# Did the Ring's own power cause its destruction?



## BalrogRingDestroyer (Jul 14, 2018)

Frodo had said that if Gollum ever touched him again, that he'd go into the Fire of Mount Doom. As that's actually what ended up happening, was Gollum actually knocked in by the Ring's power, and the Ring, which was taken by him, was done in by a curse done in its own power?

Of course, if this were possible, then it seems odd that Gandalf or some other powerful being didn't use that power over Frodo or someone to MAKE them take it to Mount Doom to destroy it. Of course, perhaps they were too noble to willing throw away a life like that as sending them there under the Ring's power, even if they weren't caught, would awaken them into a "where the heck am I?" mode when the Ring's power was destroyed, thus leaving them to almost certainly perish when Mount Doom erupted. 


It is interesting that it's possible that the Ring's own effects on others (causing Frodo and Gollum to fight over it) and its own power (cursing Gollum to fall into the fire, if he was indeed cursed) was what caused its destruction. 

It's even more ironic, though, that Gollum's Precious, that he cared about so much, following Frodo's curse, may have made him fall into the fire of Mount Doom, thus causing the thing he cared about the most to bring about his death.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jul 16, 2018)

Interesting idea, but I don't read it as "curse", but foretelling, in the same way that Saruman foretells Frodo's inability to heal in Middle Earth.

The Ring certainly drove Gollum to madness, and his delirium upon snatching it from Frodo blinded him to his danger, but ultimately, it was not the Ring, but the pity of Bilbo, that "ruled the fate of many".


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## Ron Simpson (Jul 16, 2018)

_BalrogRing Destroyer: "It is interesting that it's possible that the Ring's own effects on others (causing Frodo and Gollum to fight over it) and its own power (cursing Gollum to fall into the fire, if he was indeed cursed) was what caused its destruction. "
_
Taking a 30,000 ft view of things, I think that sentiment is entirely possible and quite likely. Eru is quite clear about ‘the self-correcting fail-safes that he coded into the software of creation: namely that everything done or created, no matter how anomalous will be ultimately, and irresistibly co-opted to serve the grand design of perfection. Here are a few quotes:
_
“ And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”

“But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: 'These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.”
_
It seems (to me) that all evil is eventually turned to Iluvator’s wonderful ends, because even evil (Melkor’s disharmony) is part of the great music. So I don’t see why the ring’s evil would be any different. Finally, having the ring destroy itself would be what the mathematicians call ‘an elegant solution’: efficient and effortless - exactly the sort of calling-card I’d expect Eru to leave behind.

Of course, all of that may well be a huge stretch, but unfortunately that's how my convoluted mind works.


One more thing..

_BalrogRingDestroyer: “It's even more ironic, though, that Gollum's Precious, that he cared about so much, following Frodo's curse, may have made him fall into the fire of Mount Doom, thus causing the thing he cared about the most to bring about his death.”_

It is interesting that you reference the concept of irony… Time and again, The Wise (Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond etc..) often hinted strongly that occurrences in Middle Earth commonly thought to be luck, chance, coincidence were really nothing of the kind, but in fact demonstrations of intelligent intervention… So, could another player (vastly more powerful than Sauron) have seized that opportunity to leverage the ring’s own treachery turning it against itself ? It would have been the perfect opportunity for intervention, given that Gollum and Frodo were standing in the only place in Middle Earth where the ring could be destroyed.


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## Alcuin (Jul 17, 2018)

“Did the Ring’s own power cause its destruction?” Definitely. Definitely, definitely, definitely. 

Frodo learned to use the Ring. I think this is something readers overlook. To paraphrase Gandalf in his drawing-room chat with Frodo (in “Shadow of the Past”), _the Ring gave Frodo power according to his stature._ 

I don’t think you have to _wear_ the Ring in order to use it. If you do wear it, and you’re a mortal, you do turn invisible: Frodo used that power to escape Boromir on Amon Hen. But that works for anyone, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a trivial use. (At least until Sauron started looking for him, probably using his palantír stolen from Minas Ithil.) The Ring enabled Frodo to see Galadriel’s Ring, Nenya, once he had seen the Eye of Sauron in the Mirror. This apparently made Frodo stronger in the sense that he could use it better: but notice that he wasn’t wearing it. Galadriel said that it was enough that he was the Ring-bearer and had seen Sauron. 

But in regards to Gollum and the Doom of the Ring, Frodo used it at least twice, possibly three times. 
When he and Sam first captured Gollum, Frodo _deliberately_ twisted the Ring-spell itself to enslave Gollum, and Gollum understood that immediately.


> “Swear?” said Frodo.
> 
> “Sméagol,” said Gollum suddenly and clearly, opening his eyes wide and staring at Frodo with a strange light. “Sméagol will swear on the Precious.”
> 
> ...


