Ring Bearers
 

In another topic, we discussed who bore the ring of power. Click here to read.

I noted that these people bore the ring.
1. Sauron - who made it
2. Isildur - who cut it from Sauron's hand
3. Deagol - who found it in the river where Isildur lost it.
4. Smeagol/Gollum - who murdered Deagol for the ring.
5. Bilbo Baggins - who found the ring in the cave, read the Hobbit.
6. Frodo Baggins - who received it from Bilbo when he left the Shire.
7. Samwise Gamgee - who took it from Frodo when he thought that he was dead from Shelob's poison.

Isildur and Sam were the only ones who had the ring that married. Isildur was already married and had children when he possesed the ring. Sam was the only ring bearer that married after possessing the ring.

My question is why did the others not marry? Was it beacause the ring had power over their minds? Why the was Sam able to marry? Is it because he only took the ring to keep it from being taken by the enemy and that he did not acctualy posses it?

Here's the way I see it:

Sauron: demons aren't really into marriage; besides, who'd want to marry a guy like Sauron, anyways? He's too power hungry for any woman to stand for long.

Deagol: I'm thinking that he didn't live long enough to get married. Poor guy.

Smeagol/Gollum: Too obsessed over the Ring by the end, but I always saw him as being close in age to Deagol, so he might have been too young to marry, too.

Bilbo: some people just aren't meant for marriage. Bilbo is one. He preffered being by himself at home and, after all that adventuring he did, well, again, who in the Shire (particularly of his class) would wan to marry him? Poor guy. I'd've married him...

Frodo: I think he was just too hurt; he couldn't share that pain with anyone, not even his dearest friend, Sam, so he left tot he only place where he could find healing. Poor guy.

That's just my two cents.

This thread has a very comprehensive discussion of the nature of the Ring that also caused this peculiarity of its bearers.

LOL!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I wondered if that thread would come up.

I think it is more than just that the ringbearers did not Marry. Many characters in Tolkien's works did not, Legolas and Gimli among them. There just seems to be a different view of marriage in ME. It is not necessary to marry to be happy. Often not a popular opinion in todays world. It stands out to us.

1. Sauron - Okay: do you think he would ever be able to have ANY competition to his power? And would anyone marry him without his forcing them? He would not wish to marry
2. Isildur - He probably died before he could find a wife
3. Deagol - He died before he had the ring long, and he was young
4. Smeagol/Gollum - He ran away and lived in the cave alone so long...
5. Bilbo Baggins - Hmmm...well, he was getting on a bit already when he found the ring...not old mind you, but...olDER. Don't know...maybe there was no one right...or maybe it was the ring
6. Frodo Baggins - Well, it was either the ring or the same case as was with Bilbo. I forget: did he travel afterwards? If so, then he may not have had TIME to find a wife!
7. Samwise Gamgee - Well, come ON! He and Rosie are PERFECT for each other! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] And maybe it IS because he did not have the ring long. And Sam would make a really good husband if you think about it!

Good question - at least, it's one I've wondered about sometimes myself [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. Sorry if I'm repeating what other people have said here, but here's how I see it:

Sauron - I second the opinion that he wouldn't want any competition, and when you think about it, whom could he marry exactly? Demons who exist only as lidless eyes don't seem like they would really get anything out of the institution. ("Till destruction of the Tower of Barad-dur do you part" eh, maybe not).

Isildur - hard to tell since, as was pointed out, he was married before he got the Ring. The theory that the Ring might affect one's "personal life" like that might be true here though; consider the description of Isildur in "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields" - he seems so consumed by the thing that his family was a far-distant priority. He may barely have seen his wife after that battle; they certainly didn't have any more children.

Deagol - Technically there's no evidence that he *wasn't* married, but as Rosa points out, it's not likely. No idea what would have happened to him if he'd lived, but the examples of Isildur (and Gollum) aren't too promising.

Gollum/Smeagol - Tricksy this one is. Gollum sounds like a fairly nasty guy even before he got the Ring - always going exploring alone into "roots and beginnings", greedy, trying to take advantage of his friend, and the first thing he thinks of after discovering he's invisible is of all the pranks he can pull. It's a safe bet he wasn't too sociable before the whole thing happened, and that the Ring didn't find it terribly difficult to corrupt him. To be honest, Gollum sounds like far too much of a natural loner to be the marrying kind, even if he hadn't gotten the Ring.

Bilbo - Again, not the marrying kind, but in a far different way. In "The Quest of Erebor" Gandalf describes Bilbo as a naturally adventure-minded young hobbit who had stifled his dreams of exploration so he wouldn't be seen in Hobbiton as being unnaturally Took-like. But he never married (which Gandalf points out is unusual among hobbits) which was probably a way of keeping a sort of escape-hatch; if by chance an adventure ever *did* come along, he wouldn't be tied down. All this predated the Ring and must be ascribed to Bilbo's character.

Frodo - He grew up knowing about the Ring and got official possession of it while he was young, rather like Gollum, actually. Very hard to tell if the Ring affected the fact that he didn't marry, especially since Frodo seems more of an innate homebody than Bilbo does (you can see that in ROTK when Frodo is grieving over leaving the Shire for good; Bilbo lived there a lot longer and was sorry to leave, but not that way). I think the fact that the Ring was always occupying a corner of Frodo's mind, eating up his attention, so to speak, probably did affect his not marrying (and of course there's the whole "you were *meant* to have it" factor; maybe it was Fate holding him back). Afterwards, of course, he was in far too bad a shape to marry anyone, even if he'd had the energy left to be so inclined.

Sam - He was the only one of all the Ring-bearers who did not take possession of it willingly; he took it against his own inclination and while he was bearing it never thought of it as his - it was Frodo's, and he was just helping Frodo out. And of course he only had it a very short time, and was the only one who could let himself give up the Ring without a struggle (which can't just be ascribed to his having borne it for a very short while; imagine trying to get Boromir to give up the Ring after he'd had it for five minutes). Sam seems to have been saved by the fact that the Ring was never the dominating thought in his mind; instead the dominating thought was always Frodo. These factors were probably what saved Sam; if he'd let the Ring take over his thoughts and had quarrelled over it with Frodo his character would have been terribly changed, even if they did manage to destroy it. Rosie Cotton probably wouldn't have recognized the Sam who came back after that.

Oh - sorry, I seem to have written a book! Thanks for reading the end [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

It's because:
1) Sam had the ring of power for like 5 seconeds....
2) Not everybody gets married....
3) who would ever want Gollum or Sauron ?!?

You forgot one, Tom Bombadil, but he was married before he had the ring any way.

Awww, come on, i'm sure gollum would have turned out ok if it hadnt been for that damned ring! granted, he throttled deagol for it, but that would be the hold/power it has over folk, wouldn't it?

I can imagine Smeagol and Deagol being each other's best man at their weddings [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Some very intersting points made so far. Presently going 'hmmm'...

At this time in ME there were monumental changes taking place and the future was uncertain. Those to whom fate (back to other threads!) gave major tasks to perform like Legolas, Gimli, Frodo etc. were totally absorbed by those purposes, and afterwards probably felt that they didn't fit in anywhere.