Book 1, Chap. 2: The Shadow of the Past

[Mrs.Underhill]

I guess what complicates this comparison is the fact that people in the real world aren't under the influence of a ring of power that magnifies the evil within them.

People are under influence of many bad things in the world, often against their will.
People who could be nice and law-abiding citizens if brought up in a loving family and in a good neibourhood may also grow up as killers and criminals if brought up in getto in a family of drunkards/abusers, or taken up as child soldiers in Africa etc.

I see Ring's influence not quite as addiction to a behaviour-changing drug (even though this is present too) but more like a malicious influence of evil things in the world, an analogy of real-world curcumstances which twist a human being, release a beast which, I believe, is inside any of us. Yes, I subscribe to the fallen world/fallen humanity theory.

A beast can be awoken in a perfectly normal society, in perfectly normal people by hardship, mob frenzy, political/social pressure etc. Think Nazi Germany, think mob lynching in USA in 19th century, think even public riots like the Boston Red Sox celebrations turned violent a year before, which resulted in a death of a woman. Think all those oppressive regimes like Mao's, Pol Pot's or Stalin's.
Are those people who were going along with those crimes and murders responsible for it? Absolutely. But do we also blame the society, the outside influence? Yes to that as well. People were coerced, convinced, carried away or should we better say *seduced* into thinking that it's OK to do something which should be considered abhorrent in normal circumstances.

Tolkien talks about it in his letters on Frodo's fall to the Ring. His belief, which I share, is that all of us are fallible and can be seduced into doing something bad. We have to judge not the fact of the fall itself, but the measure of seduction and the measure of resistance to it. That's what Christians ask for in the prayer "Not lead us to temptation, but deliver us from evil". Because it can happen, to any of us. We don't know which pressure or lie or threat we might be exposed to, and we can only hope that we'll have a strength to remain good people in the face of it.

Going back to Gollum. He murdered under influence of the Ring, and his later crimes were under the Ring as well. Otherwise he was an unpleasant guy, but not evil. The Ring represents an ultimate seduction by evil, an ultimate pressure to do bad. An analogy would be, for example, being taken up as a child soldier by thugs in Africa and taught to do horrible things, taught that it's OK. Taught evil by someone who has complete control over you and whose moral pressure you don't have facilities to withstand.

Gollum was an innocent being twisted by evil, tortured by it and turned into a monster, conditioned by the Ring to be bad. My analogy - child abuse, rather than addiction.

I would have compassion to the victim of child abuse, even though he would turn up to be a mass murderer.

[solicitr]

This prompted me to wonder, for those here who don't subscribe to a fallen world base theology, do you also see a 'ring' presence in the world, and what is it?

One doesn't have to believe in a horned chap with red Spandex and a pitchfork to believe in the existence of the Diabolic. Pride, Wrath, Avarice, Lust, Sloth, Envy, Gluttony: the worser angels of our nature are ever-present.

I think they can all be reduced to a shorthand: selfishness. Or, better, self-centeredness, a position we cannot completely overcome, since subjectivity is an unavoidable condition of the human mind. To 'love your neighbor as yourself' is ultimately an unattainable ideal, calling as it does for the complete negation of ego: a sort of Cartesian event horizon. It's not all that distinct from the Buddhist concept of nirvana (though, of course, Buddhists believe it's attainable).

The Ring by contrast is the ultimate ego-reinforcer; it promises the triumph of the individual Will. From Gollum the Great to Galadriel's White Goddess, or Gandalf's 'benign' despotism, it's all the same, as the Wise realised.

[Jnyusa]

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[Rowanberry]

That was well put, solicitr and Jn. I don't subscribe to a "fallen world" belief; but, I can see an "effect of the Ring" in the selfishness and insensitivity of human beings, as well as the capability for pity and mercy and humility that the good guys in the LOTR possess. The former just seem to prevail most of the time.