Now, setting aside the intentional ambiguity by Gollum in swearing not to Frodo but rather to “the master of the Precious,” there are several points here:
Frodo knew exactly what he was doing. He recitation of Sauron’s spell that bound the other keepers of the Great Rings to the Ruling Ring was not accidental but deliberate: he was using the Ring and its power, Sauron’s power, to bind Gollum. 
Gollum knew it immediately. Whether that was because he somehow knew the binding spell, or out of instinct from being enslaved to the Ring for the past five centuries is irrelevant here. He knew it, and he was terrified by it. 
Intentionally or not, Frodo also ensnared not only himself and Gollum, but Sam too. 
The Ring did what Frodo wanted: it bound them together in the Darkness from that place on the edge of the Emyn Muil, through the Dead Marshes, across Dagorlad and Ithilien, through Cirith Morgul and Cirith Ungol, the Morgai, the Plain of Gorgoroth, upon the slopes of Orodruin and into the Sammath Naur itself. 
_Notice that Sam saw Frodo as with other vision:_ Frodo appeared as “a tall stern shadow, a mighty lord who hid his brightness in grey cloud.” Even though Sam has not yet worn the Ring, he can see Frodo on “the other side,” in the “wraith-world,” if you will, or as an Elf (such as Glorfindel) would see him: Frodo is using the Ring, and Sam can actually _see_ it. 
It’s not Frodo’s power. It’s still Sauron’s power. But Frodo is using it.
By the way, about the same time Frodo is doing this, Aragorn, whom Sauron probably saw on Amon Hen while searching Frodo who had been wearing the Ring, is meeting Éomer. How the Merry and Pippin escaped was never solved by either Saruman or Sauron, but somehow, Aragorn has managed to free them, overthrow Saruman, and capture the palantír of Orthanc. When Sauron finally meets Aragorn in the palantír seven days later, the answer will seem so obvious to him: he has to suspect Aragorn has the Ring. 
Six days later, Frodo and Sam have followed Gollum to the Morannon and are hiding within site of the Black Gate. Frodo proposes to enter Mordor that way. Sam doesn’t object, but Gollum does!


> Gollum … knelt at Frodo’s feet, wringing his hands and squeaking. “Not this way, master!” he pleaded, “There is another way, … darker, more difficult to find, more secret. … Master did not say what he meant to do. … [N]ow he says: I purpose to enter Mordor this way. So Sméagol … promised, master made him promise, to save the Precious. But master is going to take it to Him, straight to the Black Hand, if master will go this way. So Sméagol must save them both, and he thinks of another way that there was, once upon a time. …”
> 
> …To all appearances Gollum was genuinely distressed and anxious to help Frodo…
> 
> ...


Has Frodo used the Ring once more? *Squint-eyed Southerner* can speak for himself, but I think this could be argued to be what he calls a “foretelling.” For myself, I think Frodo has used the Ring a second time, though not to the degree or with the intent that he did at the foot of the Emyn Muil. Still, just having the Ring, and calling upon it, twists the cords of fate in the same way that Aragorn warned Frodo on the morning before they climbed Weathertop and the Witch-king stabbed Frodo:


> …Pippin declared that Frodo was looking twice the hobbit that he had been.
> 
> “Very odd,” said Frodo, tightening his belt, “considering that there is actually a good deal less of me. I hope the thinning process will not go on indefinitely, or I shall become a wraith.”
> 
> “Do not speak of such things!” said Strider quickly, and with surprising earnestness.


Only in this case, Frodo knew what he was doing, and understood that his warning was not a mere admonition to “be good.” It was a real threat, one that surprised Sam and thoroughly frightened Gollum, and I think it set up the confrontation between Frodo and Gollum, a confrontation in which I think Frodo unarguably uses the Ring.

The next day, Aragorn confronts Sauron in the palantír and wrenches control of the Orthanc stone away from him.


On the road to Sammath Naur, Gollum attacks Frodo and Sam in order to wrest the Ring from Frodo. At this point he understands Frodo’s intention to destroy the Ring, and his lust for his Precious overcomes his fear of Frodo’s limited mastery of it (which far exceeds Gollum’s abilities).


> …Gollum [did] probably the only thing that could have roused the dying embers of Frodo’s heart and will: … an attempt to wrest his treasure from him by force. He fought back with a sudden fury that amazed Sam, and Gollum also. … Frodo flung him off and rose up quivering.
> 
> “Down, down!” he gasped, clutching his hand to his breast, so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. … Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a 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.
> 
> ...


Frodo has the Ring in his hand, with only his shirt between him and the Ring. He’s using the Ring: that’s why Sam hears the voice coming not from the figure robed in white, but from the wheel of fire. Gollum’s fate is sealed as soon as he attacks Frodo in the Sammath Naur. 

