# Tolkien criticism **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676 "2015-01-23T15:09:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/181 "2015-02-04T18:22:56Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > After all, who else actually possessed it in its long history? > > - Sauron himself > - Isuldur > -Gollem > -Bilbo > -Frodo > -Sam Also Déagol–briefly–between Isildur and Sméagol/Gollum. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/182 "2015-02-04T19:15:01Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > Pay careful attention to Tolkien’s language here: a ring-keeper “never _abandons_ it.” Bilbo is only able to rid himself of the Ring by entrusting it to someone else, and that only with great reluctance and much cajoling by Gandalf. Likewise, Sam doesn’t _abandon_ it, he gives it back to Frodo. Gandalf’s point is that the Ring creates too strong a bond for a keeper to simply lay it aside, and that it does not allow itself to come to harm by it’s keeper’s actions. Thus, as I said, Frodo’s failure to destroy it of his own volition is entirely predictable, and congruent with what we know of it through Gandalf. How does Gandalf know this? No-one in history had ever actually really wanted or attempted to “abandon” it. Isuldur comes closest, but as far as he was concerned Sauron was dead - at his own hand no less - so why not keep his ring as “an heirloom”? It is true that at one point Frodo puts this to the test at Gandalf’s request, and is unable to throw it in the fire (he just puts it back in his pocket while he thinks about it), but this isn’t proof that it is absolutely impossible - merely very hard. Similarly, handing it over to someone else is very hard - but, demonstratably, doable. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/183 "2015-02-04T19:18:15Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Also Déagol–briefly–between Isildur and Sméagol/Gollum. Fair enough, but arguably he doesn’t count because he failed to live long enough to actually be a “ring bearer”. He has it in his hand, but is killed before he can really claim it. Similarly, Tom Bombadil is handed the ring, but doesn’t really count, as he had no intention of being a ring-bearer. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/184 "2015-02-04T19:18:23Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Ignoring Sauron, this means of the five who have ever actually been “ring-bearers”, no less than two would go on to abandon it. While it is true that Gandalf only knew about the one, why would his singularity be so remarkable? Bilbo was one of only three non-Sauron people to have it. Objection. Gandalf didn’t say “The One Ring” he said “A Ring of Power” of which there were roughly 16 others. (The Nine and the Seven - I’m discounting The Three because they are clearly weird fringe cases.). It’s entirely likely that the Nine and the Seven had never willingly changed hands. The Nine, certainly, hadn’t. The Seven PROBABLY hadn’t, since dwarves seem to have been immune to wraith-ification, they probably only ever changed hands through inheritance or being capture by force. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/185 "2015-02-04T19:23:58Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Objection. Gandalf didn’t say “The One Ring” he said “A Ring of Power” of which there were roughly 16 others. (The Nine and the Seven - I’m discounting The Three because they are clearly weird fringe cases.). > > It’s entirely likely that the Nine and the Seven had never willingly changed hands. The Nine, certainly, hadn’t. The Seven PROBABLY hadn’t, since dwarves seem to have been immune to wraith-ification, they probably only ever changed hands through inheritance or being capture by force. The Three had, though. Gandalf himself wasn’t the original owner of Narya - and he got it from the previous owner totally voluntarily. > [@](#): > > The first ring, Narya, was adorned with a red stone. The name is derived from the Quenya nár meaning fire. It was also called the Narya the Great, Ring of Fire, and Red Ring. > > According to Unfinished Tales, at the start of the War of the Elves and Sauron, Celebrimbor gave Narya together with the Ring Vilya to Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor. Gil-galad entrusted Narya to his lieutenant Círdan, Lord of the Havens of Mithlond, who kept it after Gil-galad’s death. According to The Lord of the Rings, Gil-galad received only Vilya, while Círdan received Narya from the very beginning along with Galadriel receiving Nenya from the start. > > In the Third Age, Círdan, recognizing Gandalf’s true nature as one of the Maiar from Valinor, gave him the ring to aid him in his labours. It is described as having the power to inspire others to resist tyranny, domination, and despair (in other words, evoking hope in others around the wielder), as well as giving resistance to the weariness of time. > **[Rings of Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Rings)** > > The Rings of Power are magical artefacts in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, most prominently in his high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. The One Ring first appeared as a plot device, a magic ring in Tolkien's children's fantasy novel, The Hobbit; Tolkien later gave it a backstory and much greater power. He added nineteen other Great Rings, also conferring powers such as invisibility, that it could control, including the Three Rings of the Elves, Seven Rings for the Dwarves, and Nine for ... ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/186 "2015-02-04T19:48:07Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The Three had, though. Gandalf himself wasn’t the original owner of Narya - and he got it from the previous owner totally voluntarily. Did you miss the part where I deliberately ignored The Three because in many ways, they are super atypical of the Rings? They certainly appear to have none of the usual ‘side effects’. Anyway, one could easily suggest that Cirdan seeing that Gandalf would be an excellent bearer for Narya and handing the ring on doesn’t qualify as “abandoning” it. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/187 "2015-02-04T20:10:40Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Did you miss the part where I deliberately ignored The Three because in many ways, they are super atypical of the Rings? They certainly appear to have none of the usual ‘side effects’. > > Anyway, one could easily suggest that Cirdan seeing that Gandalf would be an excellent bearer for Narya and handing the ring on doesn’t qualify as “abandoning” it. Certainly - but that undermines the thesis you were presenting: ‘A ring of power has these effects - except, of course, for the one I happen to wear myself’. Also, as far as I know, it is by no means clear what happened to the seven, or if Dwarves could hand them over to each other. The thing is, no-one in the story previously had any real motivation to “abandon” a ring of power (if by “abandon” you mean ‘throw away or attempt to destroy’). So it is not clear where the knowledge that one could not throw away or destroy a ring of power comes from - clearly, it was possible to hand (certain ones) over to someone else, such as the One or the Three, because that actually happened. It stikes me as more sensible that doing anything of that nature - hand over, throw away, or destroy - to the One Ring would take tremendous will-power; it is not so obvious that it would be absolutely impossible. It had simply never been attempted before. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/188 "2015-02-04T20:31:17Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The thing is, no-one in the story previously had any real motivation to “abandon” a ring of power (if by “abandon” you mean ‘throw away or attempt to destroy’). So it is not clear where the knowledge that one could not throw away or destroy a ring of power comes from - clearly, it was possible to hand (certain ones) over to someone else, such as the One or the Three, because that actually happened. Gandalf has access to all kinds of arcane forgotten lore, and understands the nature of Sauron’s power as well as the elf-craft that went into forging the other rings. There’s no reason, narratively, for him to take the time to explain to Frodo how he knows all this. Tolkien is clearly using Gandalf to establish what’s at stake and what Frodo is up against in becoming a ring-bearer, and I don’t think we have any reason to suspect that Gandalf’s knowledge is faulty or conjectural. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/189 "2015-02-04T21:07:11Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Certainly - but that undermines the thesis you were presenting: ‘A ring of power has these effects - except, of course, for the one I happen to wear myself’. Unless of course he didn’t want to get into a 3 hour lecture on the different properties of the different rings… > [@](#): > > Also, as far as I know, it is by no means clear what happened to the seven, or if Dwarves could hand them over to each other. Actually, it’s pretty clear. They’ve either been reclaimed by Sauron or destroyed in dragonfire. And presumably Gandalf DOES know. > [@](#): > > It stikes me as more sensible that doing anything of that nature - hand over, throw away, or destroy - to the One Ring would take tremendous will-power; it is not so obvious that it would be absolutely impossible. It had simply never been attempted before. That’s nice, but it’s not what he said, so what “strikes you as sensible” here is not entirely relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/190 "2015-02-04T21:42:40Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > Gandalf has access to all kinds of arcane forgotten lore, and understands the nature of Sauron’s power as well as the elf-craft that went into forging the other