[solicitr]

And it is a very peculiar kind of self-obliteration, understanding that self-obliteration is also a symptom of Pride ... one obliterates the other not because the other is different but because the other is too outrageously alike. It is Pride, arrogance, that convinces us that this will work at all - that we can deny the evil in our own selves by destroying the other who reflects it back to us.

Vide Denethor.

[Faramond]

One of the projects I see for myself is to discover, with the help of these threads on HoF, what it is that makes LOTR special. Where does the magic of the story come from? Of course there is no complete answer, nor even a very satisfying short answer, nor an answer that everyone would agree upon. Nevertheless I think I can find a partial answer that will suit me while being also intelligible to others. Now, in the search for this answer it is wise to pause at certain moments and decide what elements of the story should be a part of the answer, and also which should not.

It is clear that most of this chapter concerns the ring. It is like a news article on the ring, in narrative form. Extra! Read all about the terrible ring of power! Sauron's evil power, right here in the heart of the peaceful Shire! Wizard offers no hope of a quick resolution!

So, the chapter is primarily about the ring. And most of the posts in this thread so far have also been about the ring, which is appropriate. Excellent posts they are, may I add? Yes, and I will respond to some of them in future hours and days. The overall story is also about the ring, in large part. The plot is driven by it. So yes, this chapter, as the introduction to the ring, is vitally important.

I must now say that I believe the ring is not an important part of the answer to what makes LOTR so special. In the context of the narrative the ring is an amplifier of character and a driver of the plot, but it is not a thing that creates the beautiful moments in the story, or that creates a sense of wonder, or that gives the clear moments of illumination. That is my claim. The ring is essentially ugly and cruel.

So I am led to a question: what is in the chapter besides the ring? Well, quite a lot, some of which has been addressed already. And, at the end, there is Frodo's decision. Yes, the ring is a part of this choice. The ring is going to be involved in everything Frodo does. But though the decision is forced by the ring, it is not about the ring. Frodo chooses to save the Shire by leaving the Shire. Those are his own words.

Frodo decides that the Shire is a thing worth saving, that it should be allowed to remain as it is, uninvaded. He is not, initially, going on a quest to save the world, to destroy the ring, or anything like that. At the close of the chapter he doesn't even have a destination, other than "the world outside of the Shire".

What happens when all pretense and illusion is removed? Frodo gets to see what his relationship with the Shire really is. He gets to say what it really is with his actions. There are those patriotic and provincial hobbits in the Green Dragon, and there is Frodo, not particularly patriotic or provincial, sitting in the greatest underground mansion of the Shire with the greatest treasure of Middle Earth, and which among them has looked upon his own roots and home and his place in the world in full reality? Those hobbits in the inn or at the party can easily hide from the question. It is a question of home and where your roots truly are and what you are willing and not willing to do in defense of home. Frodo is capable of leading the most sheltered life of any hobbit, given his great wealth. He could be the most blustery provincial hobbit of them all. He could burrow far underground, figuratively, and just a little bit literally. Instead he uproots himself and walks naked in foreign lands, for the sake of his mental connection with home. For his love of the Shire.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There are certain moments when I am truly thankful for the existence of HoF. This is one of those moments. Thank you Faramond.

I'm still pondering my response to the issues that have been raised by the recent posts. Now I have some more pondering to do.

[Folca]

Just to take this a step further. Gandalf did not speak out against justice. He spoke against dealing death in judgement. Capital punishment if you will. He had no problem with holding Gollum captive and interrogating him, or even keeping him in prison in Mirkwood. What he objected to was summary execution.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.

I don't know that Gandalf is speaking out against capital punishment as much as he is speaking against rash action. Gandalf is perfectly fine with taking life, and in theory the destruction of Sauron would be a form of capital punishment.

[Primula Baggins]

Folca, I must disagree. I think Gandalf did refer to capital punishment here: "death in judgement," killing someone not to immediately defend oneself or anyone else, or to prevent future harm, but as punishment for the past. No, Gandalf has no problem with killing, but not killing in cold blood and essentially for revenge. Punishment is not for us to decide; we have to act within the time and given the choices we have from moment to moment.

