Another LOTR thread: Opinions on the end of the book. (MAJOR spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I’m curious to know what others think about what happened at the end of The Return of the King, so if you’ve not read it yet, or don’t plan on reading it, or are waiting for the movies, stop reading now.

My husband and I have a debate going on about whether or not Frodo’s actions at the end of the book can be construed as failure. After all he and Sam went through to get to Mount Doom, in the end it was sheer accident that destroyed the ring. Or was it an accident at all? Gandalf states early on that his heart tells him Gollum still has some part to play, for good or ill, and that there were other forces at work in the world besides evil ones. Sam later muses that he and Frodo are simply new characters in an ongoing tale. Is this, then, simply Fate at work, or the continuation of the song of the Valar described at the beginning of the Silmarillion? Would Samwise have been able to just march up and chuck the Ring on in with no hesitation, if he had been in Frodo’s place? If Gollum hadn’t attacked and bitten off Frodo’s finger, would Frodo have been able to eventually regain control of himself?

Opinions, remarks, musings, theories?

2

IMHO Frodo failed in his mission at the last moment. The power of the ring overcame him, but luckily fate intervened. Basically a traditional deus ex machina conclusion to an impossible quest.

3

It was most definately not a Deus Ex Machina. Tolkein quite clearly set it up from the get go. I didn’t know what form it would take wheh I first read “the Fellowship”, but I see now that the big T laid hints all the merry way to Mordor.

Frodo couldn’t do it, but Gollum could. Such is the power of the Ring. Say not that Frodo failed, but rather that he, in the midst of the Enemy’s greatest power, could not win against the Will of the Ring. Gollum hated the Ring, though, as much as he needed it. Where Frodo was weakened, Gollum was strengthened by need and anger. Gollum won some measure of repentance, at least, by ending his life with the Ring.

Now some are going to take issue with my interpretation, but I think that Gollum, however twisted, wanted to destroy the Ring, though he could admit it to no one, not even himself. He needed the Ring, like an addiciton. But, he didn’t like his own version of Crack, right? He may not have been able to purposefully throw himself down Mount Doom, but he could dance on the edge of an active volcano.

4

Frodo failed at the end. His true success was in the pity and mercy he showed to Gollum earlier in the journey. That allowed Gollum to play his part in the quest. And certainly it was all part and parcel of the Valar’s counterattack, though everything stood on the edge of a knife the entire time.

Personally, I think Gollum fell in by sheer accident (though, of course, there ARE no accidents in this story…), rather than by some subconscious desire to destroy the ring (though he did, in fact, hate it as much as he lusted after it).

5

A valid interpretation, certainly, and Tolkien definitely set up Frodo loosing out to the Ring and the Gollum ending the whole way through. I prefer to think of it as Sauron’s best laid plans suddenly turned to bite him in the ass. He made the Ring to be covetted. He set Gollum loose to get to it. Gollum got to it, all right, just at the exact wrong moment.

6

To be fair, Frodo was always called the Ringbearer, not the Ringdestroyer.

It’s been a while since I’ve read RotK, so this may be off, but didn’t Gollum show up just as Frodo was getting hit full force with desire for the Ring? He was doing all right holding his own against it, but when time came to toss it in, the Ring hit him with everything it had and he couldn’t do it until Gollum showed up and took it away from him. Didn’t he come to when his finger was bitten off? Eh, I’m going to find the book and check on that.

7

Also, as they’re slogging up the Mountain, and Gollum made his penultimate attack against Frodo, Frodo said something like “If you touch me again, you will be cast into the flame”. Of course, the Ring put some bite behind that curse. So at the top, there was pretty much no other way it could have gone: The Ring forced Frodo to try to claim it. Upon Gollum seing this, the Ring, in turn, forced him to try to take it. And him having taken it, the Ring forced him to fall into the Crack. Oops.

8

I think Chronos has it, up until that very last part. There’s no way the Ring would have forced itself into the fire. I think the Ring was just forcing Frodo and Gollum into a little Smeagal Shuffle, in order to get Sauron’s attention. Unfortunately for the Ring, they hadn’t been practicing their dance moves, and Gollum made the slight error of falling into the hottest, most foul fire in Middle Earth. Oops!

9

I still maintain that since Gollum fell by accident (the hand of fate, etc.) that makes it a deus ex machina. If Gollum had willingly thrown himself into Mt. Doom it would be different. But he fell. And there’s No WAY the ring would have cast itself into Mt. Doom. That just doesn’t make any sense.

When forces outside the control of the main characters intervene to bring the story to a needed conclusion, its a deus ex machina ending. IMHO, of course.

