Tolkien criticism

[Malthus]

@Trinopus

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.

My apology as I wasn’t clear - I was presenting my summary of **Nonsuch’s argument - not my own.

I happen to agree with the “it’s very very difficult but not impossible - a Hail Mary” interpretation, as you do.

[Lightray]

@Malthus

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?

You have completely missed Gandalf’s motivation for sending Frodo on with the One Ring, and why Frodo was successful in the end. Gandalf is an angelic being who kept his faith with Eru Ilúvatar. He was aware of the seeming impossibility of the task, and that it would only be accomplished through the grace of a higher power.

The improbable absurdity of the One Ring dropping into the hands of hobbits, of all people, suggested to Gandalf the ineffable hand of Eru Ilúvatar. He didn’t send Frodo off to certain doom because he had no other options; he sent Frodo off to what seemed like certain doom because he had faith it would somehow work out.

Gandalf does not operate on cold pure logic like some sort of robot Vulcan; he’s a being of faith.

[Malthus]

@Nonsuch

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.

There is I think three examples of this.

The first is that Bilbo was capable (with, admittedly, much cajoling) of handing over the Ring to Frodo. Given that the Ring is addictiveness personified, and fully capable of twisting every decent human impulse to justify selfishness (specifically, possesiveness concerning itself), that was no mean feat - it shows that it was at least possible to defy the ring to that exent. Admittedly, though, this was Bilbo and not Frodo.

The first example specific to Frodo, that showed he had a strong will and was able to defy the ring, was when he offered to hand it over to Galadriel. Again, the possessive/addictive nature of ring ownership would be working against this.

The second example deals with Frodo’s strength of will specifically - for example, his pivotal decision to leave the company of his powerful friends and strike out for Mordor on his own. This was of course virtually suicide on his part. It demonstrated that he was placing the outcome of his quest ahead of his own survival - a decision that would take great strength of will to make.

[Malthus]

@Lightray

You have completely missed Gandalf’s motivation for sending Frodo on with the One Ring, and why Frodo was successful in the end. Gandalf is an angelic being who kept his faith with Eru Ilúvatar. He was aware of the seeming impossibility of the task, and that it would only be accomplished through the grace of a higher power.

The improbable absurdity of the One Ring dropping into the hands of hobbits, of all people, suggested to Gandalf the ineffable hand of Eru Ilúvatar. He didn’t send Frodo off to certain doom because he had no other options; he sent Frodo off to what seemed like certain doom because he had faith it would somehow work out.

Gandalf does not operate on cold pure logic like some sort of robot Vulcan; he’s a being of faith.

Perhaps you are right, if one knows the entire lengedarium.

It is only fair to add that a casual reader of the book would not of necessity understand these mythological underpinnings. In the book at least Gandalf appears to, at times, suffer from doubts and worries just like a human, even though he isn’t one.

[Trinopus]

@Malthus

My apology as I wasn’t clear - I was presenting my summary of **Nonsuch’s argument - not my own.

I happen to agree with the “it’s very very difficult but not impossible - a Hail Mary” interpretation, as you do.

Oops! My apologies. I got lost in the give-and-take. (Took when I should’a given!)

[Deeg]

I was watching PJ’s Two Towers last night and got out the book to sort of follow along. I didn’t realize how much of the dialog in the movie was lifted directly out of the book. It’s often given to different characters and sometimes rearranged but I think that says something good about Tolkien’s ear for prose.

[The_Second_Stone]

@Malthus

T

The first is that Bilbo was capable (with, admittedly, much cajoling) of handing over the Ring to Frodo. Given that the Ring is addictiveness personified, and fully capable of twisting every decent human impulse to justify selfishness (specifically, possesiveness concerning itself), that was no mean feat - it shows that it was at least possible to defy the ring to that exent. Admittedly, though, this was Bilbo and not Frodo.

Somebody at the Council of Elrond is more precise, I forget if it is Elrond or Gandalf:

Sauron poured all of his hate, malice, spite, and cruelty into it and his will to dominate all things

is how I remember it. This is the vital essence of the one ring. Not addiction, not power, but hate, cruelty and domination.