Aragorn is standing on the slag mounds amidst his little army before the Black Gate, daring to keep Sauron’s attention to the bitter end, even against hopeless odds.
This gets to the irony that *BalrogRingDestroyer* and *Ron Simpson* have discussed: _oft evil will shall evil mar,_ as Théoden puts it. Not only is Gollum destroyed by his own actions, but Sauron is, too: his own Ruling Ring has been used to overthrow him, not by the Heir of Isildur or by Gandalf or one of the Eldar, but by “a v[ery] _[sic]_ small spiritless creature with no pride or will power, … filled with terror at the approach of a Ringwraith.” (_Reader’s Companion_, Chapter 11, “A Knife in the Dark”) Though Sauron may have roused it, Frodo has fully awakened and used the Ring: _For Isildur’s Bane shall waken,
And the Halfling forth shall stand._​


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## BalrogRingDestroyer (Jul 23, 2018)

To Gollum's credit, I can't see even a redeemed Gollum being able to live past the destruction of the Ring. If he didn't die the way Mother Gothel did when Flynn Rider cut Rapunzel's hair, he'd have been too weak to escape Mount Doom as it blew due to age catching up with him and would have died from the fire.

Though this theory of Gollum being MADE to help Frodo kinds of weakens my hope that he had a shot at redemption if he was doing it involuntarily. He could have tried to kill Frodo and Sam in their sleep if he was that determined to get it and didn't care at least somewhat for Frodo. 

Unless Smeagol somehow got redemption, taking the Ring back was the most sensible thing for him to do as a corrupted being. 

Otherwise:

1.) He dies immediately when it is destroyed.
2.) He dies from the erupting fire, being made too weak by the Ring's destruction to get away.
3.) He, if he just left Frodo and Sam, could well have been caught by the Mordor goons looking for him (probably to kill him this time). They wouldn't think to look on Mount Doom.

Option 4: Take the Ring and try and get away makes the most sense, despite being foolish in the end as he couldn't outrun Sauron. Especially if he had managed to take it before Frodo finally claimed it, thus alerting Sauron to where they were.


Even the best a redeemed Smeagol could to would be to forcibly take the Ring from Frodo and then throw himself into the fires of Mount Doom to ensure that Sauron didn't get it, as there is NO way he'd have been able to throw it into the fire and away from his person. It would HAVE to be a heroic suicide of a sort. 


So to claim that Gollum's action brought about his own doom is foolish, as him taking the Ring BEFORE Frodo claimed it was actually his best shot at getting away, and, indeed, buying Middle Earth more time.


It was *Frodo *who was the fool for using the power of the Ring, something Gandalf especially told him *not *to do. He didn't even want him to use it to make himself invisible, let alone use it to control Gollum's will.

The Ring *wanted *Frodo to keep messing with it, knowing that he was ensnared already by being near it and carrying it (in fact, even back in the Shire, I think Frodo was already being influenced by it as he freaked out when Gandalf threw it into the fire.) And it may not have been Manwe (some have suggested this) or even Eru that was the stronger power perhaps causing Frodo to get enough courage to volunteer to carry the Ring to Mount Doom, but could have been the Ring trying to use Frodo, whom it thought would be too weak to make it, to go toward Mordor so that it could end up on Sauron's finger again.

Nearing its doom, the Ring would have wanted to trick Frodo into using its power so that he'd fall fully under its power. Frodo even says that he is close to falling under total control and wouldn't even let Sam hold the Ring. By using the Ring, Frodo was ensnared, thus causing him to try and claim it a few moments later which is *exactly *what the Ring wanted, as it would alert Sauron to where they were, and foil the plans of the Council of Elrond, as Sauron would now know EXACTLY what his enemies were up to.

Sauron WOULD have won had it not been for Gollum, who took the Ring, only to fall prey to the Ring's own curse. Gollum had saved Frodo's life while Frodo's curse or whatever had caused Gollum's death. Frodo said that he would have given his entire hand to have saved Gollum but that it was too late. 

It is ironic that the two qualities of the Ring most notable:

1.) Its power to command wills 
2.) Its own corrupting influence

brought up the one of the few circumstances, most likely the *only* one, that would result in its final destruction.



More ironically about the Ring, is that Option B: Use the Ring would have resulted in what Sauron generally wanted even if he himself couldn't bring it about. Had Gandalf, Saruman, or Galadriel used the Ring to defeat and, presumably slay, him, they would have become just as corrupt as he was and then Middle Earth STILL would have been ruled by an unstoppable tyrant. (Which I don't think the Ring would have minded.)