Faramond, your post resonates with me. I've always seen the Ring as a tool, a device, both inside the story and structurally as part of it. What Tolkien was interested in was also what interests me about the Ring, and what you say:

In the context of the narrative the ring is an amplifier of character and a driver of the plot, but it is not a thing that creates the beautiful moments in the story, or that creates a sense of wonder, or that gives the clear moments of illumination.

It is in the reaction to the Ring that we see the worth of everyone who interacts with it.

[N.E. Brigand]

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Ring is that old chestnut personified.

As Tom Shippey has observed, that old chestnut isn't very old.

[N.E. Brigand]

I think they can all be reduced to a shorthand: selfishness. Or, better, self-centeredness, a position we cannot completely overcome, since subjectivity is an unavoidable condition of the human mind.

Thus also the hobbits' experience with Bombadil, who helps them "understand the lives of the Forest, apart from themselves, indeed to feel themselves as the strangers where all other things were at home." There are similar ideas in the Letters and in "On Fairy-Stories".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Ring is that old chestnut personified.

As Tom Shippey has observed, that old chestnut isn't very old.

Just to elaborate on this, Shippey points out that the first person to make this statement was Lord Acton, in 1887, ironically (given Tolkien's Catholicism) in a strongly anti-Papal letter. He adds that William Pitt said something somewhat similar about a hundred years earlier, but that before that, the idea apparently was not attractive, and indeed might even have been thought perverse. Shippey indicates that the Anglo-Saxon concept was more that "power exposes" one's failings, rather than power itself causing the corruption. Shippey says:

Tolkien is certain to have felt the modernity of his primary statement about the Ring. one has to wonder then why he made it and how he related it to the archaic world of his plot. Does Lord Acton's Victorian proverb, in Middle-earth, ring true?

Shippey's answer is that arguably it does not, considering the fact that while some people (Sméagol, Boromir, Denethor, etc.) are very susceptible to the Ring's corrupting influence, other's (Frodo himself, Sam, Faramir, etc.) are much less susceptible. His answer is that the Ring is in fact "addictive". Just as some people are more inclined to alcoholism or drug addiction, so to are some people more susceptible to the Ring's corrupting influence. Shippey argues that Tolkien's deliberate inclusion of such a modern concept provides a strong argument against his critic's charge that he was engaged in "merely insulated 'ivory tower' escapism.

[Jnyusa]

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[axordil]

jny, do you not think there might be a correlation between that kind of self-centeredness and addictive behavior? An addict's boundaries have collapsed even further, inside the confines of the self.

[Jnyusa]

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[Cerin]

Gollum committed murder before he even possessed the Ring, and it sounds like he was an unpleasant person before the Ring ever resurfaced from the Anduin.

It was the seduction of the ring -- the lust to own it -- that prompted Gollum to murder. I'm not sure I'd agree that he is portrayed as an unpleasant person before then, but perhaps with a tendency to be obsessive? His interest in roots and beginnings resulted in an imbalance -- eyes ever turned downward, never looking up. It's a tricky question for me, weighing the ring in the equation of attributing responsibility for actions. I think the ring influence -- it being quasi-sentient and the extension of an evil will -- is stronger than the analogous real life non-religious influences that have been cited, except perhaps for the example of the person raised in a cruel and abusive environment; but I think that might be a different kind of influence than the ring represents.

I think there are a couple of key passages in this chapter, to understanding the nature of the ring:

'But Sméagol returned alone; and he found that none of his family could see him, when he was wearing the ring. He was very pleased with his discovery and he concealed it; and he used it to find out secrets, and he put his knowledge to crooked and malicious uses. He became sharp-eyed and keen-eared for all that was hurtful. The ring had given him power according to his stature.'

