Nebulous "It" and Absolutes

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Saucepan Man, the ring in the hands of a Dwarf may not have necessarily been a good thing. Reason not withstanding, Hobbits had an incredible resistance to the rings power, A Dwarf may have not had the will or strength to even take up the challenge, only one with the simplicity and innocence of a Hobbit could do the deed, but I think Frodo will have known that If he was to accomplish the deed he would have to sacrifice much.

The Message I think Tolkien wants us to read from this is, The Hobbits were not over occupied with war or the memory of war; battle and power was not impotent to them.

"Elves and Dragons! Cabbages and potatoes are better for you."

Gaffer Gamgee

This pretty much sums up the attitude of the Hobbits. Their innocence was what made them resilient to the ring, Eru knew this, and so you can trace the pattern all the way back to when Olorin was created, Perhaps Gandalf's purpose was to send Bilbo on this mission to the Lonely mountain and so find the ring on the way, thus entangling himself in all deeds concerning the ring.

In U-T it tells us of how Gandalf remembered Bilbo as a child;

"Somehow I had been attracted by Bilbo Long before, as a child, and a young Hobit: he had not quite come of age when I had last seen him. He had stayed in my mind ever since, with his eagerness and his bright eyes, and his love of tales, and his questions about the wide world outside the Shire. As soon as I entered the shire I had news of him. He was getting talked about, it seemed. Both his parents had died early for Shire-folk, at about 80; and he had never married. He was already grown a bit queer, they said, and went off for days by himself. He could even be seen talking to strangers, even Dwarves!
Gandalf, Unfinished Tales, the Quest of Erebor

It is my belief that Eru Purposed it that Gendalf should remember Bilbo and so send him on this task, because hobbits had such resilience to the ring, he knew the ring would be dropped by Gollum, so he guided Bilbo's hand to find it. Old Olorin then left Bilbo with the choice to give up the ring of his own free will or to keep it, or be it with a little encouragement.

[The Saucepan Man]

Doh! I realised soon after I posted my contribution above that, by intervening to ensure the destruction of the Ring, Eru is denying Sauron his free will in the same way that he would have denied Melkor his free will had he not allowed the "tainted blueprint" of Arda to come into being.

Hmm. Perhaps Eru's intervention is only justified when its effect is to avert circumstances which would otherwise inevitably result in a total victory for the forces of evil. Which would justify his intervention in the tunnels under the Misty Mountains, since otherwise the Ring would almost certainly have found its way back to Sauron. But that does not explain why Eru chose Bilbo to find it and seemingly ordained Frodo to destroy it.

Reason not withstanding, Hobbits had an incredible resistance to the rings power, A Dwarf may have not had the will or strength to even take up the challenge, only one with the simplicity and innocence of a Hobbit could do the deed

I most certainly agree with that, Hookbill. I have always considered Hobbits to have a peculiar resistance to the effects of the Ring and therefore the most suitable candidates for Ringbearer (although not proto-Hobbits, as Smeagol's miserable life shows us). But this brings us back to the question posed by davem some while back: how can Eru be justified in choosing Frodo for the task in circumstances in which he (Frodo) cannot possibly concieve the scale of the loss which he will suffer in carrying it out, and in which, once the Ring comes into his possession, he really has very little choice in the matter (if Sauron's victory is to be averted).

Perhaps it just comes down to the fact that, unless Eru had taken it upon himself to destroy the Ring by direct intervention (a serious negation of free will), someone had to do it. And, of all the available candidates, perhaps Frodo was best suited to the task.

[Bêthberry]

Without addessing some of the major points in the discussion here, I would like to offer a slight observation about what can be said of dwarves, as I believe a special case is made of their relationship to the rings. My references are to Appendix A, "Durin's Folk".

There are several passages which suggest that dwarves were more impervious to the Ring's ability to inflame desire for power than other peoples. Among Durin's Folk, it was believed that the dwarven Ring was the first of the Seven to be forged and was given to Durin III, King of Khazad-dûm, by no less than the elven smiths themselves rather than by Sauron (who of course still had his hand in forging it). (II am rather shamelessly paraphrasing and condensing Tolkien here.) The Ring was held in secret by the dwarven kings.

The particular power of the Ring over the dwarves is explained thusly:

None the less it may well be, as the Dwarves now believe, that Sauron by his arts had discovered who had this Ring, the last to remain free, and that the singular misfortunes of the heirs of Durin were largely due to his malice. For the Dwarves had proved unmanageable by this means. The only power over them that the Rings wielded was to inflame their hearts with a greed of gold and precious things, so that if they lacked them all other good things seemed profitless, and athey were filled with wrath and desire for vengeance on all who deprived them. But they were made from their beginning of a kind to resist most steadfastly any domination. Though they could be slain or borken, they could not be reduced to shadows enslaved to another will; and for the same reason their lives ere not affected by an Ring, to live either longer or shorter becasuse of it. All the more did Sauron hate the possessors and desire to dispossess them. [my bolding]

I suppose this can actually suggest a reason why a dwarf could not carry the One Ring, that dwarves had already drawn the wrath and malice of Sauron and might be greater targets than Frodo.

