Quote:
Originally Posted by Marileangorifurnimaluim
Back to the simple question, who spoke, the ring or Frodo? "...or be cast yourself into the flames.."
It was Frodo, his will defeated at last by his own weaknesses which the ring played on, until he claimed it at last.
He sounded different because... well, you guess. What was Frodo's key weakness that finally caused him to put on the ring?
The ring is subtle. It doesn't work the user like a puppet, it's not so simple. The ring amplifies the capacities of the user -- especially their weaknesses.
"Yet it's way to my heart is through pity" - said Gandalf.
Galadriel said with the ring she would become a beloved queen - "beautiful and terrible..."
The ring did not have a will of it's own, merely the imbued shadow of the will of Sauron. That's why it did not work on each bearer in the same way.
Frodo was losing an internal battle, and his defeat revealed his own weaknesses which we only saw in glimpses previously.
Remember Sam's vision of himself, when he wore the ring, his inner desire to turn all of Middle Earth into a garden after he had seen so much desolation? We got to see through Sam what Frodo's inner battle was like. But Frodo's actual battle was hidden.
What do you think was the avenue through which the ring at last defeated Frodo? What was that weakness? I think Sam had a talent for seeing the truth, whether the truth he was just a gardener when he finally took off the ring, or the truth of the ring of fire, when it finally took hold of Frodo. I think Frodo's behavior with Gollum and Sam's visions are the clue as to what it was.
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What do we know about The Ring?
The Ring had the greater measure of Sauron's power imbued within it. Sauron was the archetypal seducer. Give in to your greed, power and lusts with the promise of eternal--what? The Ring enslaved. Yet, certain beings, of enough power of their own fibre, had the potential to 'wrest' the power of The Ring and make it their own--and counter-enslave, Sauron! I seem to recall that was one of Sauron's great fears about The Ring.
What else do we know? That over time, the being affected starts to crave The Ring's proximity, but that it left them feeling 'thin' (Bilbo) and 'stretched', and restive, perpetually. Behaviours like murder, eating other beings start to become 'normal' (Gollum). That Elvish Waybread 'stank', and that rabbit was ruined by being 'scorched'.
On Mount Doom--the presence of The Ring was as a burning wheel of fire in the mind's eye. Who commanded Gollum? I would say it was 'The Ring--THROUGH--Frodo'. I.e. Frodo was "sauron-ised" and "sauron-ising". As such, Gollum, already warped by The Ring, was enslaved to it, and able to be commanded by the wielder of The Ring. Interesting hey. I'd say that would mean that Frodo, having a 'kind of' telepathic-ish association to Sauron--fibres of Sauron's consciousness, as tendrils invading Frodo's mind--such that--Sauron would have commanded Frodo to yield The Ring, and Frodo would have done so--as the last of his former Mind and Self was subverted.
Frodo did, indeed become commanding and imperious in ways he never would have been, on Mount Doom, had he not have ever touched The Ring. There--the added power of his voice--the flow of Sauron's Will empowering the wielder, tricking them into thinking this new 'Voice' was their own.
Bearer beware!
Frodo did not 'fail', as I read, upstream. He bore the Ring further than perhaps, any other being could have.....