LOTR - Elrond's massive fail

Cafe Society
41

I happen to be near mine, and we’re both wrong: Gandalf doesn’t agree with Elrond’s assessment. Elrond merely says of Tom that “maybe I should have summoned him to our council” – and Gandalf says the guy would not have come. Erestor then picks up the conversation by suggesting they send messages to Tom and obtain his help, since Tom seems to have a power even over the Ring; Gandalf then disagrees, preferring to say that the Ring has no power over him; Erestor then asks about giving the Ring to Tom, and Gandalf then makes the claim about Tom being too unsafe a guardian for the aforementioned reasons.

And then Glorfindel and Galdor take up the discussion for a bit (including the conclusion that power to defy their Enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth itself) – but Elrond never actually weighs in on Tom’s alleged impracticality or detachment or whatever.

So IMHO it’s just Gandalf’s read of Tom. And IMHO what Gandalf doesn’t know about Tom gets helpfully summed up long after the Council of Elrond (“I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil: such a talk as I have not had in all my time. He is a moss-gatherer, and I have been a stone doomed to rolling. But my rolling days are ending, and now we shall have much to say to each other”), as does what Gandalf hadn’t known about – oh, say, what’s in the earth (“it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge … We fought far under the living earth, where time is not counted. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into dark tunnels. They were not made by Durin’s folk, Gimli son of Gloin. Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day”).

42

You could always see what the Maia himself has to say about the matter.

43

Well, it doesn’t weaken Elrond, except in Elrond’s own mind. Men, unlike Valar, Maia, Elves and Dwarrows are real and have some real strength, not just story beings with super strong mythical strength to inspire, but real sinew strength. Elrond’s choice was to choose the mythical strength to inspire and eschew real strength. Galadriel is all mythical strength, but without so much story to back it up.

44

Yes, except that Tolkien could never have written such a thing. Sam was a hero, but not a Hero of the Great Stories, whose mighty deed (or terrible failure) could write history alone. Oy! noted this a little while back.

I would add only that I think describing this as a matter of “culture” doesn’t go far enough. It’s deeper than that, a matter of fate.

45

More yet than the workings of fate, but I believe the hand of Iluvatar himself. In one of his letters, JRRT responding to the question of Frodo’s “failure” writes, “But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however ‘good’; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.” Somewhere else that I’m not finding he also talks about how Frodo showing pity to Gollum opened the way for Providence with a capital P to come bail him out in the end.

By this same logic, I think Sam would have failed to destroy the ring as well.

46

Sorry to be just getting to this thread, that post was some time ago. However, I salute Oy! for adding to my thesis. Tolkien’s view of evil (in LotR) is clearly that evil may SEEM to be great and powerful, but is, under the surface, small and petty. The ultimate battle with evil is not against Sauron, but Gollum. And not against Saruman but Sharkey. That is, the books are fairly clear that evil may appear to be overwhelming and vastly powerful – even attractive – but deep down inside, it’s petty, vicious, malicious. I’m grateful to you, Oy!, for adding the Ring itself to this motif.

47

spark, your quoting me from another thread is incredibly gratifying. Thank you so much!

I think also that we tend a bit to overestimate Sam in our delight in seeing what would normally be a negligible character perform truly heroically, and better than the ostensible hero Frodo. Sam managed to resist the Ring’s appeal in Shelob’s Lair, but really, the Ring had only a short time to work on him, and Sam had during that time an urgent task filling his mind: the recovery of Frodo. Had Frodo been killed at that point, Sam might have continued on the task in a state of grief, rage, and despair. That mindset might have been enough to carry him across Mordor and into Orodruin carrying the Ring, but more likely, it would have made him more vulnerable to the Ring. At the Fires of Mount Doom, where the Ring was forged, I think its power would have overcome Sam.

That being said, I can conceive of one scenario in which Sam could have destroyed the Ring. Had Gollum, instead of biting Frodo’s finger off, ripped out Frodo’s throat and taken the Ring from his body, Sam might have been sufficiently enraged to push Gollum, holding the Ring, into the Abyss, not caring whether or not he himself went over the edge too. He had shaken off the effects of bearing it briefly in Cirith Ungol, and was not carrying it himself, so the Ring might not have been able to counteract his raging desire for vengeance in that scenario. But had Sam been carrying the Ring himself for the week or two it took to cross Mordor, the Ring would have overcome him.

