Who would have fallen?

[Lyta_Underhill]

originally posted by Lalwende:

What would you do? Guard it and send a colleague to get help? Then you would run the risk of a weaker person coming to the rescue and just taking it. Or you could indeed just walk away, but gnawing away at you would be the knowledge that you had left this Ring lying around where anyone could find it.

Perhaps the question is not "what selfish desire does the Ring offer fulfillment for for each individual," but rather, "what is the path of the Ring to his/her heart?" Gandalf, in fact, knows the path of the Ring to his heart and confides this knowledge to Frodo in Bag End. Whether or not Gandalf has the strength to wield the Ring or not is irrelevant. It is a danger that he knows as well as any of his fellows, and perhaps he questions Aragorn's ability deep down when he admonishes him not to "stumble at the end of the road." If he and Aragorn stood side by side with the Ring untaken between them, which of them would wield it most wisely? Gandalf would know in his heart that Aragorn did not have the power to wield the Ring, and if he let him take it, he would be dooming all of Middle Earth. But then we come to the question of whether Gandalf could destroy the Ring. "I will have such need of it," he says to Frodo at Bag End. At the Cracks of Doom, his need may encompass saving Middle Earth from Aragorn taking the Ring, for he knows Aragorn would fall, and he, Gandalf would be right there, the Steward of Middle Earth, failing in his task, dooming Aragorn by allowing him to fall. Certainly, if Gandalf had been there with Frodo, the danger of this happening would be even greater, for even though he thought Frodo the "best Hobbit in the Shire," he would still have doubts to his strength and sure knowledge that the dear fellow didn't have the strength to forbear claiming the Ring (and he was right, too). Here I am arguing for Gandalf's fall to the Ring, but I merely say that the path to his heart is the same as the hobbits' path to his heart--compassion.

At the Crack of Doom, Gandalf's challenge would have been the greatest, as he knows his abilities and those of his fellows. If he himself cannot destroy the Ring, then he may decide he must take it in order to save the others from it and from Sauron.

Cheers!
Lyta, just knocking off some thoughts late at night...