The One Ring and split personalities

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I thinke there may actually be some sort of tendency in the ring to split personalities. Consider Frodo's behavior as the ring took him over vis a vis any time he thoght the ring was in peril. He went all the way from normal gentle Frodo to a near homicidal maniac almost instantly. And while he "faded" as the burden got heavier (with regards to his hope and his memories of the better time he was figting to preserve) we really saw no "middle ground" Frodo; one whom was partially under the rings power, but not totally. When the ring took him over, it was almost like flipping a switch, he turned all the way to fully posessed in a heartbeat. Even Sam when he took the ring bsically went from thought of his garden to thoughts of being a world conquering warlord almost at once.

Yet we don't see Frodo or Sam referring to themselves in the plural. The Ring acting on one's darker side is hardly the same as an actual "split personality" like Gollum exhibited, in which two sides of the psyche were apparently at odds, and even spoke to one another.