I guess I've always taken that last sentence for granted, because its meaning seemed obvious. Gollum did petty, mean things with the power the Ring gave him (to be invisible), because he had the tendency within him already to be petty and mean. (Or is it saying the ring give Gollum some power apart from the power to be invisible, that is being mentioned there -- the ability to better discern opportunities for cruelty?) So it seems that the ring is an enabling or activating force. It brings out, or gives occasion for the exercise of character traits that might never have occasion to be manifested so clearly absent contact with it. Is it reasonable to think that Sméagol would have become a murderer had the ring not been found?

There's a related idea in the other passage I had in mind, that pertains to the ring's nature:

'What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!'

'Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.'

The exercise of pity and mercy at the outset of possessing the ring was apparently a major factor against its future influence. I wonder if the author is referring there to grace given for mercy shown? How do the non-religious among us view the meaning there?

Are those people who were going along with those crimes and murders responsible for it? Absolutely. But do we also blame the society, the outside influence? Yes to that as well. People were coerced, convinced, carried away or should we better say *seduced* into thinking that it's OK to do something which should be considered abhorrent in normal circumstances.

I guess I'd come down on the side of holding Gollum less responsible than the RL examples, because I view the ring's power as conveyed, as being considerably less resistible than societal influences. Or to take just one of your examples, Nazi Germany. What made the difference, between those who embraced Nazi ideals and those who resisted? Do we assign the difference to innate character, as with Gollum and Frodo? Or is it more like the second passage cited, a question of the profound effect that a single decision can make (Frodo showing pity), leading any person down one path or the other?

An analogy would be, for example, being taken up as a child soldier by thugs in Africa and taught to do horrible things, taught that it's OK. Taught evil by someone who has complete control over you and whose moral pressure you don't have facilities to withstand.

Gollum was an innocent being twisted by evil, tortured by it and turned into a monster, conditioned by the Ring to be bad. My analogy - child abuse, rather than addiction.

I don't quite see Gollum that way, but your observations have been really helpful to me in sorting out my thoughts. Particularly this:

We have to judge not the fact of the fall itself, but the measure of seduction and the measure of resistance to it.

I must now say that I believe the ring is not an important part of the answer to what makes LOTR so special.

I think I have to disagree; yet I feel as though I'm in agreement with you about the nature of the story, but just from a different perspective.

In the context of the narrative the ring is an amplifier of character and a driver of the plot, but it is not a thing that creates the beautiful moments in the story, or that creates a sense of wonder, or that gives the clear moments of illumination.

I think the ring and the threat it represents is what allows us to appreciate the beautiful moments in the story to the degree that we do, and the sense of wonder in the ordinary, and what allows us to apprehend as illuminating what might otherwise just seem obvious.

[River]

So I've read and I've thought...

The Ring's a complicated thing. It's an inanimate object, yet it also has a strange power, almost a will, of its own. It's a piece of Sauron himself, in a way. He created it. I think everyone here would agree that when you create something, a bit of yourself goes into the creation. Tolkien took that idea and ran with it. To the point where the Ring arguably exacts revenge on Isildur and runs away from Gollum.

Cerin, I've long been under the impression that Gollum had sneaky tendencies before he encountered the Ring and was maddened enoguh to kill for it. He would not have become what he did, if those tendencies weren't already there. The Ring draws out what was already inside the characters; it does not make anyone evil, it only makes them more evil.