Still, I think it is clear from the Appendix that the dwarves might indeed have the strength not only to take up the challenge but to persevere. That in itself might provide less dramatic potential than the slow process of Frodo's struggle with the Ring. Yet let us give the dwarves their just due.

As an interesting extrapolation of this,we might consider if in fact the body of LOTR, the text proper as opposed to the addenda, supports this view of dwarves as impervious to domination. And, indeed, if The Hobbit and The Silm do as well. Is this quality as apparent in the texts as it is in the historical documentation? If not, that might account for the very different interpretations of dwarves offerred in this thread.

[davem]

And yet the question remains, if creatures can be held accountable for their freely willed choices & actions, can their creator? Does Eru bear any responsibility for His choices - from His creation of a 'flawed' Arda, down to His choice of Frodo to bear the Ring?

He seems to allow freedom of action to His Children up to a point - the point that His plan seems to be put at risk - then He simply takes it away :Frodo claims the Ring, the Nazgul will then, as Tolkien shows in Letters, sieze it & surrender it to Sauron, so, at that point, Eru steps in & puts everything right (or rather, puts His plan back on course). So, we are free to do what we want - except change the Music. But then, how much freedom do we actually have? Eru will step in to manipulate events & even individuals. It almost seems that to Eru, the 'plan', the Music is more important than the freedom of His children.

But maybe this is to avoid complete anarchy? But then why give His Children freedom at all if He has already decided what will be permitted & what will not? Will the Children ever be allowed to grow beyond childhood, or will their Father always be running things - a 'benevolent dictator', in Plato's words?

Lyta, I think Tolkien did think of God as being seperate from His creation, & intervening (directly) only at specific times, but retaining overall control of the direction of the Universe. But we come then to what Tolkien understood God's nature to be. If we take one of his fellow TCBSite GB Smith's elegies for Rob Gilson we find: 'Tolkien & the Great War'

' One piece declares a stark view of Divine providence: Gilson's death is "a sacrifice of blood outpoured" to a God whose purposesare utterly inscrutable & who "only canst be glorified/ By man's own passion & the Supreme pain"'

Does Tolkien share this view of God? And are we seeing this 'gloryfication' of Eru in Frodo's 'passion & Supreme pain'? But isn't this too close to saying Eru is some kind of ego maniac, some kind of mad dictator, glorying in the suffering of His slaves? Or some kind of Ozymandias, declaring 'look on my works, ye mighty & despair'? And if that is the case, who could blame the athiests for laughing at his broken statue?

Do we find Eru to 'loving' & self sacrificing? Do we even find the Valar to be so. Certainly not in what we would consider to be a Chistian sense. But perhaps we are dealing here with a vision of the Divine which has come out of loss - of parents, friends & the 'blue remembered hills' of a lost, irretrievable childhood. Why has God allowed so much loss - was Smith right? Does our suffering 'glorify' God? Or does God not really care for us - which is the worse option? And, as long as Eru puts everything right in the end, isn't that enough (well, perhaps - as long as we don't question too deeply, & hold to our faith & trust - estel).

Of course, we could step back & see the story of Frodo as the story of 'Everyman'. We all have to take up our Ring (or our Cross) & walk our own via Dolorosa, be broken before we can be re-made. And maybe it is for our own good, & has to be that way, & we have to be free to fall. But we come back to the point - does Eru bear any responsibility for the suffering of His Children? By creating sentient Children, capable of suffering, & putting them into a world where they will suffer, does Eru in any sense have to at least account for Himself to His children?

Perhaps that is the reason for Eru's incarnation which the Athrabeth speaks about. Not as in Christianity, to save mankind from the consequence of its sin, but simply to suffer alongside His Children. Perhaps that in itself is Eru's calling Himself to account. Perhaps in that act He is suffering alongside Frodo, not saving him.

[littlemanpoet]

I read something recently that responds quite succinctly to some of what is being debated here, about the "why" of suffering in terms of God or Eru. It explores five different answers to the question, and shows that each answer is lacking.

Suffering is a punishment. The argument: I must have done something awful for this to be happening to me. God can't be to blame, so I must be. But children never deserve to be abused by their parents, and loved ones never deserve to be killed by drunk drivers. So this answer can't be right.

Suffering sensitizes us. The argument: The purpose of suffering is to leave us more compassionate and tender. The problem is that the price is too high. Do some people have to starve in order to make me thankful for food? If God would do awful things to other people just to teach me lessons, he's not worth worshiping.

Suffering is a result of our free will. The argument: This is the "fallen world" argument. Our own choices have caused the world's pain; the mess is our mess. But no one chooses to have cancer. Victims of murder, rape, etc., never chose the crime committed against them. Suffering is a personal problem, not an "issue"; if an explanation doesn't hold up in the emergency room, it doesn't really help.