rings. There’s no reason, narratively, for him to take the time to explain to Frodo how he knows all this. Tolkien is clearly using Gandalf to establish what’s at stake and what Frodo is up against in becoming a ring-bearer, and I don’t think we have any reason to suspect that Gandalf’s knowledge is faulty or conjectural. Well, except for the fact that the very issue at stake is whether Tolkien set up a situation in which Frodo was sent to certain doom because the task was, in fact, impossible. It strikes me as strange thing to fan-wank oneself _into_ by postulating that Gandalf was, on this point, infallible (or could not have been speaking with a certain amount of hyperbole) because of ‘arcane forgotten lore’. Certainly, the task was very, very difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/191 "2015-02-04T21:48:13Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Certainly - but that undermines the thesis you were presenting: ‘A ring of power has these effects - except, of course, for the one I happen to wear myself’. > > Also, as far as I know, it is by no means clear what happened to the seven, or if Dwarves could hand them over to each other. They could and they did. “Thror gave it {his Ring} to Thrain his son, but not Thrain to Thorin. It was taken with torment from Thrain in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. I came too late”. - Gandalf to Gloin, “The Council of Elrond”. As to what happened to the dwarf-rings, Sauron got three of them back, and the rest were melted by various dragons. (“The Shadow of the Past”) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/192 "2015-02-04T21:50:53Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Unless of course he didn’t want to get into a 3 hour lecture on the different properties of the different rings… > > Actually, it’s pretty clear. They’ve either been reclaimed by Sauron or destroyed in dragonfire. And presumably Gandalf DOES know. > > That’s nice, but it’s not what he said, so what “strikes you as sensible” here is not entirely relevant. I admit, I have no idea what you are arguing about. To my mind, the present topic discussion is pretty clear: I am debating with **Nonsuch** as to whether Tolkien’s book has, in effect, no dramatic tension because Frodo’s failure at Mount Doom was inevitable - because, for one, Gandalf said at one point that it was impossible to simply abandon the Ring. Therefore, according to that theory, Frodo could not, in any way, completed the task - it was literally impossible. No-one could do it. Do you agree, or not? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/193 "2015-02-04T23:06:06Z")
**Malthus** : I don’t agree…in two ways. Most readers are, in fact, quite surprised by the events at the cracks of doom, so the “inevitability” you perceive in the dramatic content of the book doesn’t seem to bear out so much. And, no, the mission wasn’t absolutely impossible, only incredibly risky. It’s a “Hail Mary” pass when there’s two seconds left on the clock. What else are you going to do? Just kneel and concede? Or go down trying something, no matter how shitty the odds. So, by external logic (a reader enjoying the book) and by internal logic (what other choice does Gandalf have to offer?) I think you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/194 "2015-02-04T23:29:08Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I admit, I have no idea what you are arguing about. > > To my mind, the present topic discussion is pretty clear: I am debating with **Nonsuch** as to whether Tolkien’s book has, in effect, no dramatic tension because Frodo’s failure at Mount Doom was inevitable - because, for one, Gandalf said at one point that it was impossible to simply abandon the Ring. Therefore, according to that theory, Frodo could not, in any way, completed the task - it was literally impossible. No-one could do it. > > Do you agree, or not? Frodo’s “sin” at Mount Doom was human nature Frodo’s assertion of control over his own destiny and “property” and in the theology of Tolkien, it required the intervention of the divine. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/195 "2015-02-04T23:51:53Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by\*\* Malthus\*\* > > After all, who else actually possessed it in its long history? > > > > - Sauron himself > > - Isuldur > > -Gollem > > -Bilbo > > -Frodo > > -Sam > > Also Déagol–briefly–between Isildur and Sméagol/Gollum. I see where I misremembered the passage in question, in which Gandalf alludes to not just the One, but to any of the Great Rings of which there nineteen in addition to the One–Durin’s Bane for one. The reader is quite reasonably expected to accept the fact that Gandalf knows all about the other rings and their keepers without the author having to elaborate on it. He does mention three of the Seven having been recovered by Sauron, presumably by torture or threats, from their Dwarvish holders and the other four havin been consumed by dragons. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/196 "2015-02-05T03:55:55Z")
Durin’s Bane is what the dwarves awakened when they delved too deeply. Which we find out in the books is a balrog. In the movies the wizards strongly suspect or know for a fact that what took over Moria is a balrog. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/197 "2015-02-05T06:43:33Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Durin’s Bane is what the dwarves awakened when they delved too deeply. Which we find out in the books is a balrog. In the movies the wizards strongly suspect or know for a fact that what took over Moria is a balrog. I thought I had corrected my post during the edit window; Durin’s Bane was the Balrog, certainly. Mea culpa. The specific Ring I was thinking of was the one supposed to have been wrested by force from Thrain II, during his final captivity in Dol Goldur. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/198 "2015-02-05T06:43:52Z")
It’s not so much that the book has no dramatic tension — of course you want to know how it turns out. As a young reader, I didn’t see how Frodo could possibly destroy the Ring given what we knew about it and what we’d seen of its effects on him. At the same time, I knew the bad guys weren’t going to win. So it was a question of how Tolkien would get himself out of that conundrum, and I think he actually did a very neat job of it. Lord of the Rings works very well on its own terms — it’s just that those terms, as I’ve labored to make clear, very much fly in the face of what’s been expected of “literary” fiction since the onset of Modernism, which is why literary types tend not to revere it, which is the question that started this whole discussion. Anyway, a more productive avenue might be: instead of concluding that Gandalf was either guessing, mistaken or lying in explaining the power of the rings (which I think is to take on far more work than Tolkien expected of his readers —Professor T doesn’t go in for unreliable narrators), where is the textual evidence that Frodo, in fact, could have mustered the strength to resist the power of the Ring and choose to destroy it of his own volition? I don’t remember anything really fitting that bill, but am willing to be convinced. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/199 "2015-02-05T07:03:58Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Specifically, a history book written by an Englishman, the driest kind. How they can take something as exciting as history and suck all the life out of it I’ll never know. > Hah! You will note that I said “_hardly_ nobody.” I usually include a weasel word. You also didn’t completely not include a double negative. > [@](#): > > Remember that I said this was before the balkanization of genre fiction that came about in the 70s and 80s, when for better or worse fantasy and science fiction were still lumped together and the drawing-room detective fiction of Agatha Christie shared shelf space with the hard-boiled detective fiction of Mickey Spillane. Writers of fantasy and SF were less hindered by convention than mystery authors, so they were able to flit between sub-genres. This is why I think of Leiber as a SF author, not fantasy, because that was what I read. But I definitely see your point; I fondly remember A Change Of Hobbit in Santa Monica, which used to be one of the finest bookstores specializing in SF and fantasy in the area. While they might have had SF and retro/alternative fantasy in separate sections, I don’t remember the categories being broken down any more than that. Reading LOTR early in my college career, I met few if any other Tolkien fans who weren’t also SF fans, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/200 "2015-02-05T07:35:07Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > What I sometimes found jarring was the use of heroic tropes - for example, where King Theodin blows on a horn a blast so powerful the horn quite literally “bursts asunder”. That sort of think sounds fine in anglo-saxon heroic poetry, but is slightly absurd when in an actual narrative fiction. Ditto the characters breaking out in poetry. > > That said, I’m a fan of his work, no question. I’m not sure how anything like LOTR could work without these heroic tropes, as commonplace as they were in historical literature which obviously inspired JRRT to some extent. If nothing else, the “wordiness” and sometimes esoteric word choices should stifle anyone who thinks LOTR is kiddie lit. As an imagined history and mythology that takes place over three years and has antecedents stretching back over millennia, LOTR is the long version of that history, written mainly for adults who like to read. Without the tropes and his use of language, LOTR would be…something else, obviously, but what that is I don’t know. Maybe a 100 page novella? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676.md?page=11)