On preview, C K Dexter Haven has restated more clearly my exact point about the nature of the Ring. Evil destroys itself through its own petty malice, or at least that’s what I think Tolkien may have meant.

And we see that demonstrated repeatedly in real life. The idea of a perfectly disciplined, uber-competent evil genius is one of fiction; the reality is that, for example, Nazi Germany was not the slick, well-oiled machine single-mindedly marching from triumph to triumph, as they liked to present themselves. It was a bunch of greedy men (and a few women) who were motivated more by their own individual success/wealth than that of the Fatherland, and who screwed up both individually and collectively many times. Nazi Germany was corrupt down to the core. The amazing thing is not that the Allies won, but that Germany succeeded as long as it did despite its internal rot.

In Tolkien’s world view (in my interpretation), Evil is never great, even though it sometimes gives the impression that it is. It is inherently fatally flawed, and will ultimately always sow the seeds of its own destruction. That does not mean that we should not fight it, because its destruction of the Good can still be enormous, and its duration must be minimized.

48

Nothing to add to the discussion, but I thought you might appreciate this inspirational Middle-earth graph: http://graphjam.com/2008/04/25/song-chart-memes-this-day/

49

:: checks irrational denial schedule ::

Okay, this is one of the days I admit that movie exists, so I can address that quote. Aragorn’s speech was not half as rousing as Theoden’s. Movie-Aragorn’s a punk. :slight_smile:

50

Was the One Ring perhaps fated to end up ending? Maybe not in a specific way or by a specific person (allowing free will to have an effect on individuals), but definitely having a non everlasting existence? Perhaps somehow tied up with whatever will occur to Melkor? I’m thinking verses of the Song that seem out of place on their own, but fit in to the big picture in a way not evident (til done) to the singers.

51

Remember, he did think Frodo was dead. And it didn’t break him. But that was probably partly why Sam was there. BNot only did he support Frodo, but if Frodo had been killed somehow, Sam would likely have grown up enough to carry things on. The Profesor was right, but perhaps underestimated Sam a little: he certainly had the capacity to grow beyond the slight-small-mindedness he had, a product more of a lack of perspective and experience. Unlike Frodo, he didn’t have an adventurous uncle or a good education.

But of course The Ring would have prevented Sam from destroying it. That doesn’t mean Sam would have really been broken by it any worse than Frodo.

52

I think that it’s precisely the fact that Sam was the kind of person who would go back and see to Frodo rather than carrying through on his own that would have made it possible for him to destroy the Ring. The Ring attacks the vice of pride: I am great, and with this thing I can demonstrate my greatness. But Sam doesn’t view himself as great in the first place, so the Ring doesn’t have that in. The Ring treats him to a vision of Samwise the Great (turning Mordor into a giant garden), but he immediately rejects it as absurd, since his proper place is a single small plot.

53

Either Sam’s humility, which allows him to be immune to the call of the Ring, prevents him from carrying on to Mordor (which in fact is what had happened until he discovered unexpectedly that Frodo was alive), or the pride/anger that allows Sam to carry on to reach Orodruin lets the Ring’s influence in at the last moment, and keeps him from destroying the ring. Either way, Sam doesn’t ultimately destroy the Ring. He doesn’t necessarily do worse than Frodo, but ultimately he can’t destroy the Ring under any circumstances I can see except in the way I described in my second multi-line paragraph in post #47: Sam destroys the Ring as a side-effect of destroying Gollum. That last option fits in with NoClueBoy’s idea of the Ring being fated to be destroyed, whereas the way things actually occurred fits in better with my concept of the Ring (and thus Evil) being inherently self-destructive, as well as fitting into NoClueBoy’s concept of fate.