Also, Option C: Take it to Valinor would have failed.

a.) Because Sauron would have eventually beaten Gondor and, after that, the rest of Middle Earth, even WITHOUT the Ring. What Denethor saw was NOT a lie. Even Sauron couldn't make the Palantir do that. 

b.) Even if received there, it isn't inconceivable that the Ring could have wrought ill there. If the mess with the Simrils caused the Kinslaying and other problems, it could have made a mess in Valinor too.


Option D: Throw it into the sea would have let Sauron win merely because he could have won a war of attrition. Even if he never found the Ring for 10 ages of Middle Earth, he'd still have won anyway. The only danger to him is that he may have started to fade like the Elves without his Ring in his possession and even WITH it, it was no guarantee that he could have held the fading thing off forever. 


Ironically, I don't think Frodo would have been able to use the Ring's power to order Gollum to go destroy it. Even if somehow he were to be able to override Gollum's will enough to make him go and try and destroy his Precious (a tall order indeed), he'd have been so messed up by using the Ring that he'd have gone and bitten off Gollum's finger to try and get the Ring back. 

However, as he never figured that Gollum WOULD get the Ring back, he was able to make the curse of him falling into the fire and not realize it would cause the Ring to be destroyed.


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## Starbrow (Jul 23, 2018)

I always saw the desire for the Ring as like an addiction. Frodo and Gollum both know that it will cause them harm, but they cannot help themselves. When Gollum gave into the temptation of the Ring, it would have destroyed him whether he fell into Mount Doom or not - that is what addictions do.


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## Alcuin (Jul 23, 2018)

BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> I can't see even a redeemed Gollum being able to live past the destruction of the Ring. … [H]e'd have been too weak to escape Mount Doom as it blew due to age catching up with him and would have died from the fire.


That was Gollum’s opinion, too, in his final encounter with Sam, who was preparing to stab him:


> Let us live, yes, live just a little longer. … [W]hen Precious goes we’ll die, yes, die into the dust.





BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> Even the best a redeemed Smeagol could to would be to forcibly take the Ring from Frodo and then throw himself into the fires of Mount Doom to ensure that Sauron didn't get it, as there is NO way he'd have been able to throw it into the fire and away from his person. It would HAVE to be a heroic suicide of a sort.


Tolkien agrees with you in _Letter_ 246, where he discusses what would have happened had Gollum’s redemption not been marred by Sam’s hostility just before the three of them entered Shelob’s Lair:


> Though [Gollum’s love for Frodo] would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring. I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But ‘possession’ satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo’s sake and have voluntarily cast himself into the fiery abyss.


Personally, I find that telling unsatisfactory, and Tolkien does, too: “Sam could hardly have acted differently,” he wrote just a few sentences earlier. 



BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> It was *Frodo *who was the fool for using the power of the Ring, something Gandalf especially told him *not *to do. … The Ring *wanted *Frodo to keep messing with it, knowing that he was ensnared already by being near it and carrying it (in fact, even back in the Shire, I think Frodo was already being influenced by it as he freaked out when Gandalf threw it into the fire.) … By using the Ring, Frodo was ensnared, thus causing him to try and claim it a few moments later which is *exactly *what the Ring wanted…


I think that’s basically correct. The first time Frodo used the power of the Ring (i.e., Sauron’s power), he twisted the Ring-spell to ensure Gollum’s honesty and, to a degree, his loyalty. Gollum keeps his oath: he leads Frodo and Sam through the Dead Marshes, where no one else could go; he leads Frodo away from the Morannon to another entrance into Mordor; and he seizes the Ring from Frodo at the penultimate moment when Frodo has succumbed. In every case he has served “the master of the Precious” and kept it from Sauron, as he promised. 

On the slopes of Orodruin, however, when Frodo declares that Gollum himself will be cast into the Cracks of Doom, he’s tired and careless: he’s simply using the raw power in the Ring (again, Sauron’s power) for an angry, even vengeful curse. I think, in context, that’s when Frodo falls into the Ring’s domination of his will: he walks off “slowly but erect,” when just a few minutes earlier Sam had been carrying him because he could barely move at all. 

Note that the Ring doesn’t clearly “cause” Gollum to misstep and fall into the lava. Gollum _does_ misstep and die, taking the Ring with him; he _does_ misstep because he’s gloating over the Ring; and he _does_ wrest the Ring from Frodo, setting Frodo’s “curse” into action. Is the Ring responsible for all this? It’s certainly wrapped up in all these events, which fit the malediction Frodo using the Ring pronounced upon Gollum. I’m inclined to agree with what Gandalf told Frodo, “there was more than one power at work,” but there’s room to say that it was “just chance…, if chance you call it,” as Bombadil told Frodo. 



BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> Sauron WOULD have won had it not been for Gollum, who took the Ring, only to fall prey to the Ring's own curse. Gollum had saved Frodo's life while Frodo's curse or whatever had caused Gollum's death. Frodo said that he would have given his entire hand to have saved Gollum but that it was too late.


Right. That’s what Gandalf suspected from the very beginning, and what Frodo told Sam immediately afterwards:


> Do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved…


By the way, I think it was Sam who said he’d have given his whole hand to prevent Frodo’s losing his finger. Neither of them regretted Gollum’s death, as far as I can tell.

Your Option B is _not_ what Sauron wanted. Had Gandalf or Saruman taken the Ring and defeated Sauron, in the same _Letter_ Tolkien says, “the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been destroyed, taken from him for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured.”

Option C was out of the question: the Valar would not permit the Ring to leave Middle-earth. Elrond says this in “The Council of Elrond.” (Sauron’s taking it to Númenor is not excluded: Númenor was the westernmost of mortal lands.)


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## BalrogRingDestroyer (Jul 24, 2018)

Was it actually confirmed that the Ring ever went to Numenor? I can't see that happening, to be honest. Al Phazron would have taken the Ring from him and used to try and rule Middle Earth himself. Also, even if Sauron somehow keep the Ring, I cannot see how the Ring would have avoided being sunk in the Great Sea.


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## Alcuin (Jul 24, 2018)

BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> Was it actually confirmed that the Ring ever went to Numenor? I can't see that happening, to be honest.


Yes, Sauron wore the Ring to Númenor when Ar-Pharazôn presumed he had taken him captive. Pharazôn’s taking Sauron to Númenor was pure presumption on his part. From _Letter_ 211, 


> Ar-Pharazôn, as is told in the “Downfall” or Akallabêth, conquered a terrified Sauron’s subjects, not Sauron. Sauron’s personal “surrender” was voluntary and cunning: he got free transport to Númenor! He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans.





BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> Al Phazron would have taken the Ring from him and used to try and rule Middle Earth himself.


In the very next sentence from the same passage, Tolkien wrote,


> I do not think Ar-Pharazôn knew anything about the One Ring. The Elves kept the matter of the Rings very secret, as long as they could. In any case Ar-Pharazôn was not in communication with them.


That “[t]he Elves kept the matter of the Rings very secret, as long as they could,” strongly suggests that even during the War of the Elves and Sauron in the middle of the Second Age, the Númenóreans were unaware of the cause of the conflict or of Sauron’s plot to control the Elves through the Rings of Power, even though they were Gil-galad’s allies. 



BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> Also, even if Sauron somehow keep the Ring, I cannot see how the Ring would have avoided being sunk in the Great Sea.


From the next paragraph of the aforementioned _Letter_ 211,


> Though reduced to “a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind”, I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring…


In other words his body had been destroyed, but not his spirit. Since he was a spiritual being, a fallen angel if you will (in Tolkien’s world a rebel Maia, or Umaia), he still remained and could rebuild a body. Until that time Sauron could present himself as physically very beautiful, but afterwards it took him a while to rebuild: about a century, even with the Ring; and he could no longer take on a beautiful form, but one more akin to a Balrog’s appearance. In this vein Tolkien continues:


> Sauron was, of course, “confounded” by the disaster, and diminished (having expended enormous energy in the corruption of Númenor). He needed time for his own bodily rehabilitation, and for gaining control over his former subjects. He was attacked by Gil-galad and Elendil before his new domination was fully established.


And while we’re on this subject, Tolkien writes in _Letter_ 200,


> [The Valar and Maiar] often took the form and likeness of [Elves and Men], especially after their appearance. …Sauron appeared in this shape. It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was “real”, that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructible like other physical organisms. But that of course did not destroy the spirit, nor dismiss it from the world to which it was bound until the end. After the battle with Gil-galad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Númenor (I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit, which might be called the “will” or the effective link between the indestructible mind and being and the realization of its imagination). The impossibility of re-building after the destruction of the Ring, is sufficiently clear “mythologically” in the present book.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jul 24, 2018)

That "not boggling" bit has always bothered me; I continue to boggle.

I don't think Tolkien was very comfortable with the notion. Just my impression.


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## Alcuin (Jul 24, 2018)

Bigger boggles bug us both, but iddy-biddy boggles bother better.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jul 24, 2018)

Not bugged, but boggled, by iddy-biddy Bugaloos.






Jeez, I Jumped for Joy!


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## Alcuin (Jul 24, 2018)

Oh, good gracious! I’ve not seen that before! Even I don’t remember that! (And when I went to school, we had to catch, slaughter, butcher, and cook our own mastodons in the thirty minutes we had for lunch, besides avoiding all the saber-tooth tigers.)

