# Lord of the Rings movie trilogy question. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 6, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562 "2017-03-06T18:28:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/41 "2017-03-07T23:46:38Z")
You know what they say, that when the Ainur battle, it is the oliphaunts that suffer. Well, something like that, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/42 "2017-03-08T01:22:21Z")
> [@Dante\_G](#): > > I’ve heard online that some consider Sam more of a hero then Frodo because he demonstrates an easiness in giving the ring back to Frodo in Return of the King. It demonstrates that he has no desire at all for the power the Ring can give, no matter how much influence the Ring can push on him. > > Would you guys agree? Tolkien himself said that Sam was the real hero of the story. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/43 "2017-03-08T03:27:03Z")
Well Tom Bombadil also handed it right back, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole… Brian ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/44 "2017-03-08T03:47:45Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > Well Tom Bombadil also handed it right back, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole… > > Brian One of my (very few) complaints with the books is that the number of people undone by the Ring isn’t much longer than the number of people who had the Ring and it away, or tried to. People who were doomed by the Ring: Isildur, Smeagol, Deagol, Boromir, Frodo (nearly) People who held the Ring, and gave it away: Bilbo, Tom Bombadil, Sam, Frodo (four times!) For something that’s supposed to be a source of irresistable corruption, it’s only batting about 50/50. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/45 "2017-03-08T04:51:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > For something that’s supposed to be a source of irresistable corruption, it’s only batting about 50/50. But if you take out hobbits, who are supposed to be especially resistant, and whatever-the-hell Bombadil was, it was 100%. Even near-hobbits like Deagol and Smeagol were corrupted. Hobbits being resistant was the whole point of Frodo taking it in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/46 "2017-03-08T04:58:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > People who held the Ring, and gave it away: Bilbo, Tom Bombadil, Sam, Frodo (four times!) > > For something that’s supposed to be a source of irresistable corruption, it’s only batting about 50/50. To be fair, three of those four are hobbits, who have an innate tendency to be Ring-resistant. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/47 "2017-03-08T05:11:39Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > But if you take out hobbits, who are supposed to be especially resistant, and whatever-the-hell Bombadil was, it was 100%. Even near-hobbits like Deagol and Smeagol were corrupted. > > Hobbits being resistant was the whole point of Frodo taking it in the first place. If you discount all the people it didn’t work on, it’s 100% successful? :dubious: 😃 Nah, I get what you’re saying - it’s meant to be remarkable that these characters are resistant to the Ring. But it’s a problem with the narrative that so many of the characters who are exposed to the Ring happen to be these special cases. It’s a bit like the Whorf effect - there are so many characters who are meant to be remarkable because they’re resistant to the Ring, that being resistant to the Ring stops being all that remarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/48 "2017-03-08T05:14:47Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Question: Do the Nazgul’s flying mounts have a name? Tolkien never refers to them by a specific name. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/49 "2017-03-08T05:31:58Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Nah, I get what you’re saying - it’s meant to be remarkable that these characters are resistant to the Ring. But it’s a problem with the narrative that so many of the characters who are exposed to the Ring happen to be these special cases. It’s a bit like the Whorf effect - there are so many characters who are meant to be remarkable because they’re resistant to the Ring, that being resistant to the Ring stops being all that remarkable. No, you have that backwards. The hobbits mostly only had the opportunity to be exposed to the ring _because hobbits are resistant._ Except for Bilbo, they weren’t exposed to it by chance. If Bilbo hadn’t been resistant, he would have ended up like Gollum and Frodo never would have received the ring. Likewise, if Frodo hadn’t been resistant he would have succumbed long before Gandalf figured out what it was, and Sam would never have had the chance to carry it. It’s not that they are remarkable because they are resistant; Frodo and Sam only have the opportunity to be exposed to the ring at all because hobbits are resistant. