Slight hijack: I find it intriguing that Tolkien created a character in Sam that he was not overly fond of, but is so beloved by so many readers–and in fact was the first character to spring to the minds of many in answer to the question.
I, too, thought of Sam initially. Wasn’t he the only possessor of the Ring to ever voluntarily give it up? I guess an arguement can be made for Bilbo, but he was pretty intimidated by Gandalf.
I have a hard time believing that Smeagol could ever part with it–with all due respect to the Professor.
Tolkien never suggested in the letter that Smeagol could’ve parted with the Ring at that moment. Rather he seems to think that, in his desperation to both keep it and do good for his master, he would’ve willingly thrown himself into the fire along with the device of his torment.
On the eagles: Since the Council never discusses that possibility, we can’t know why they didn’t choose it. But three thoughts not discussed in the essay cited by Ino:
(1) The Council just didn’t think of it. They thought of lots of plans, they had lots of rejected ideas, the eagles just didn’t occur to them. They were wise but not all-wise.
(2) The essay discusses that an eagle flying into Mordor would be spotted. The Eye of Sauron watches all of his realm, but some places more than others. Two little hobbits can sneak in (even then, through tunnels) but a great large eagle in the sky would be pretty noticable. What might Sauron do if he saw it? The essay by Cristo suggests there wouldn’t be anything he could do, but I think that’s pretty naive. We never saw Sauron use lightning bolts to strike something out of the sky, but we don’t know that he couldn’t – especially not near the Dark Tower.
However, my favorite rejections of the Flying Eagle Drop The Ring:
(3) What if they miss? They’re trying to drop a tiny little ring into a great hot crevice. There are air currents pushing upwards, there are strong winds (that was clear in the movie), and the ring itself has its own will that would doubtless allow it to be carried by the wind currents. They needn’t miss by much – but if they miss, then they’ve basically delivered the ring to Sauron, who can recover it while they can’t.
(4) It was clear in the movie, but I always thought it was clear in the books: the palce to drop the ring is NOT just into the mouth of the volcano, but into the Cracks of Doom and the very fires in which the ring was forged. They can’t search Middle Earth for any old volcano; it’s not just the heat of lava that destroys the ring, it’s this particular spot of and this particular heat. The Cracks of Doom are only reachable from an inner chamber, carved into the side of the mountain. The eagles cannot fly into it (the opening is too small). So, basically, the eagles can’t get to the right spot.
Now, why couldn’t the eagles fly Frodo to the door of the Cracks of Doom and let him go in and drop off the ring, that’s a different story. And for that, I go back to the risks of interception being too great.
In short, it may be a “plot hole” that the Council didn’t discuss it – or, put more correctly, that readers were not told of any such discussion. But I think that they would have rejected it for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
He had the ring in his possession for 50 years and still surrendered it willingly to Frodo.
It’s a pity that Gadalf didn’t figure out what the ring was earlier … a younger Bilbo would have enjoyed another jolly jaunt off into the wilderness… .
You mean the ring wasn’t created in some farcical volcanic ceremony? You mean Sauron can’t expect to rule just because some, uhhhhh… lava-covered tart threw a ring at him? I mean, we’d be in a pretty pickle if some dark lord destroyed Middle Earth every time some molten bint lobbed a finger-circlet at them…
So the approach will not be easy. They will be required to maneuver straight down this valley and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It’s a small fissure, right below the crater. The shaft leads directly to the fires of Mount Doom. A precise hit will cause the ring to fall into the molten rock, which should destroy the ring.
Only a precise hit will set off the reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you’ll have to use hobbits released in a ballistic arc.
slight hijack on this, but regarding the eagles, it can be safely argued that as a people which have NO experience with air travel, the thought of going on eagle express ™ wouldn’t have occured to them as an option.
Taking Gandalf’s escape at face value, they woulda thought “Wow… lucky” but to jump from that to: “Hey maybe we can hitch a ride with them” would be a pretty steep jump for a people with no airplanes.
Sorry for the hijack. We now return to your regularly scheduled thread.