Wikipedia says that’s from Sid and Marty Krofft. I saw H.R. Pufnstuf live at Six Flags Atlanta before it was a television show, but not much more from them after that show ran out a few years later.


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## BalrogRingDestroyer (Jul 24, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> Yes, Sauron wore the Ring to Númenor when Ar-Pharazôn presumed he had taken him captive. Pharazôn’s taking Sauron to Númenor was pure presumption on his part. From _Letter_ 211,
> 
> 
> In the very next sentence from the same passage, Tolkien wrote, That “[t]he Elves kept the matter of the Rings very secret, as long as they could,” strongly suggests that even during the War of the Elves and Sauron in the middle of the Second Age, the Númenóreans were unaware of the cause of the conflict or of Sauron’s plot to control the Elves through the Rings of Power, even though they were Gil-galad’s allies.
> ...



The fact that the Elves DIDN'T tell anyone else about the Rings was the REASON that the Nazgul even existed. If they HAD, maybe Men would have been more wary to take Rings offered by Sauron (not that they should take stuff from him anyway.) Also, the dwarves could have been endangered too. It's lucky the dwarves were resistant or else Sauron could have subdued them and taken over Moria a lot sooner and even taken over Erebor and the Iron Hills. If that had happened, he'd have had Mithril at his disposal to arm his soldiers, not to mention he'd probably have been able to take Thrandil's realm, with Dol Guldor under his control to the Southeast and Erebor and the Iron Hills to the North. Plus, Lorien likely would have fallen (well, maybe not, as the Balrog is a wild card, but maybe if the dwarves were with Sauron, Sauron might have learned of it.)

Besides, the Elven Rings weren't like the others. It's not like a man or dwarf could steal them and use them for power to attack, control, or destroy. They were mainly used to preserve stuff and to keep out Sauron's goons.


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## Barliman (Aug 24, 2018)

Some good theories, but I think too much power is being given to The Ring.
There are theories presented in LoTR that seem to indicate The Ring had a power to cause events to it's advantage, slipping from Isildur's finger, Gollum losing it, Bilbo finding it, etc. Causing Gollum to fall in to the fires of Orodruin hardly fits the profile.

I never got the impression that The Ring did anything more on Mount Doom than desire for it finally overcame Frodo and he paused long enough for Gollum to arrive and then finally regaining it so excited Gollum that he didn't realize how close he was to the edge, and then just stepped over while dancing.

I'm not even sure Frodo's threat to Gollum that he'd fall in was as much foretelling as Saurman's comments about Frodo not healing.
I think it's just as, maybe more, likely that Frodo was trying to get Gollum to behave and using the greatest threat that he could think of.
More foreshadowing by Tolkien than foretelling by Frodo.

All that said, I suppose you could say it's own power caused it's destruction in the same sense that mobile phones' power cause their own destruction because they get destroyed when people fall off cliffs while taking selfies.


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## BalrogRingDestroyer (Aug 25, 2018)

Barliman said:


> Some good theories, but I think too much power is being given to The Ring.
> There are theories presented in LoTR that seem to indicate The Ring had a power to cause events to it's advantage, slipping from Isildur's finger, Gollum losing it, Bilbo finding it, etc. Causing Gollum to fall in to the fires of Orodruin hardly fits the profile.
> 
> I never got the impression that The Ring did anything more on Mount Doom than desire for it finally overcame Frodo and he paused long enough for Gollum to arrive and then finally regaining it so excited Gollum that he didn't realize how close he was to the edge, and then just stepped over while dancing.
> ...



What I meant was, the Ring enticed Frodo to use its power that last time, to get him under its control completely, so that he'd claim it, thus alerting Sauron to where he was. The scheme of the Ring would have worked, had Gollum not been there. 

What Sauron and the Ring never counted on was their own evil working against them. The Ring no doubt was glad to lure Frodo to Mordor (all the better for Sauron to find it rather than let someone else try and use it and fight Sauron with it.) I believe when it went toward Mount Doom, the Ring really fought hard to slow Frodo down as he climbed the mountain. I think he might have been beaten (and I don't think Sam could have taken it from him, as I think Frodo would have gotten new energy had he tried, determined to protect his Precious.) It was Gollum's attack that gave him new wind. He didn't want to lose the Ring. 

So he was enticed by the Ring to use its power one last time to doom Gollum to fall into Mount Doom if he tried to take the Ring again. Well, this corrupted Frodo enough that he failed at the edge of the Crack of Doom.

Sauron never figured on the kindness of Bilbo, Aragorn, Frodo, and finally Sam keeping Gollum alive. So Gollum came and took the Ring from Frodo, only to fall prey to the curse Frodo put on him. This curse, that the Ring meant to use to completely seduce Frodo, ended up destroying the Ring.


