XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid
In message
Sandman spoke these staves:
>
> In article ,
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>
I would appreciate it very much if you would try not to snip
attributions to parts that you leave in -- it makes it rather more
difficult to see who has said what, and not all newsreaders
automatically shows the thread, so it is not everybody who can
necessarily just turn to the thread to sort out the order of posters.
[Gandalf and Galadriel]
>> They both felt a desire for the power that the Ring could be, but
>> both rejected that desire within themselves (a desire which is,
>> in Tolkien's story, inherently corrupting if not actively
>> rejected) and thus rejected the Ring. They are free of fault
>> because of this rejection while Saruman, who didn't reject, but
>> rather embraced, his desire for the power of the Ring, is
>> accordingly fallen.
>
> I just don't agree with that definition of "desire". Desiring the
> ring would not be analogous to being corrupted by the ring, if you
> ask me.
Hmm -- I think we are talking at cross purposes when speaking of
being corrupted by the Ring.
The Ring, in my considered opinion, is not an active agent in
corrupting anyone -- not even Frodo or Boromir. They are all
corrupted by their own desire for power -- they are tempted by the
idea of the power that the Ring would bring them and once they give
in to that temptation, knowing the Ring for what it is -- by taking
the Ring for their own (Frodo), or by seeking to possess it for
themselves (Saruman and Boromir), they fall to the corruption.
Just as it is, at all point, possible by free will to resist the
power of Saruman's voice, so is it at all times possible for anyone
by their free will, to resist the Ring's 'lure to power', to resist
the temptation. The /only/ exception to this is Frodo's situation in
the Sammath Naur -- Tolkien is quite clear that Frodo has spent all
his force of will and now no longer has enough strength of will to
resist the temptation (which was at that point at its greatest), and
so Frodo falling prey to this temptation is not seen as a moral
failure. Boromir and Saruman, however, both give in to the
temptation fairly easily: they do not spend any force of will on
resisting the temptation, and therefore giving in to the temptation
(i.e. seeking actively to possess the Ring) indicates their fall,
their corruption.
I think it is crucial to understand that it is /not/ the Ring as such
that is the corrupting agent. The agency of the Ring is fairly
limited, and in this it can only tempt -- it can make the idea of
itself and the power one could wield through it seem extremely
attractive, and resisting this temptation requires some force of
will, but only when, like Frodo, you carry it for months while its
temptation grows steadily will the required force of will become a
problem. It is /not/ the Ring that corrupts Boromir: it is Boromir.
Thus, when I speak of anyone being corrupted by the Ring, I mean that
they are giving in to this desire for power, the idea of domination
and control of the world, not that the Ring in any way is an active
agent in that corruption.
> Gandalf desires the ring, sees how it can be used for good, but
> won't take the ring in fear of being corrupted by it.
Not in fear -- in utter certainty. There is, in Tolkien's world, no
way that /anyone/ could take up the Ring and not turn into an evil
Ring-lord: this is inevitable. Had Gandalf taken the Ring, he would
have become evil, not because the Ring would somehow have changed his
mind, but simply because he would be giving in to the desire to
dominate the world, to control it and shape it as he wanted it to be.
> Saruman desires the ring, and has no chance to be corrupted by it
> since he never has the chance to use it.
He is corrupted by the desire for the Ring. You might say that
Saruman is corrupted by the very /idea/ of the Master Ring, the idea
of all that power.
>> I can't think of any definite Maiar confronting the Ring Bearer.
>> Of course, if by 'confront' you merely mean 'face', Gandalf faces
>> the Ring Bearer several times, but no other known Maia does so.
>
> Yes, well, maybe I spoke too soon. My thoughts were on Durins Bane
> foremost, and I subscribe to the idea that while he was woken by
> the dwarves, he was drawn to the fellowship by the one ring.
There is the Watcher in the Water and the Orc chieftain that both
target Frodo specifically, but I don't think there is any hint that
the balrog is concerned with Frodo or the Ring (the implication is
that the balrog is alerted through the stone Pippin drops into the
well in the guard-room).
> Ungoliant is often thought to be a Maia or Ainur, meaning that
> Shelob had something of that spirit in her, but then again, it is
> never explicitly stated that she covets the ring.
Well, Lúthien was clearly (before she died and came back as a human,
that is) counted an Elf, so I think the offspring of Ungoliant would
also belong to Middle-earth and be Incarnates (i.e. not be spirits).
If course we might have to resort to a kind of virgin-birth
(parthenogenesis) for Ungoliant's first offspring (which she
apparently later mated with again), so possibly we wouldn't have the
same intrusion of incarnate blood, leaving us even more confused
about what status such offspring should have :-)
But anyway, Gollum (who probably knew Shelob better than anyone else)
clearly expected her not to care about the Ring.
> And hey, why not call the Watcher a Maia when we're at it? :)
I certainly wouldn't call it a natural part of the Middle-earth
ecology ;-) -- Maia is probably as good a hypothesis as any other.
--
Troels Forchhammer
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