I think the susceptibility to the Ring depends on the would-be Ring-bearer's personal lust for power. Anyone who desires any kind of power if at risk of taking up the Ring. Once they have it, they become corrupted to the degree that they desire power. Those characters that are obedient to something greater than themselves or cognizant of their own weaknesses, or not entirely consumed by their own interests, are less likely to try to take or accept the Ring. I won't say that not everyone who escaped the Ring did not seek power - Aragorn saw in the Ring a chance to claim his heritage, but rather than try to take the Ring for himself as his forefather did once he simply protected and aided Frodo as much as he could. And, arguably, Aragorn wasn't seeking the throne just because he thought he had a right to it - he was doing it for his lady. Again, something greater than himself. Galadriel and Gandalf both refused it. Faramir also rejected the Ring - in the books, he is portrayed as a warrior and commander only by necessity. If he'd had it his way, he'd be holed up in the archives at Minas Tirith reading something. Which brings me to the hobbits. Hobbits have no lust for power. Or almost none. Gollum used the Ring for petty things (by the standards of the Ring, at least). Bilbo only used it to help himself and his comrades out of tight spots in The Hobbit, to hide from unwelcome guests, and for the odd practical joke. Frodo hardly used it at all, and in fact undertook a mission to destroy it. Sam never used it, taking it only to ensure the success of the quest and returning it to Frodo as quickly as possible (and I just love Sam's reaction to the Ring's temptations). In fact, Sam escapes the Ring completely unscathed, the only Ring-bearer to do so, though in all fairness to Frodo and Bilbo, the damage the Ring does seems to be dose-dependent. The longer you have it, the worse it gets. But of the known Ring-bearers, these three hobbits were the only ones to escape it alive. And it is also telling, to me at least, that Merry and Pippin never show any interest at all in the Ring, beyond the fact it is a problem for Frodo.

[Teremia]

The Ring draws out what was already inside the characters; it does not make anyone evil, it only makes them more evil.

But it can also take something basically good -- like Sam's love of growing things and gardening -- and pervert it into something monstrous, so I do think you could accuse the Ring of making people "evil."

Even in the case of Boromir! Boromir's love of his country and his valor are also not inherently "evil," though they carry the dangers of human pride and greed with them. But his virtues are particularly close to the sorts of weaknesses the Ring knows how to build on, so he's very susceptible.

Hobbit desires are a bit more alien for the Ring, and so it finds it more difficult to assimilate Hobbits.

[Faramond]

No, the ring doesn't make people evil. Not without their consent.

Whenever the characters are faced with the temptation of the ring, they know exactly what they are choosing between. Sam did not allow his love of gardening to become evil! He saw that with the ring that's what it would become, and he rejected that. The ring opens up a devious and attractive path to evil, but it does not force anyone onto that path.

And the ring did not make Gollum kill, any more than it made Bilbo kill.

[axordil]

The ring opens up a devious and attractive path to evil, but it does not force anyone onto that path.

I would say the path is always there--we don't need a Ring to fall, after all--and the Ring makes the path seem more attractive by subtly but inexorably coloring a bearer or potential bearer's perception. The Ring is all about imposing one's will on others. That's the only reason it exists, that's the core of Sauron's raison d'etre, which he imbued it with to control the other rings.

With Frodo in particular, though, his will did not involve desire to do anything for himself. Jny touches on this. Some of those who the Ring touched or passed near had a "handle" of self-centeredness to their will: Boromir's pride, Sméagol's simple greed (or perhaps desire for less-than-desirable knowledge?). Some could have had their own (mostly positive but still not self-free) will manipulated, but were wise enough to not put themselves in the situation (Gandalf, Galadriel, Faramir).

Then there's Sam, Bilbo and Frodo. Sam immediately recognized the absurdity of imposing his own simple desires on everyone, of a garden blown up to a kingom--and besides, all he wanted was to help Frodo (and perhaps return home). Bilbo had everything he wanted already, and if he did still desire anything, it was only to live life on his own slightly eccentric terms without interference (and negative desire isn't as good a hook for the Ring). Frodo wanted to save the Shire, initially, but at the end this became distilled down to simply wanting to finish the task he had undertaken, even after all connection to the place he wanted to save had been worn away by carrying the Ring through Mordor.

As a side note and grounds for much later discussion part of me wonders if in fact Frodo had not already in fact "fallen" slightly before he got to the Cracks of Doom, since while going to the Sammath Naur placed the Ring in jeopardy, it also was the one place where the Ring was sure to overwhelm his last bit of resistance. Just how passive-aggressive is the Ring?