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## Alcuin (Aug 25, 2018)

BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> The fact that the Elves DIDN'T tell anyone else about the Rings was the REASON that the Nazgul even existed. If they HAD, maybe Men would have been more wary to take Rings offered by Sauron (not that they should take stuff from him anyway.)


The three Númenóreans would likely have avoided them – _if_ they were wise or wily enough to recognize Sauron in disguise. And that’s a big “if,” because at that time, Sauron could and did assume forms pleasing to Men and Elves: his disguise as Annatar deceived Celebrimbor and the Noldor of Eregion, for instance.



Barliman said:


> Some good theories, but I think too much power is being given to The Ring.
> There are theories presented in LoTR that seem to indicate The Ring had a power to cause events to it's advantage, slipping from Isildur's finger, Gollum losing it, Bilbo finding it, etc. Causing Gollum to fall in to the fires of Orodruin hardly fits the profile.
> 
> I never got the impression that The Ring did anything more on Mount Doom than desire for it finally overcame Frodo…


I don’t think the Ring is sentient. Perhaps that part of the discussion belongs in this thread or one of its own, but I think the Ring is, for want of a better term, very like a highly sophisticated machine or computer program or an artificial intelligence. I do not believe it was “alive”, that it had a sentience of its own. Much of Sauron’s personality was implanted on it, of course: you can tell a lot about a computer programmer from the kinds of routines he writes. And of course, Arthur C Clarke famously said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Well, this is malicious _magia_, but it can increasingly be described in terms we can recognize as newly-existing technology of a sort that would have astounded Tolkien. 

The Ring certainly overcame Frodo! He did not “fall” so much as he was simply mentally and psychologically and spiritually battered down by a superior intelligence and power, namely Sauron acting through the Ring. Later he felt guilty about it; and moreover, he was, I think, secretly resentful that his friends Sam, Merry, and Pippin were widely celebrated upon their return to the Shire, while he was mostly ignored. 

As for Bilbo’s and Frodo’s obtaining the Ring, Gandalf explains that adequately: “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker.” But as for Frodo’s supposed moral failure at Mount Doom, Tolkien wrote an extensive _Letter_ 181 in 1956 to Michael Straight, editor of the _New Republic_, in which he said (among other things):


> [T]he “catastrophe” exemplifies … the familiar words: “…Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” … [T]here are abnormal situations in which one may be placed. “Sacrificial” situations, … an individual in circumstances which demand of him suffering and endurance far beyond the normal … demand[ing] a strength of body and mind which he does not possess: he is … doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his “will”… Frodo was in such a position: an apparently complete trap: a person of greater native power could probably never have resisted the Ring’s lure to power so long; a person of less power could not hope to resist it in the final decision. … He “apostatized” – and I have had one savage letter, crying out that he [ should] have been executed as a traitor, not honoured.


He goes on to relate that the success of the Quest depended upon Bilbo’s, Frodo’s, and eventually even Sam’s pity towards Gollum: all three of the Hobbit Ringbearers must exhibit pity towards Sméagol the fallen Hobbit before the Quest can be achieved. (Interestingly, Tolkien does not list Sam as someone upon whose pity the success of the Quest depends, though his is the last and penultimate act of pity upon Sauron’s Road, a complete reversal of his actions when he berated Sméagol at the entrance to Torech Ungol, Shelob’s Lair.) 



BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> What I meant was, the Ring enticed Frodo to use its power that last time, to get him under its control completely, so that he'd claim it, thus alerting Sauron to where he was. The scheme of the Ring would have worked, had Gollum not been there.
> 
> What Sauron and the Ring never counted on was their own evil working against them.


I think there can be little doubt that Frodo deliberately and intentionally used the power of the Ruling Ring upon Gollum, who was particularly susceptible to it, even if that power was merely prophylactic or psychological. He recited Sauron’s Ring-verse the first time, “One Ring to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them.” I cannot see how anyone can doubt that Frodo – who has encountered the Nazgûl, Galadriel’s Mirror, Sauron’s eye in the Mirror, Galadriel’s instruction on using the Ring, and Sauron’s searching for him on Amon Hen – intended to summon the power of the Ring. And Sam’s “other vision” of him is, I believe, the author’s reinforcing that notion. Frodo was both patient and forgiving on that occasion. 

At Mount Doom, a similar situation holds: Frodo grabs the Ring through his shirt, using Sauron’s power within it without wearing it. Again Sam sees him with “other vision,” but this time Frodo is “stern, untouchable now by pity.” I think this is the point that Frodo begins to succumb at last to the Ring. The author subtly suggests this: Frodo’s subsequent actions suggest he is in a daze or trance, when just before Gollum’s attack he could barely walk:


> Frodo looked at [Sam] as if at one now far away. … He turned and went on, walking slowly but erect up the climbing path.





