LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 11 - A Knife in the Dark

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

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'

I think that this is only half of it, as this chapter (and Child’s brilliant post!) have made clear, things really begin to ‘happen’ at Weathertop thanks to the entrance of Aragorn and the lore/history/fate that he bears with him. I’m sure we’re all aware of how Tolkien claimed that he was “surprised” when Strider introduced himself to the hobbits at Bree, and that the Professor himself had no idea who this Man was. It was this switch from Trotter to Strider that unlocked the tale for Tolkien. Yes, he had already decided to focus the story on the Ring, but it was only with the introduction of Aragorn that it became the One Ring, thus necessitating a trip to Mordor and initiating the final movement of the Third Age (but this is moving into material better left for the HoME discussion).

I raise all this merely to highlight how once more the full story that comes to engulf Frodo is not just the result of the “Shadow of the Past” (i.e. the Ring as Evil) but also of “Strider” (i.e. the chapter title). Weathertop is a great setting for the confrontation with the Nazgûl for a whole bunch of reasons, but one of them has to be that it is a ruin left over from the shared history of Sauron and Aragorn; it’s a remnant of the wars that have been waging between the Men of Numenór and Evil for thousands of years.

This cyclical nature of history/time and events, then, is one that goes forward not ‘just because,’ nor is it defined by Evil only (as davem is perhaps suggesting) but by both Evil and Good; Sauron and Aragorn; the Ring and the Sword that was Broken. Their conflict, which will be resolved in the coming War, is what now entraps Frodo.