XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: fwbrown@bellsouth.net   
      
   In alt.fan.tolkien Raven    
   wrote:   
   >   We know from Gandalf that even the benign Rings would be perilous to   
   > mortals, for a reason that is loosely similar to the danger that a clifftop   
   > represents to a man (and taking a cue from Sam's description of Galadriel).   
   > It is not the cliff's fault if he dies from jumping off it because it looks   
   > so fun to be an eagle.  I don't know if Galadriel's warning to Frodo was   
   > with the specific evil of the Ruling Ring in mind in addition: if by "It   
   > would destroy you!" she implied a general peril of the Rings to a weak   
   > wielder, or he would be immediately Gollumized, as it were.   
      
   I compare it to something like an unskilled person trying to plant a land   
   mine; he's as likely to blow himself up as to injure an enemy.  So I see   
   Galadriel's warning as something like this:  "Seeing and controlling   
   the thoughts of others takes great power.  The Ring can give you such   
   power, but you have neither the strength nor the skill to control it.   
   It would destroy your own mind if you tried."   
      
   Perhaps if Frodo had tried to use the Ring as Galadriel suggested, it   
   would have left him insane or even catatonic.  Remember the effect that   
   long exposure to the Ring had on Gollum's mind (paranoid schizophrenia)   
   even without attempting to use it for control.  Pippin's brief encounter   
   with the mind of Sauron in the palantir and the (temporary) effect it had   
   on his own mind also might give us a hint of what would have happened   
   if Frodo had directly encountered the minds of the Ringwraiths through   
   the Ring.   
      
   --   
   F. Wayne Brown    
      
   Þæs ofereode, ðisses swa mæg.  ("That passed away, this also can.")   
      from "Deor," in the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)