10

I disagree. Deus ex machina is completely unexpected, ridiculously contrived, and out of context. While Gollum’s slip was unexpectedly clumsy, it was not contrived nor out of context. Gollum’s fate was sealed on Sauron’s Road, foreseen by no other than the Ring itself.

11

I’ve said before that the Ring is malicious, but not intelligent. Hence, it put power behind Frodo’s curse of Gollum: Curses are malicious. But it wasn’t able to look at the consequences of that act of malice, one of which was that when Gollum was destroyed, he took It with him.

The Ring forced Gollum into the fire because it wanted Gollum destroyed, not because it wanted to be destroyed itself.

12

Tolkien addressed some of these in his letter #246, IIRC. (If you haven’t read his letters yet, you must.)

Frodo claiming the Ring was a failure in a sense, even though it’s hard to imagine anyone acting differently. This was part of what weighed on his mind and caused his illnesses in his final months in the Shire on anniversaries of significant events.

I agree with toadspittle and others with similar opinions. Gollum was needed to finish the quest. Pity and mercy stayed Bilbo’s hand in “The Hobbit”, Frodo asked Faramir not to kill Gollum, Sam let him go at the foot of Mount Doom - all of these choices saved the quest. If Sam had not reacted suspiciously and angrily when Gollum approached Frodo at the end of the chapter, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol”, this is what Tolkien thought would have happened: Gollum would have been saved from his darker side, the focus of the story would have shifted to him, and at the end he would have thrown himself with the Ring into the fire voluntarily.

13

I’ll second (or third) toadspittle’s comments.
In one way yes, Frodo failed, but I think his was the greatest victory.

Throughout LotR, we hear from Gandalf and others, that mercy, pitty, and compassion are the correct actions in all cases. We also hear in many ways, “succoming to the ways of the enemy makes one no better than the enemy.”

Frodo lived by this rule, and only by doing so was he able to accomplish his task. I see Gollum’s existance at the end of the book as a direct result of Frodo and the “forces of good” having struggled and struggled to maintain their own personal set of ethics. The war of the ring was won not by armies (well, they certainly helped), but by each individual maintaining his moral stance when faced with tough choices.

Frodo cannot throw the ring in, but who could have expected him to? His was a hopeless quest from the get-go, and his actions leading up to his arrival at Mt Doom are what enabled the quest to be completed.

14

Food for thought, and lots of it. I love it.

I don’t think the Ring was actively forcing Gollum and Frodo to battle at the edge of the pit. I got the impression that it was putting all its will into making Frodo put it on, probably with the aim of either forcing Frodo to turn around and go back to Barad-Dur with it, or of drawing Sauron’s attention (or the Nazgul’s) to Mount Doom. I thought Gollum was a wild card who Sauron in his arrogance failed to anticipate, but who the forces of good suspected may be a part of the fate of the Ring.

And I still maintain that Samwise would have just walked right up, tossed the Ring in, and then started planning dinner. But then, I’m a pervy Samwise fancier. :smiley:

15

Remember that the hand of the Divine (Eru) was felt to be involved in this whole thing, by Gandalf. Frodo was doomed to fail, utterly without hope of prevailing over the power of the ring and the renegade Maiar. But because of his actions; his selflessly taking on the task, & his pity towards Smeagol, he became an agent for the Divine, and created circumstances in which the ring could be destroyed without destroying Frodo’s very soul (which is what would have happened if he had managed to cast it into the fire himself). IMHO, after reading greater than 95% of JRRT’s published works on Middle-Earth.

16

You say that like it’s a BAD thing. :smiley:

Building on Qagdop’s post: All of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth stuff has very strong deus ex machina elements to it. The simplest to point out is the Eagles (that continually pluck Gandalf from trees/towers/mountains, drop in to turn the tide of battles, pick up fallen heroes at the gates of Angband, etc. etc.). They actually ARE from a divine source, being sent by Manwe. Then there’s Gandalf–I mean, he’s an angel, as it were, and is brought back from the dead, and sent back with more ass-kicking power than before. Basically, you have the divine powers stepping in and changing the rules of the game. So Gollum falling into the fire is only the latest of these, and–as has been pointed out–the groundwork for this is well-established.

Personally, I would call it a surprise plot twist rather than deus ex machina. If you feel it’s a CHEAP ending, well … can’t do nothing for you there.

17

rowrrbazzle or anyone else with a copy of the Letters at hand: Tolkien directly addresses the question of Frodo’s putative failure in one letter (#246?) in a context that speaks quite a lot of the metaphysic behind his invention of Middle Earth, and it would be wonderful if someone typed off what the author himself had to say about it here.

