Turn on your teleporter pad, damn it. Also, what toppings do you want? I myself favor the brownie with three scoops of chocolate on top, with chocolate syup on THAT, and Oreo sprinkles on THAT. It’s called a heart attack sundae.
My love for Thor has never approached my love for Pallas Athena, 'tis true. But he’s THOR. God of thunder, lord of lightning, master of the storm, bringer of fertility to beast and field, champion of the common man, slayer of giants. It is impossible for me not to love THAT.
Doc, do you see this as an direct exercise of power, as in the Downfall? Or a subtle manipulation of circumstances acting strictly through natural law?
This thread is obviously about the book, not the movies. But it’s worth mentioning that the friend who introduced me to Tolkien 10 years ago opines that the one time Eru intervenes directly in Jackson’s work is when the great big honking rock falls on the bridge of Khazad-dum at exactly the right spot & moment to send Frodo and Aragorn forward.
It’s kind of contradicting what I wrote in the post above this one, but I’m not sure that there is any sense differentiating “magic” and “physics” when we’re talking about Eru. He’s outside the system in a way even the Valar are not.
Simple clumsiness. I reject direct intervention because Eru doesn’t work that way…the paramount moral imperative for Arda is Free Will. Tolkien hammers at that anvil again and again and again in LOTR and the Sil. Eru (and by extension, his servants the Valar and Maiar) do not force events. The only exceptions I can think of were catastrophic (or eucatastrophic) ones like the Battle of the Powers and the Changing of the World. By the time of the War of the Ring, the Ainur were out of the loop, the Music they knew having ended a while before. So the only one who was going to act at all was Eru, and he appears not to have done so.
I should qualify my answer. The binding oath here was that if Gollum ever laid hands on Frodo again, he would be cast into the fire. It would still have been possible (extremely difficult, I’m sure, but possible) for Gollum to have resisted the pull of the Ring and not laid hands on Frodo, and thereby escape his fate. That’s where free will had the opportunity.
More the latter. It was contained within The Music from the moment of its utterance. An example of of the Third Theme taking up Melkor’s most triumphant notes and making them its own.
Eru’s intervention was what was already written into the music. Every player simultaneously had free will, and was predestined to do what they did. Gollum is no exception.
You wouldn’t think the ring played a role, since it has a built-in desire for self-protection. The ring very much did not want to die, but, in it’s last throws, not only finished the corruption of Frodo, but strengthened Gollum’s desire to take it. But it could not overcome nature itself (i.e Gollum’s momentum). It effectively no longer had the power to save itself. Not only because of the Fellowship’s willingness to do what needed be done, but because of Eru himself.
He finally got the ring back. He was understandably excited and leaping for joy. He was standing on the edge of a big damn lava chamber. Seems pretty simple to me. It’s been years since I read the book, but I thought the movie pretty much captured what the book said about how it all went down.
I like that. The Ring’s very power led to its own destruction; its power over Gollum was so great that getting it back caused him to basically lose consciousness of everything except the fact that he had the Ring – including the fact that he was at the edge of a cliff. Gollum was a lot of things, but he was NOT clumsy. (Remember he could practically climb down a sheer cliff headfirst.) If it had not been for this overwhelming ecstasy produced by the Ring, no way would he ever have done something like that.
No, but at that point he was exhausted, weakened, starved, and somewhat beat up from his recent fight with Sam. And I’m sure those noxious fumes of Orodruin weren’t doing him any good either.
If the ring wanted to destroy Gollum for oath breaking, I would think it would have tried to do so by getting to Sauron, rather than cause its own destruction.
I’m not sure how conscious the Ring was, but it certainly wasn’t sapient in the sense that humans were. I don’t think Sauron ever wrote any explicit “do not allow yourself to be destroyed” instructions into its magical programming, for he never foresaw that anyone but him would wear it, and he never believed anyone could have the will to try to destroy it. (Well, no Man, Dwarf, or Elf, that is. I’m sure Aule could have picked it up and tossed it aside without a thought.) Forced to guess, I’d say the Ring had begun to accept Frodo as a valid user, and had long since abandoned Gollum and written him off. Thus when Frodo issued his curself, the Ring carried it through without, ah, “thinking.”
Yes, that’s true. However, the idea that the Ring’s power caused him to slip is still the most satisfying to me, in terms of what I perceive to be Tolkien’s fundamental concept, which I would express thus: Eru foreordained that all would end well, but this would be achieved only through individuals making choices that were virtuous, selfless, and heroic (according to their abilities). All the main characters, at one point or another, faced temptation and either resisted it or repented with virtuous action – even Gollum showed a trace of this along the way. The result was that the ring was brought to the Crack of Doom, with Gollum present. At that point Frodo made the choice to keep the Ring (not a virtuous choice, but any other choice was far beyond his ability), and Gollum was there to play his role – take the Ring, be blinded by its power, and fall.
But there’s that scene where he gets all up in Frodo’s grill right before Frodo goes into the lava chamber. Gollum is all: “Don’t you do it, don’t you harm the precious, I’ll take it from here!” And Frodo somehow finds the energy and strength to beat him back (attributes I contend were conferred upon him by the ring, on account of he was the Ring-Bearer when Smeagol swore his oath). And then the terrible voice seemed* to come out of the Ring itself, saying (paraphrased) BEGONE, AND TROUBLE ME NO MORE! IF YOU TOUCH ME AGAIN, YOU SHALL YOURSELF BE CAST INTO THE CRACKS OF DOOM [or THE FIRE, I’m not sure which, and I said I was paraphrasing anyway].
Then Frodo heads for the lava chamber, and Sam is all “All RIGHT! Now I get to kill you!” and Gollum is all “Poor me, don’t kill me, I’m gonna die anyway when the precious is destroyed.” And Sam is all “Oh. Okay. But go away!” And Gollum goes away, and Sam turns his back on him, and he sneaks up on Sam and cold-cocks him, then goes after Frodo.
And then he touches the Ring again, and, sure enough he’s cast into the fire. While holding the Ring, which I don’t think the Ring had actually been anticipating.
*Yes, I know it said “seemed.” But as Kimstu makes plain, there’s nothing particularly troubling about supernatural stuff happening in the story.
