Questions About Saurons Ring

Cafe Society
21

I think that the quintessential nature of good and evil are at issue here. Domination of others is the character of evil, in Tolkien’s expression of the world. In music of the Ainur before the making of the world Melkor imposes his desire for a greater part in the music upon those most amenable to his influence. He alters the nature of the music, and of the parts sung by others for his own satisfaction. He fails to create anything of his own but a few notes brayed upon loudly. But he establishes the power to lead those who he can, those who choose to follow him.

Sauron was the servant of Melkor, and sought to gain that same type of power, the power of dominion, and became very skilled in his own right. To say that Sauron was more powerful than Gandalf is to ignore the fact that Gandalf was utterly opposed to the use of that which Sauron considered power. Gandalf was only interested in assuring that some small thing lived beyond the current struggle that could be fair, and flower, and bear fruit in the future. The evil would be accomplished immediately if Gandalf took the ring. His spirit would be overcome by the desire for dominion over others, and the power of evil would have already won. Whatever minor benefit Gandalf might at first accomplish would be meaningless, if it came at the price of his abandonment of good. In the end, Gandalf has no ire against Sauruman, for all the evil that he had done, and hopes for his return to wisdom, and good. A vain hope, it turns out to be, but that is not a failing of Gandalf, rather a failing of evil itself.

And, by the way, Gandalf won. He won by encouraging others to resist the will of Sauron, and to resist the desire for power of their own. He breaks the dominion of Sauruman over Theoden, the influence of Sauron over the Stewards of Gondor. Eventually he breaks the influence of Sauron over the world, by encouraging the world to trust the simple goodness, and purity of heart of two hobbits. The power of evil is not greater than what Gandalf has, it is simply not of the same nature. Gandalf might well be better at domination of other minds, if he chose to attempt it. Sauron could not dominate him, even after three ages of practice at doing just that. The Balrog could not do it either. Killing Gandalf was the best they could hope for, and that turned out to be ineffective as well.

So, the problem for those who were good, when it came to the ring was that they must give up good itself in order to use the ring. Doing good with it was not possible, because the nature of the ring, one of dominion over others, was itself evil. You cannot compel freedom, or love. Attempting to do so is evil, at its beginning.

Tris

22

Hear hear Tris! For Gandalf to use the ring at all would be to become an entirely different being, a being very like Sauron. I do think that it was refusal of a choice like Saruman made (Saruman of the Many Colors, Saruman Ring Maker). I think that someone with Gandalf’s subtly of thinking would, if turned to evil, enslave not only Sauron, but virtually everyone around them. The nature of the Ring being a seduction in that instance. It had no seducing power over Tom Bombadil because he was utterly uninterested in dominion over thinking beings. It had little comparatively little influence over hobbits for the same reason. With this caveat: I think the ring was particularly dangerous for Frodo as compared to other hobbits, even Bilbo or Gollum. Frodo never tried to use the ring for anything else until the very end. But he was very strong willed, well educated and reasonably wise (as compared to Sam, Merry and Pippin), and he was already their leader. It might have taken many years for Frodo to become accustomed to using the ring, but remember his facility with his curse to Gollum that if he ever tried to take the ring Frodo would command him to throw himself over a precipice? That’s exactly what happened. Frodo dominated Gollum with the power of the ring. By using the power to dominate others (namely Gollum) Frodo accepted that power and was changed by it, seduced by it. Frodo’s wound that will not heal isn’t his lost finger, or even the wraith blade stabbing that hurts in bad weather: it’s knowledge that in the end he lost his innocence to the power of the ring by dominating Gollum to the point of death, knowing that nothing is inadvertant. Frodo knows this is a terrible sin and cannot forgive himself. It is contrary to all the teaching he had from Gandalf to show mercy even at extreme peril to oneself. Frodo would, without the ring’s temptation, rather have thrown himself in than think that his prophetic words were a command that Gollum fulfilled. Notice the Scouring of the Shire. Frodo is, except for his hidden mail coat, the victim of a vicious and deadly attack by Saruman, yet he still cannot bring himself to call for a punishment for Saruman and has had no hand in the scouring of the shire himself. His loss of innocence in war has left him bereft of any life to come back to. Frodo realizes what he has done and cannot forgive himself and will not. Nor can he forget. The self knowledge of what he has done with power does him in. I don’t know if Tolkien killed anyone in WWI, but what I have heard leads me to believe that he suffered severe shell shock, now called post traumatic stress disorder, which can persist for a lifetime.