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/50 "2017-03-08T09:10:12Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Question: Do the Nazgul’s flying mounts have a name? > [@Colibri](#): > > Tolkien never refers to them by a specific name. The Witch-King’s “fell beast”, seen close up and on the ground in Eowyn / Merry’s confrontation with the W-K at the Pelennor Fields, is described by the author in terms very much like the image we have, of what pterodactyls looked like (though of course he doesn’t use the p-word). Tolkien even speculates on its being a relict creature from older times, conceivably the last of its species – “And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed.” So far as I recall, though, it’s never specified how like or unlike this critter, are the flying mounts of the other eight Nazgul. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/51 "2017-03-08T10:50:33Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > I don’t think most suggestions of “Let the Eagles Do It” involve turning the ring over to them. Instead, the Eagles were supposed to provide transport to the Ringbearer. > > When Frodo finally made it to the Crack(s) of Doom, he _could not_ discard the Ring. Mightier beings than he had feared its power–he was a victim, too. But Gollum intervened–showing why it had been right to avoid killing the wretched creature, as so many had suggested. If the eagles had carried Frodo, that would’ve eliminated months of time that the Ring had to work on him, and would have kept him from being wounded by the Ringwraiths. Frodo would have been in FAR batter condition to complete the task. Frodo tried multiple times to give away the ring between Mordor and The Shire. You can’t be sure that Frodo would have failed to destroy the ring if he didn’t have to endure the months of wounds, hardship, hunger, thirst, exhaustion and the Ring working on his mind. The outcome might have been very different had that been the case. But of course, the story was set up to show Gollum’s role in the destruction of the Ring, and a short story about a Hobbit being carried to a volcano and throwing something in would’ve been shit. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/52 "2017-03-08T13:55:50Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > If the eagles had carried Frodo, that would’ve eliminated months of time that the Ring had to work on him, **and would have kept him from being wounded by the Ringwraiths.** Frodo would have been in FAR batter condition to complete the task. Frodo tried multiple times to give away the ring between Mordor and The Shire. You can’t be sure that Frodo would have failed to destroy the ring if he didn’t have to endure the months of wounds, hardship, hunger, thirst, exhaustion and the Ring working on his mind. The outcome might have been very different had that been the case. > > But of course, the story was set up to show Gollum’s role in the destruction of the Ring, and a short story about a Hobbit being carried to a volcano and throwing something in would’ve been shit. Frodo was injured by the Ringwraiths on Weathertop, before they reached Rivendell. Since all Eagle based discussions revolve around taking the Ring from Rivendell to Mordor via Aquiline Airlines, he would have received that wound no matter what. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/53 "2017-03-08T16:12:25Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > The Witch-King’s “fell beast”,. I thought Tolkien actually called it that, but I can’t find any place where he used that specific term for it. He refers to it as a “winged creature,” and “great beast,” and says it was fed on “fell meats,” but not specifically as a “fell beast.” However, that is the name that’s often used for it by others. > [@Miller](#): > > If you discount all the people it didn’t work on, it’s 100% successful? As for Bombadil, the fact that he’s not affected by the ring is irrelevant to the plot, like Bombadil himself. Bombadil is a children’s book character awkwardly inserted into a heroic saga. His immunity to the ring is just another one of his idiosyncrasies, like using song to defeat evil beings. Unlike the resistance of the hobbits, which is essential for the plot to work, it doesn’t really matter if Bombadil is immune or not (although a scenario in which Bombadil becomes Dark Lord is intriguing). Bombadil could have been susceptible and refused it, like Galadriel, and the outcome would be the same. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/54 "2017-03-08T16:43:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I thought Tolkien actually called it that, but I can’t find any place where he used that specific term for it. He refers to it as a “winged creature,” and “great beast,” and says it was fed on “fell meats,” but not specifically as a “fell beast.” However, that is the name that’s often used for it by others. After the destruction of the Witch King, when Eowyn & Merry are lying wounded, Eomer rides up: > [@](#): > > But thereupon Éomer rode up in haste, and with him came the knights of the household that still lived and had now mastered their horses. They looked in wonder at the carcase of the fell beast that lay there: and their steeds would not go near. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/55 "2017-03-08T16:58:42Z")
