritually. The Ring possessed the greater part of Sauron's own strength (or spirit), and therefore was capable of appearing on the spiritual or wraith plane of existence (for lack of a better description).


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## Greenwood (Feb 19, 2005)

alcesta said:


> is very interesting in itself as a prophecy, for that's exactly what happened, isn't it?


It is not really a prophecy, it is the penalty that Gollum will suffer for breaking his oath to Frodo. Literature is filled with the dooms of people who break their oaths. Even in LOTR, you have the Dead who broke their oath to fight against Sauron and are then condemned to their limbo staus until they fulfill their oath.


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## Annaheru (Feb 19, 2005)

think about the scene on Amon Hen: "He heard himself crying out: _Never, never!_ Or was it: _Verily I come, I come to you_? He could not tell" Frodo has been to the brink of the wraith-world since part one of the Fellowship. In the scene I mentioned above, and also in the scene on Orodruin I think we see the ring expressing its will through Frodo. Just as Gollum has within him 'sneaker' and 'stinker' (in Sam's elegant words ), so Frodo has a part of his mind that is completely in the Ring's power. It is that part of his mind that speaks to Gollum in this scene, which is why Gollum is so cowed- the "ring shadow" in his own mind feels the will of the Ring. Only his belief that the Ring is about to be destroyed can force him to disobey that command.


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## Greenwood (Feb 19, 2005)

However, remember at Amon Hen, Frodo is actually wearing the Ring at that point. The evil of the Ring influences and corrupts Frodo (as it does all who com under its influence), but it does not have a rational mind of its own.


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## Annaheru (Feb 19, 2005)

Greenwood said:


> However, remember at Amon Hen, Frodo is actually wearing the Ring at that point. The evil of the Ring influences and corrupts Frodo (as it does all who com under its influence), but it does not have a rational mind of its own.


 
However, the Ring's power grows the closer it gets to the mountain, and Frodo's ability to resist it lessens: the Ring is consuming him. Moreover, since Sauron put part of his own Being into the Ring who's to say part of his consciousness isn't also present in the Ring? If the Ring can choose to leave someone (i.e. slip off/onto a finger, which it did atleast 4 times) there has to be a reason, to me it suggests that the portion of his spirit Sauron placed in the Ring can manifest itself.


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## Greenwood (Feb 19, 2005)

Certainly the Ring's power grows as it approaches Orodruin and at the Cracks of Doom its power is at its peak. In fact it is so powerful there that it is unlikely anyone could resist it. In letter #246 Tolkien says:


> I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum -- impossible, I should have said, for any one to resisit, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justky rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.


But with all its power at the Cracks of Doom, the Ring is still just a thing, it has no life of its own. It is not a sentient being.


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## Ancalagon (Feb 19, 2005)

Greenwood said:


> the Ring is still just a thing, it has no life of its own. It is not a sentient being.


Gurthang is an inanimate, lifeless object it is not? What was it Gurthang said? In order to speak it had to think, in order to think it had to be sentient: therefore why not the ring of power?

PS: Been a longtime Greenwood my friend


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## Greenwood (Feb 19, 2005)

Greetings O mighty one! It has been a long time indeed! It is indeed a pleasure to meet an old friend.  

Unfortunately, it has been an even longer time since I read The Silmarillion so I cannot answer you with any semblance of intelligence.

<Greenwood scurries off to his bookshelves muttering about swords and dragons.>


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## Narsil (Feb 20, 2005)

Greenwood said:


> But with all its power at the Cracks of Doom, the Ring is still just a thing, it has no life of its own. It is not a sentient being.



I agree with that. I believe that as Frodo travelled through Mordor and approached Mt. Doom the Ring had a much greater effect on him and in some ways, as with his confrontation with Gollum, he was actually able to draw strength from it. But I don't think it _possessed_ Frodo to the point where it took over his body and controlled him or directed his actions as a separate, living entity.


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## Barliman Butterbur (Feb 20, 2005)

How many of you heard the ring whispering (in FOTR) subliminal messages to be sure to buy tickets to the next two movies?

Barley


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