XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: spamgard@blueyonder.co.uk   
      
   stephen@nomail.com  wrote:   
   > Christopher Kreuzer  wrote:   
   >> Joseph  wrote:   
   >>> "Morgil"   
   >>>> Of course it does. If Faramir could resist the Ring...   
   >>>   
   >>> I don't think you understand the Ring's power. Resisting the ring is   
   >>> not a one-shot affair, it's a lifelong labor.   
   >   
   >> I'd agree with this, with the caveat that this only applies when   
   >> Sauron is active again and you are taking the Ring to the land where   
   >> it was made, and hence the Ring is becoming more of a burden.   
   >   
   > I would not add that caveat.  I do not think that resisting   
   > the Ring once somehow made you immune.   
      
   I don't think that either. I was thinking rather of the fact that Bilbo   
   had the Ring for a long time when it was 'inactive', and it seems that   
   resisting is the wrong word to use for what is going on there. And also,   
   he didn't know what the Ring was, and neither did Gollum. Do both of   
   them, it was a pretty trinket that allowed them to turn invisible. Which   
   is after all what the Ring was in the beginning, when Tolkien first   
   wrote about it.   
      
   But even for those who reject the Ring (like Gandalf and Faramir and   
   Galadriel did), if you bring those people back into the presence of the   
   Ring, does the temptation start off from the same level, or might the   
   temptation gnaw away at those people's minds even when not in the   
   presence of the Ring, so that they succumb quicker when the Ring returns   
   to them?   
      
   Christopher   
      
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