BTW, with all this talk of fell beasts, I thought of this brilliant post from several years ago explaining the etymology of “fell beast”: > [@This week's Tolkien thread: how could the Ringwar have been won if Frodo had died ?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-weeks-tolkien-thread-how-could-the-ringwar-have-been-won-if-frodo-had-died/469855/53): > > Though few are aware of the fact, velociraptors were actually the first species chosen by Sauron for the elite steeds of the Nine Nazgul, due to their exceptional speed and ferocity in combat. However, due to a clerical error in translating Sauron’s instructions into Black Speech, the project supervisors were led to believe that these “raptors,” like the birds of prey, also somehow possessed the ability to fly, despite having no visible wings whatsoever. This unfortunate situation, combined with a deeply ingrained unwillingness to question the Dark Lord’s instructions, led to the entire population of velociraptors being launched to their deaths from mountaintops in an attempt to awaken their innate flying ability. > > This of course is how the tradition arose of referring to any reptilian steed of the Nazgul as a “Fell Beast.” > > It is said that the last words of the ill-fated orc-chieftain in charge of the project were: “As Melkor is my witness, I thought raptors could fly.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/56 "2017-03-08T17:56:40Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > If the eagles had carried Frodo, that would’ve eliminated months of time that the Ring had to work on him, and would have kept him from being wounded by the Ringwraiths. . Well, they didnt decide to destroy the Ring until the Council of Elrond. And still you have the issue of the Will of Sauron and those 100000 orc archers. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/57 "2017-03-08T18:10:08Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > After the destruction of the Witch King, when Eowyn & Merry are lying wounded, Eomer rides up: Thanks for finding that. In any case, it’s intended to be a description, not that Tolkien meant that the creatures were called “fell beasts.” ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/58 "2017-03-08T18:15:29Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > No, you have that backwards. The hobbits mostly only had the opportunity to be exposed to the ring _because hobbits are resistant._ Except for Bilbo, they weren’t exposed to it by chance. **If Bilbo hadn’t been resistant, he would have ended up like Gollum** and Frodo never would have received the ring. Likewise, if Frodo hadn’t been resistant he would have succumbed long before Gandalf figured out what it was, and Sam would never have had the chance to carry it. It’s not that they are remarkable because they are resistant; Frodo and Sam only have the opportunity to be exposed to the ring at all because hobbits are resistant. (bolding mine) A lot of what happened to Gollum had to do with the fact that he committed murder to get the ring, and was then completely ostracized and exiled from his home land, whence he ended up isolated in the dark under the mountains eating raw fish. This crime was, I believe, in his character before his brother found the ring, and was only brought to the surface, not created, by the ring. So I think that a lot of the differences in the way the ring affected Sméagol/Gollum vs. the Hobbits who handled it stem from their differences in character. The Hobbits were clearly not entirely unaffected, but they were saved (except for Frodo at the end) by being good people who had no special ambitions that would be furthered by the ring’s power. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/59 "2017-03-08T18:26:54Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Thanks for finding that. > > In any case, it’s intended to be a description, not that Tolkien meant that the creatures were called “fell beasts.” Of course, “fell” is just an archaic term meaning evil, savage, etc. but he does use it at least once more: > [@](#): > > So they laid them apart from their foes and the fell beast and set spears about them. And afterwards when all was over men returned and made a fire there and burned the carcase of the beast; ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562/60 "2017-03-08T18:29:24Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > (bolding mine) > > A lot of what happened to Gollum had to do with the fact that he committed murder to get the ring, and was then completely ostracized and exiled from his home land, whence he ended up isolated in the dark under the mountains eating raw fish. This crime was, I believe, in his character before his brother found the ring, and was only brought to the surface, not created, by the ring. > > So I think that a lot of the differences in the way the ring affected Sméagol/Gollum vs. the Hobbits who handled it stem from their differences in character. The Hobbits were clearly not entirely unaffected, but they were saved (except for Frodo at the end) by being good people who had no special ambitions that would be furthered by the ring’s power. Heck, Gandalf himself said Bilbo wasn’t too affected the Ring _because_ he didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance: > [@](#): > > What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’ > ‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-movie-trilogy-question/781562.md?page=4)