NoClueBoy’s idea certainly fits in with Gandalf’s idea that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. But I find the idea of the Ring carrying its own seeds of self-destruction both more elegant and personally more comforting. I’m not terribly comfortable with the idea of Fate or any other Power taking a hand in events. On the other hand, the Professor, a devout Roman Catholic, certainly was.

The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. The Ring may have been fated to be destroyed because it was inherently self-destructive, or the two could be independent of one another: the Ring was fated to be temporary and the Ring was inherently self-destructive.

54

I’m think you should say resistant there. I don’t think he had the Ring long enough to be judged immune.

55

I’m playing out possible scenarios here, Skald. I’m not saying Sam was immune to the call of the Ring, just saying that if he was, then he would (as he was doing at the end of TTT) return to Frodo’s body, rather than attempt to carry the Ring to Mordor. If he were not sufficiently humble to be immune, he might succumb then and there, or carry it to Orodruin himself, at which point the Ring takes him. Either way, Sam does not destroy the Ring unassisted.

Actually, I’ve just been listening to a lecture by the Tolkien Professor, as cited by Qadgop on the first page. While I personally like the idea that the Ring (and Evil itself) carry the seeds of its own destruction, I’m reminded of Tolkien’s religion and the concept of grace as demonstrated by “eucatastrophe,” the unlooked-for, undeserved dawn that comes at the darkest hour. In that context, the Ring is not destroyed by Fate (there is no fate but that which is willed by God), nor by virtue of the actions of Men, Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits, nor by flaw of the Ring itself, but in a sudden manifestation of grace. Nothing inevitable about it.

I personally detest this idea. I find it internally contradictory, and I find it the opposite of inspiring. But then, that’s the way I view religion in general and Christianity in particular, so it’s hardly surprising that I would resist this idea. Nonetheless, I suspect it is as close to Tolkien’s actual thought as we may get, which makes me want to know less about Tolkien’s thought than I would otherwise. That makes me sad.

56

I’m not sure it’s quite that bleak. As the oft-quoted bit emphasizes: “Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.”

And while Frodo finally succumbs there at the end, it’s only after he and Sam held out long enough for Bilbo’s act of pity to suddenly wind up saving the world at the only point where mundane actions could get the job done: it’s maybe supposed to be a manifestation of grace, but one that’s built on the same heroism and mercy that mundanely succeeds during the scouring of the shire.

57

That’s why I find it internally contradictory. Merit does and doesn’t count. Free will is, and yet it isn’t. And so on.

This is not a good place for a discussion of religion, but my point is that, viewed as a fundamentally religious expression, LotR suffers from the same flaws that Christianity as a whole does, and the ironic thing is that Tolkien set it up so that it didn’t have to. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that, for example, my concept of the Ring being fatally flawed and thus ultimately responsible for its own destruction is a good, sound, and perfectly satisfactory concept. My problem is, I don’t think that’s the way JRRT viewed it himself. I think he himself viewed the destruction of the Ring as grace, while I think that grace is both an unnecessary construct and an unsatisfactory answer.

Yes, Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam, and pretty much everyone else in the Fellowship did things right. But (and I cannot emphasize this enough) grace isn’t a matter of merit. It’s fundamentally caprice. Benevolent caprice, but caprice nonetheless. And hell, if you’re going to have God come in and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, why not have God just take care of it in the first place and save everyone a lot of trouble?

As I said, this is not a place to discuss religion. Unfortunately, you can’t look at JRRT’s own views without including it.

58

Dude was Catholic, and we’re all just going to have to deal with it. :stuck_out_tongue:

59

And that’s another odd thing, because I at least associate the idea of salvation through grace as a much more Protestant concept than Catholic. In Catholicism, salvation is granted through the priesthood and sacrament. It is the Protestants that so heavily emphasized grace as the only means to salvation, so much so that at some times in history, acts of charity were viewed with suspicion, because they smacked of trying to buy salvation through good works, when the “right” doctrine stated that it was only available through God’s mercy. Hence predestination. So I find it odd that Tolkien should emphasize what I consider to be a more Protestant concept. But perhaps my understanding of Catholic dogma is insufficient.

60

I still say it’s them no-good, reefer-addict, GROMMITS.

Wait, What-Me-Worry?