BalrogRingDestroyer said:


> Sauron never figured on the kindness of Bilbo, Aragorn, Frodo, and finally Sam keeping Gollum alive. So Gollum came and took the Ring from Frodo, only to fall prey to the curse Frodo put on him. This curse, that the Ring meant to use to completely seduce Frodo, ended up destroying the Ring.


Gandalf foresaw Sauron’s inability to understand the purposes of the Wise at the Council of Elrond


> [Sauron] is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.


And this proved true, for Tolkien says that when Frodo put on the Ring, Sauron was immediately aware of him and suddenly understood the purposes of his foes:


> The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare.





Barliman said:


> I'm not even sure Frodo's threat to Gollum that he'd fall in was as much foretelling as Saurman's comments about Frodo not healing.
> I think it's just as, maybe more, likely that Frodo was trying to get Gollum to behave and using the greatest threat that he could think of.
> More foreshadowing by Tolkien than foretelling by Frodo.
> 
> All that said, I suppose you could say it's own power caused it's destruction in the same sense that mobile phones' power cause their own destruction because they get destroyed when people fall off cliffs while taking selfies.


I agree in part and disagree in part, though my opinion is no better than yours. 

I agree that the Ring is a machine. On several occasions, Tolkien calls the Ring a machine. Machines are not morally responsible, but machines are morally reprehensible when their only purpose is to kill and maim. That morality is a reflection of its maker, not the device itself, but that does not make the machine more desirable or acceptable: such is the case with the Ring. 

But Frodo was not merely threatening Gollum, in my opinion. At the Black Gate, Frodo warned Gollum,


> In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious… If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command.


This is good description of what ultimately became of Gollum, and the “last need” was Gollum’s attack on Frodo to wrest the Ring from him at the entrance to the Chamber of Fire. 

Is it a curse, a malediction? is it fate? is it merely literary foreshadowing of coincidence? I don’t believe Tolkien intends anything as mere literary foreshadowing of coincidence: when the decision is taken to enter to Moria, Aragorn warns Gandalf that the wizard himself is in peril; at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead, Halbarad foresees that his own death lies beyond it. There is true foresight in Tolkien’s world. Is it fate? I suppose you could call it that: Tolkien suggests that Gollum would have leaped of his own volition to take the Ring into the Crack of Doom had he remained faithful to Frodo. (See _Letter_ 246.) It might be a curse or malediction, though it seems a mild one at worst: but I think it is enough to seal Gollum’s fate (to immediately revisit that word). 

I think Tolkien intended the scene at the Black Gate and Frodo’s words to Gollum outside the Chamber of Fire as foreshadowing; but I also think Tolkien’s foreshadowing is of a “higher” sort. “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker.”


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## BalrogRingDestroyer (Aug 27, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> The three Númenóreans would likely have avoided them – _if_ they were wise or wily enough to recognize Sauron in disguise. And that’s a big “if,” because at that time, Sauron could and did assume forms pleasing to Men and Elves: his disguise as Annatar deceived Celebrimbor and the Noldor of Eregion, for instance.
> 
> I don’t think the Ring is sentient. Perhaps that part of the discussion belongs in this thread or one of its own, but I think the Ring is, for want of a better term, very like a highly sophisticated machine or computer program or an artificial intelligence. I do not believe it was “alive”, that it had a sentience of its own. Much of Sauron’s personality was implanted on it, of course: you can tell a lot about a computer programmer from the kinds of routines he writes. And of course, Arthur C Clarke famously said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Well, this is malicious _magia_, but it can increasingly be described in terms we can recognize as newly-existing technology of a sort that would have astounded Tolkien.
> 
> ...



I can't see why, though, if he fell under the control of the Ring, why he didn't claim it right then and there after using its power that last time. If he had, he would NOT have been right near the Fire and the Nazgul would have killed the three of them and gotten the Ring and Sauron would have won.

I think that, though it says that Frodo was "untouchable by pity" or whatever, that he was NOT 100% under the control of the Ring at that moment, just empowered by its corrupting effects as they moved to totally subdue him.

Besides, right in the heart of the Mountain above the Fire, the power of Sauron was said to be the strongest, so that the Ring would bring him there makes sense in that that would be the best way to subdue him totally once and for all and have him claim the Ring right there, unwilling to destroy it. 

I am a bit surprised that Gollum was able to find the right finger with the Ring (he had 9 others to choose from) and Frodo was totally invisible. One wrong bite and Frodo, still invisible, could easily strangle him to death with the other nine fingers, or even push him into the fire in a rage.


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