Suffering is a Test. The argument: Through suffering we discover what we are made of. Problem is that not all suffering has the benefit of testing our character. What's the test when an earthquake kills thousands in a Third World earthquake? A god who is obsessed with testing his creatures is not one of love and grace.

Suffering is simply a part of human life. The idea here is that our moments of pain are part of the natural rhythm of life; suffering just is going to happen, it's part of the human condition. The problem with this notion is in the specific cases: how can a baby born with an addiction to crack ever be seen as a natural part of life's rhythms? If you hang with this idea, you end up with a random succession of events that are either painful or joyful but have no purpose. Grave doubts would ensue about the benefit of having a god or a life.

Then the book offers an alternative, which is that the "why" of suffering is unanswerable as such, and is actually a prayer instead of a question seeking a propositional answer. Suffering's only answer is a numinous experience. For those of us from the Judeo-Christian tradition, we see this represented in Job, who lost everything, asked all kinds of "why" questions, and finally saw God; once he did, he no longer needed the question answered; having seen God was his answer.

Here's what I've been leading up to: I wonder if Frodo's vision was not Tolkien's presentation of the numinous experience that was the answer to Frodo for all his suffering? "...at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise." Scent and sight and sound. It's all there: a new dawn, something being "rolled back as a scroll", as it were, and a far green country that puts me in mind of both Niggle's Parish, and the distant mountains in "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis. This numinous experience that Tolkien describes is meant for the reader just as much as it's meant for Frodo. No other answer satisfies for Frodo's suffering.

"May your song always be sung."

LMP

[davem]

Or, we 'transcend' sufering, passing into a more spiritually aware state. Like Jung's example of being caught in a storm in the mountains. You cannot stop it, so you climb above it. The storm is still going on, but you can watch it from a safe distance. Perspective. We are spiritual beings, when we awaken to our true state we will be able to look on our experiences & those of others & see them as part of the growing process.

Frodo's suffering remains 'wrong', but rather than this wrong being put right, it is transcended. So, are we talking about Frodo being 'healed' in the usual sense of the word? Is he actually 'healed' in the sense of having what was wrong with him put right, or do his wounds remain forever, but he himself is made different by having had them inflicted on him, suffering them?

I remember a few years back, I found a big chunk of green glass buried in a field. The plough had scraped & cracked it, broken it's edges into jagged angles. But when its held up to the light those flaws refract & reflect the light shining through it. The inside is like liquid. If it hadn't been battered & damaged in the way it has been, by both man & nature, it wouldn't have been as beautiful - yet its not the glass alone which is beautiful, its the light shining through it. If the 'flaws', the 'wounds' in it were 'healed' it would not be as beautiful when the light shone through it.

So Frodo is not healed in the sense of being made into his old self again. The wounds are not made to 'disappear'. They remain always, but are made into something else. Which would mean that our flaws, possibly even our 'sins' (forgiven, but 'transformed' rather than forgotten) remain with us, but because we have become different, our 'flaws' too, have become different.

But then we come back to hope without guarantees. Only God, the numinous, can give meaning to life, can offer that transformation. Without 'God' there is only wrongness, & life is ultimately without meaning. Which is a stark choice - Hopelessness, or Hope without guarantees.

I don't know where this is going - not this thread, but my train of thought at the moment. I still don't think the 'wrongness' is accounted for. Rising above it - or being raised above it - doesn't make it disappear. The wrongness is still there, even if you are no longer affected by it. And if that wrongness continues, that's unjust, & we are back at the question of why Eru, or God, allows that injustice. Is bringing right out of wrong, good out of evil, sufficient justification for allowing the 'evil' to go on existing?

I don't know, but you have got me thinking

[littlemanpoet]

davem: Maybe that's putting too bald a face on it, but I found your comment interesting:

I still don't think the 'wrongness' is accounted for.

Precisely. You are saying what the book said: accounting cannot arrive at an answer, because you're still trying to add things up, and they will not. Your example of Jung and transcendence is an example of numinous experience.

And if that wrongness continues, that's unjust, & we are back at the question of why Eru, or God, allows that injustice. Is bringing right out of wrong, good out of evil, sufficient justification for allowing the 'evil' to go on existing?

This is just another version of asking "why". I think "why" is unanswerable. One has to let go of "why" and move through the suffering to the numinous, that completes the suffering with joy.

It is also telling that, from the Christian tradition again, Christ still bears the scars of his suffering, even in his "perfect", resurrected body, and will forever, according to the texts. So perfection no longer equals "without blemish", but seems to equal "completed and restored to wholeness, even with the signs of suffering still there". Apparently, if one accepts the Christian point of view on this, every scar we bear after our how-ever-many-years of life, may still be visible, whether emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical, or whatever, but will be made part of the perfection of the resurrected body. Sorry if this was offensive to those of you who do not hold to this particular faith; it's the way I think and view the world, and you know, I'm rather glad of it right now.

Completeness seems like the only possible conclusion to suffering, and it seems to be what Tolkien is suggesting not only for Frodo, but for Sam and the rest of the Fellowship as well.