It’s interesting to me that mercy and grace are so central to Tolkein’s thinking. Last week when we were watching RotK, I mentioned to my husband that it was kind of cool that in a way, the triumph of evil was the downfall of evil.
In other words, it isn’t a Very Special Episode where Gollum is redeemed by Frodo’s mercy, and thus voluntarily aids the cause of good. Instead, his utter contamination by the ring’s evil gives him the will to follow the hobbits, best them, and win back the ring. Then his snarky little victory dance accidentally saves the world. I found it refreshingly cynical.
To quote Steve Wright: “Someone who goes around calling himself “Gwaihir, the Wind Lord” is exactly the kind of person who might use the ring, just for a bit, to sort things out, you know.”
We need a thread that makes people pick and defend a single theme as the main theme of LOTR (if we’ve had one, I’ve missed it). I think the main theme might well be the actions of the small mattering as much as the actions of the great–not illustrated by eagles, as it happens.
This is a very traditional Christian idea, that Adam’s fall was actually a good thing because it made it necessary for Christ to redeem man, which was more glorious than the fall was bad. “O necessary fault, O happy sin of Adam.”
And what if Frodo falls off along the way? The sight of a Giant Eagle carrying a dead Frodo back to Rivendell, in it’s large talons is too horrific to think about. :eek:
Still, I just love the image of Frodo riding on the back of Gwaihir, hair flowing in the wind, flanked by an armada of fellow eagles. Many fierce air battles ensue along the way, many eagles and winged nazgul perish. A battered and tired Gwaihir and Frodo make it to Mount Doom, only to find Sauron waiting for them. A valiant Gwaihir somehow manages to dodge all of Sauron’s attacks. Just as Gwaihir reaches the top of Mount Doom, he is hit by a powerful ball of fire, but is able to release Frodo at the exact right moment. As Frodo falls, he clutches the One Ring and yells out, “For Gandalf! For Aragorn!! For Bilbo!!!”, as he dives to his, and the ring’s, death.
How on earth can you say that? It’s obviously disproved by Sam’s decision to go on with the quest after he thinks Shelob has killed Frodo.
For one thing, Gollum couldn’t hurt Sauron, but he could hurt Frodo and Sam. Further, although Sam wanted to kill Gollum, he did not. Not much mercy, perhaps, but just enough to save the quest.
Sam was incapable of receiving Grace? For heaven’s sake, even Gollum received grace (temporarily) in feeling gratitude towards Frodo.
As Tolkien said, the overriding theme of LOTR is the importance of ordinary, flawed people, Sam being one of them. Your absolute condemnation of him is utterly baffling and unjustified, and I don’t think Tolkien would agree with you.
Okay, so “immediately” was a poor choice of words. But everything else I stand by. I’ll also mention that without Sam’s constant torture of Gollum, the incident with Shelob never would have happened.
Sam only spared Gollum because his master commanded him not to. Sam was arrogant and selfish the rest of the time where Gollum was concerned.
What element of mercy did Samwise offer to receive it? What aspect of Sam was worthy of absolute pity? Of *course * Gollum received grace - look at what he overcame! Centuries of misery and unending pain. Absolute rejection by all he used to hold dear. And then after finally encountering someone willing to befriend him, willing to lift him out of that despair, he’s shoved back down by someone who’s jealous of that mercy, simply because he’s not willing to share his own friendship with Frodo. Sam exhibits the emotional maturity of a 2nd grader in this regard.
Now, I’m not saying what Sam did was easy, or not worth praise. But in no way is he worthy of the accolades he typically gets around here. Many places along the path, Sam became one of Frodo’s biggest obstacles. Gollum’s grace was a result of bearing a terrible burden - Sam never bore such. His ability to temporarily wield the Ring and give it up is more an accomplishment of his absolute dedication to his master, rather than any inherent nobleness or stoutworthiness. No, what many adore about Sam is what people should lamant - “that quality which even some hobbits found at times hard to bear: a vulgarity - by which I do not mean a mere ‘down-to-earthiness’ - a mental myopia which is proud of itself, a smugness (in varying degrees) and cocksureness, and a readiness to measure and sum up all things from a limited experience, largely enshrined in sententious traditional ‘wisdom’”.
