Quote:
Originally Posted by Pervinca Took
True, but that's the extreme potency of the Ring as it reaches its point of maximum power, very near the fire where it was made.
|
A good point. Look at Bilbo, having the Ring a much longer time than Frodo, but apparently losing none of his ability to find pleasure in food, drink, song, and poetry, even while feeling "thin and stretched".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pervinca Took
Whether Frodo's ability to experience emotional and physical pleasure is permanently damaged is an interesting point. Like Celebrian, he loses delight in Middle-earth, and exposure to the Ring (and the things this led to, such as his inability to renounce it in the end) is a huge part of this. The wounds he received along the way were more due to the fact of his being the Bearer, and his mission throwing him constantly into the line of fire, and they contributed too. But I wonder how far the sensory and emotional pleasures returned once the Ring was destroyed. I would think that he was able to sense them again, but some kind of detachment remained.
|
Frodo was able to laugh again certainly, and find some measure of relief with the Ring gone, but as Tolkien noted in
Letters #246
Quote:
|
[Frodo's] real desire was hobbitlike (and humanlike) just 'to be himself' again and get back to the old familiar life that had been interrupted. Already on the journey back from Rivendell he suddenly saw that was not for him possible.
|
Since he felt he could not continue with life in Middle-earth, naturally the pleasures available there would have lost much of their luster.