[davem]

Originally Posted by Child

It is this sense of the past intruding on the present that intrgues me in this chapter, and many others to come.

I agree, & yet the whole point of the story seems to be to break the link with the past which binds not just the characters but their whole world. The Ring, it seems, is what ties the present to the past, & prevents things moving forward - things seem to just go around in circles - it is a story of 'many defeats & many fruitless victories', of 'fighting the long defeat'. When the Ring is destroyed the 'circle' is broken, the elves embalming process comes to an end & things finally start to change. I think this leads us back to Fordim's Road & Ring theory. The Ring (& we shouldn't forget that the Elves are responsible for the whole 'ring' idea in the first place) is the true symbol of Middle earth, because its a world of inevitable repetitions, where the past not only affects but determines the future. The Ring is myth & magic, & in its' world there can never be any escape or forward movement. So, we can have the world of magic & wonder, of elves wandering through the forests, but we also have to take Sauron & the Ring with it - or we can destroy the Ring, lose the magic & (the intensity of) the wonder & be free to move. From this perspective, we can understand Tolkien's statement that 'the whole of Arda was Morgoth's Ring' in a new light. This is the point of Sauron's actions/desire - he desires the kind of absolute control that will keep the world turned inward on itself (as he is turned inward on himself), endlessly repeating itself.

I can't help wondering whether Tolkien's decision to choose the Ring as the focus for 'The New Hobbit' determined ultimately what the story would become, & why he could say 'it wrote itself'. Once the ring becomes the motivating force of the story, the world of the story is shaped around it, & its destruction inevitably means the end of that world.

This gives the lie (if that were still necessary) to the idea that LotR is simply good guys vs bad guys. The Ring is Middle earth, Middle earth is the Ring, & the end of one is inevitably the end of the other. I don't know whether in the end we can call Tolkien an optimist or a pessimist - optimist certainly, in that by bringing the old world of the 'eternal return' (whoa! back to the Nazis!!!) to an end, but also a pessimist in that he seems to believe that only by rejecting the 'wonder' & high magic can we be liberated. He gives us Middle earth only to take it away, & like the elves we are left only with memory (which is not what the heart desires, as someone once said).