I don’t believe the linked letter suggests that is the overriding theme at all.
And again, I’m not absolutely condemning Samwise - just cutting him down to a more appropriate level. Without Frodo or Smeagol, the quest would have absolutely failed. Without Sam, the quest still would probably still have been accomplished.
I’ve argued before, that this is one of Tolkien’s major points. It’s also a question of the nature of evil – we are expecting an encounter with a magnificent evil Power and we find that the true nature of evil is instead a petty, nasssty, greedy creature.
Note that the same thing happens to Saruman, at least in the books – at his end, he’s a petty, nassty, greedy, vengeful little thing.
It’s Tolkien’s way of saying that evil may appear attractive, powerful, dominant, but that at heart it’s really just greed and pettiness… and that evil carries with it, its own destruction.
I can’t say that I agree with you on that. There’s no way of knowing whether or not Frodo might have been able to tackle Gollum on his own in their first encounter - he might have found himself being throttled by Gollum just as Sam was, and at that point in the story, Gollum would have killed Frodo in a heartbeat. Furthermore, while I think Sam’s treatment of Smeagol certainly played a part in Smeagol’s eventual betrayal, Frodo’s supposed “betrayal” (by leading Smeagol into Faramir’s trap) probably did more. Sam had begun to forgive Smeagol at that point, and was offering some sort of truce, clumsy as it was. Had they not encountered Faramir at that point, there might have been a reconciliation between the two. It seems to me that Smeagol wasn’t truly set on his path until Frodo handed him to Faramir. After that, all kindnesses were futile.
Think of it from Sam’s perspective for a moment. From the time he first heard of Gollum, he heard of murder in the dark, lies, and treachery. He knew that Gollum had betrayed the whereabouts of the Ring to Sauron, and he knew that Gollum had later escaped the elves by colluding with orcs. Most importantly, he knew that Gollum had once possessed the Ring and would do anything to get it back. To Sam, his mission is to guard Frodo until they’re either safe or dead. To expect him to suddenly learn to trust an enemy is like expecting pigs to fly.
It’s different for Frodo. Frodo has the Ring. He has the power, and he knows it. Furthermore, possessing the Ring gives him an insight into Smeagol’s mind that Sam could never have. It’s no wonder that Frodo is the one to forgive - he’s the one with the leisure and the ability to do so. Sam is the bodyguard - it’s his business to be suspicious of all and sundry. Frodo, protected, can afford to be more gentle.
Lastly, I have to wonder how you can say that Sam is “incapable of Mercy, and therefore, incapable of receiving Grace,” or that Sam wants to kill Smeagol “from the start.” Sam wants to protect Frodo, and Gollum to him presents an enormous danger. Sam certainly wants to get away from Gollum, and would kill him if it were necessary (which it most certainly would be), but that doesn’t mean he wants to do it. It just means he’s prepared to do it, which is not the same thing. Furthermore, as their journey progresses, Sam does attempt to show a little mercy towards Smeagol (though it may well be too late for that). And he must have been given some amount of Grace, or he would not have been allowed to sail into the West and find his master once more.
I don’t think the Ring could have been destroyed without Sam. Once they were at the Cracks of Doom, it took Frodo’s mercy and Smeagol’s sacrifice to finish the job, but I don’t believe they would have made it without Sam’s boundless devotion and plain solid stubborness. Frodo might have faltered, and Smeagol might have been tempted one time too many, but Sam was too stupid to quit, and that’s what got them all the way there.
Besides, I can’t imagine Tolkien would have left Sam in there for the entire journey if he was useless. He’d have sent Sam to the Ents with Merry and Pippin or something.
I’d be interested to hear your reasons for considering Treebeard. How do you propose an incredibly slow, large and easily noticeable, walking piece of firewood make his way into the heart of a volcano?
wouldn’t have occured to them as an option.