18

TheOneRing.net’s answer to this question.

The only other thing this thread is missing is some pedant C&P’ing the dictionary definition of “deus ex machina”.

19

It is not for nothing that this thing is called The Crack of Doom.

Over and over again in the universe of Tolkien the creation of objects which reach beyond the inherent stature of the maker is an act of classic hubris, and begets the final doom of the creator, and every other agent involved with the object. The Silmarils create the Doom of the Noldor, and entire race is driven by its power, and everyone who touches them is either killed, or maimed, or both, with the exception of Earendil, who leaves the confines of the world forever, a fairly exotic doom itself.

The one ring is the same, on a slightly lesser scale. Sauron created this doom, when he made the ring, seeking for power beyond his inherent stature. In the creation of an object for dominion over others, he must give his own power into the ring, and thereby creates his own bane, in a classic act of mythic hubris. Every other creature that touches the ring is likewise ensnared by that doom, except those who reject it utterly, or even more to the point, reject the concept of power utterly. Frodo is tempted by the ring, resists, yet ultimately succumbs, and although his life is spared, he is maimed physically, and wounded spiritually. He can no longer be the same joy filled, and peacefully happy person he was, so long ago. So great is the wound that the unprecedented reward is granted to him to pass into the west, to the unstained land of beauty that is Aman.

Gollum is but another victim of the doom of the ring, and of his own greed for power. His stature is much less than that of the other bearers of the ring, but inherent in it is the origin of his strength of character, that of a hobbit. Now, pitifully shrunken by his life with, and without the ring, he plays his part, doomed by his original crime of murder and theft for possession of the ring.

But the forces, which drive the doom of the ring, work most strongly against its maker, Sauron. It is his hubris that initiated this great doom, and against him it works most relentlessly. He is first crippled as it is taken from him. He is then driven into secrecy, and becomes an indirect agent of power because of its loss. He must forgo all plans until it is found, and in the end its own relentless power of corruption over those who deal with it is the implicit cause of Sauron’s destruction. Sauron made less of himself in order to create the mechanism to make himself greater. This is the cause of his own end. He makes himself vulnerable to the power of the ring, and dependent upon it as well. The simple fact of its existence is a chink in his armor. The nature of the ring is beyond even his stature, after he has given his own power into it.

To Tolkien, this hubris of mechanism is a recurrent and powerful theme. The rings of the elves are the same, making them subject to the one, for all that they intend to do no evil on their own. The Nazgul fall into bondage of their very souls because they seek power from a device, from an artifact of a power beyond their own inherent stature. The rings they receive do not control the dwarves, but the use of them still draws to the wearers the consequences of magically obtained wealth and power. Dragons and armies despoil their kingdoms, and leave them homeless, or dead. It is the nature of things, in Tolkien’s world that those who are wise remain within the boundaries of their nature.

It is the great strength and power of Bombadil, that he will not stray from his own land, or his own station in life. The ring has no power over him, nor do barrow wights, or ghosts, or any other thing of evil, and that same nature is reflected in one, and only one of the bearers of the ring. Sam Gamgee is not drawn to the power of the ring. He takes it up only out of necessity, and gives it up more willingly than any other. I too believe that if the redemption of Gollum had occurred, it would have fallen to Sam to take the ring from Frodo, and cast it into the fire. I think he was up to it, although the guilt over the wound that forceful act would have done to Frodo would have lain in his heart forever after. Gollum ends up saving Sam personally, as much as the world at large, when he falls into the Crack of Doom.

Doom.

That which is forordained and inescapable. Crack of Doom. The ring headed for this from the very moment it was made here. Everyone who carried it was part of that Doom. It may seem to be deus ex machine, and perhaps it is, strictly speaking. However it is a very common theme in mythology, and a powerful method of revealing ones fundamental philosophical point.

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards. Leave the magic ring on the floor. Don’t open the bottle, or the box. Of course you will do as your nature compels you, and the result is your doom. But please, don’t whine about the way things turned out, you made your choice, when you stepped through the door of the wardrobe.

Tris

“Oh, by the way, don’t fuck with the lion.” ~ Odius, the Firemage ~

20

"But please, don’t whine about the way things turned out, you made your choice, when you stepped through the door of the wardrobe. "

People “whine” anyway. They don’t often see things coming or figure that it won’t happen to them.

Personally, I prefer the moral of the “Ambitious Violet” by Kahlil Gibron. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, I personally don’t believe Frodo failed in his quest because the way I see it, the Ring was destroyed. It shouldn’t matter who did it, but I know that people here wouldn’t quite agree with that. :smiley: