LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 2 - The Land of Shadow

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

The intentions of the Ring are interesting. What, exactly, did the Ring 'want'?

I'm going to be a little obtuse and suggest that, since the Ring was in some sense a part of Sauron, what it "wanted" was simply what Sauron wanted - which in large part was simply, as Kuruharan says, to get back to Sauron.

It occurs to me that maybe, just as the Ring was 'intended' to be found by Bilbo , but not, as Gandalf says, by its Master, the Ring was not wholly in control of its own fate. Is it not possible that the Ring was drawn back to the Fire, by some other will - that of Eru?

Just how much, one wonders, does Eru tinker with events as they unfold in Arda?

Some interesting points have been raised regarding the possibility of the Ring "knowing" what would happen at Mt. Doom. But it seems to me that knowing is not something the Ring can do. The Ring has will (part of Sauron's will) but I don't think it has a mind. I don't think it has knowledge or intelligence. It seems to me that it does not think about what actions to take; it does not, strictly speaking, decide. Rather, it operates on an intuitive level. It seems to me, then, that the Ring is indeed drawn to Mt. Doom; but I don't see this in terms of a decision to return to Mt. Doom - I don't think it makes sense to ask what the Ring thinks about Mt. Doom. Rather, it seems to me that it is drawn to Orodruin because of the power of that place and because of its inherent affinity with the mountain. It was, after all, the place where the Ring was made.

[davem]

I think this still leave open the question of whether it is Frodo's will or the Ring's which motivates him to carry on without hope. If he has no hope what is he going on for? Shippey claims that it is Frodo's will to 'do the right thing' even without hope, but the more I think about it the more I wonder. At the very least we seem to have Frodo & the Ring willing the same thing - to get the Ring to the Fire. But is that what Sauron is willing? Where does Frodo's will end & the Ring's begin?

Sam's will is also to get the Ring to the Fire, but is that for the same reason as Frodo? By this time does Frodo actually want to destroy it? Has Frodo's will already been subsumed by the Ring?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I'm going to be a little obtuse and suggest that, since the Ring was in some sense a part of Sauron, what it "wanted" was simply what Sauron wanted - which in large part was simply, as Kuruharan says, to get back to Sauron.



Just how much, one wonders, does Eru tinker with events as they unfold in Arda?

Some interesting points have been raised regarding the possibility of the Ring "knowing" what would happen at Mt. Doom. But it seems to me that knowing is not something the Ring can do. The Ring has will (part of Sauron's will) but I don't think it has a mind. I don't think it has knowledge or intelligence. It seems to me that it does not think about what actions to take; it does not, strictly speaking, decide. Rather, it operates on an intuitive level. It seems to me, then, that the Ring is indeed drawn to Mt. Doom; but I don't see this in terms of a decision to return to Mt. Doom - I don't think it makes sense to ask what the Ring thinks about Mt. Doom. Rather, it seems to me that it is drawn to Orodruin because of the power of that place and because of its inherent affinity with the mountain. It was, after all, the place where the Ring was made.

Originally Posted by davem

At the very least we seem to have Frodo & the Ring willing the same thing - to get the Ring to the Fire. But is that what Sauron is willing? Where does Frodo's will end & the Ring's begin?

Perhaps it behooves us to recall that the Ring is the servant not so much of Sauron but of the story, and that it will "know," "inspire", "intuit" what is needed for the story to reach its eucatastrophic climax and denouement rather than 'obey' any internal consistency of characterisation.

[lathspell]

hey everyone (Esty, it has been too long)

After reading this thread I think that it was the Ring that drove Frodo at last. For all the reasons said above:
- Frodo constantly saw a Wheel of Fire in his head. He could not picture anything else anymore.
- We know Frodo claimed the Ring at the abyss of Mount Doom. I think that Frodo would already have claimed it before, had the occassion occured before. Because Frodo could and had to keep the Ring he had no need to claim it. Also, perhaps, Frodo knew that claiming the Ring would bring danger.

And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur in the very heart of his realm, the power of Barad-dûr was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made;

Furhtermore I don't believe that the Ring knew what would happen at Mt. Doom, not that they were going to Mt. Doom. The Ring was gaining on Frodo's will, and it was steering into the heart of it's masters realm, where it would certainly be found and returned to Him. When the Ring detects that they do go to the Mountain, the last of Frodo's strength is gone. He wants to stand up, staggers and falls on his knees again. That Sam takes him and carries him. It seems to me that, if it was the Ring that was driving Frodo, it would not know before this moment that they were going to the Mountain. Otherwise it would have left Frodo without hope and it's will much earlier. Frodo was walking the Road to Barad-dûr and that was the way the Ring desired to go. The Ring neither expected, nor wanted to turn away from that road and go south to Mt. Doom. Maybe the Ring even believed to dominate Frodo so that he would not turn away from that road. When Frodo did, the Ring's will left him, and he could go no further.

It is interesting to ponder why Sam gets all the hope and not Frodo. It is, I believe, because Frodo already has something that will direct him further, however horrific, the Ring wants him to keep going. Sam needs all the sings he can get to keep up his hope. Sam is the main character in 'the Land of Shadow', because it is not Frodo, but he who decides the Ring's faith. If he lost hope, what hope would there have been that the Ring was destroyed.

There is one quote that contradicts all things said above:

Worst of all, the air was full of fumes; breathing was painful and difficult, and a dizzness came on them, so that they staggered and often fell. And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on.

This is just before Frodo falls on his knees, his last journey on his own legs (except the run to the cracks of doom when Gollum has shown himself). However, the sentence clearly suggests that Frodo still had his own will there. Was it his 'own' will, or was it 'the will that was driving him'?

What do you make of this?

greetings,
lathspell

[drigel]

Like HerenIstarion, this chapter isnt the easiest for me to get through. Its a transition chapter in between two action chapters for me. It does have some of my favorite lines of the work:

.....Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

Says it all really, doesnt it? Nice correlation between light and thought. Good work.

It seems that Sam has taken over as main character in the story.

For me, another main character is geography. In all of the previous story, Mordor is referenced many times as: a military base, stronghold, Empire, evil doings in general, evil extension or physical representation of Sauron. In this chapter, we get to walk through Mordor. Feel it. Taste it. Swat the flies coming from it.

Orc culture insight:

'Come on, you slugs!' he cried. 'This is no time for slouching.' He took a step towards them, and even in the gloom he recognized the devices on their shields. 'Deserting, eh?' he snarled. 'Or thinking of it? All your folk should have been inside Udun before yesterday evening. You know that. Up you get and fall in, or I'll have your numbers and report you.'

So they are assigned numbers. And at least the supervisors have some kind of education, and there is an accounting of that somewheres... hmm

'There now!' he laughed, flicking at their legs. 'Where there's a whip there's a will, my slugs. Hold up! I'd give you a nice freshener now, only you'll get as much lash as your skins will carry when you come in late to your camp. Do you good. Don't you know we're at war?'

When were they not at war?? Seriously, does this mean there was some kind of General Order, or a formal Declaration of War? When would this have happened? It does hint at the possiblity that there were times between war for them. What was that like? There is not much to go on, but it does nuance at the very least a line of communication from Barad Dur to the lives of the regular orc peoples. Couriers? Village elders? Town criers?

I'm not sure its a question of the Ring knowing what would happen at Mount Doom. It occurs to me that maybe, just as the Ring was 'intended' to be found by Bilbo , but not, as Gandalf says, by its Master, the Ring was not wholly in control of its own fate. Is it not possible that the Ring was drawn back to the Fire, by some other will - that of Eru?

Aye

But it seems to me that knowing is not something the Ring can do

Perhaps it behooves us to recall that the Ring is the servant not so much of Sauron but of the story, and that it will "know," "inspire", "intuit" what is needed for the story to reach its eucatastrophic climax and denouement rather than 'obey' any internal consistency of characterisation.

Yes and yes. If anything is implied, its that the ring (not by its own will) is growing in power as it comes closer to both it's makers: Sauron and Mt Doom, in a literal, physical sense. Of course, we cant separate power from evil when it comes to the ring. So by conjecture, the evil is growing as well. If that makes any sense at all....

[davem]

Originally Posted by drigel

So they are assigned numbers. And at least the supervisors have some kind of education, and there is an accounting of that somewheres... hmm

This question of the level of 'education' of the Orcs is an interesting one. It has been addressed by Brian Rosebury in his book 'Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon'

With the Orcs, whose speech is intended to suggest a closed militaristic culture of hatred & cruelty, Tolkien draws on a number of models. Indeed, there are at least three different dialogue-types for Orcs, corresponding to differences of rank and of tribe.. (None of them, incidentally, is ‘working-class’, except in the minds of critics who - themselves, it seems, unconsciously equating ‘degraded language’ with ‘working-class’ language - have convinced themselves that the Orcs’ malign utterances betray Tolkien’s disdain for ‘mere working people’.) The comparatively cerebral Grishnakh, for example, talks like a melodrama villain, or a public school bully.

Quote:
'My dear tender little fools," hissed Grishnakh, 'everything you have, and everything you know, will be got out of you in due time: everything! You'll wish there was more that you could tell to satisfy the Questioner, indeed you will: quite soon. We shan't hurry the enquiry. Oh dear no! What do you think you've been kept alive for? My dear little fellows, please believe me when I say that it was not out of kindness: that's not even one of Ugluk's faults."


The Uruk-hai, Grishnakh’s rivals, are an arrogant warrior horde, not without a certain esprit de corps, and are given to yelling war cries. (‘Bring out your King! We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We will fetch him from his hole, if he does not come. Bring out your skulking king!’) Lastly, the dialogue between individual Orcs at moments of animosity (which is most of the time) is brutal & squalid in a rather underpowered way.

Quote:
’The Black Pits take that filthy rebel Gorbag!' Shagrat's voice trailed off into a string of foul names and curses. 'I gave him better than I got, but he knifed me, the dung, before I throttled him...’

‘'I'm not going down those stairs again,' growled Snaga, 'be you captain or no. Nar! Keep your hands off your knife, or I'll put an arrow in your guts.


If Tolkien is reduced here to stylised snarls, & bowdlerised suggestions of excremental vituperation, one recognises his difficulty: more overt obscenity & violence would not so much have offended twentieth-century sensibilities as have evoked, incongruously, the world of the twentieth-century crime novel. Most readers, engrossed in the narrative, will absorb this functional, & sufficiently expressive, dialogue without being unduly detained by its artificiality or derivativeness.

"For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

This is the line I always bring up when someone claims that Tolkien was a complete pessimist. Maybe many of us are drawn to this work because we do see the battle always being fought, and sometimes it can get very dark and ominous, but that does not mean that we—or Tolkien—are ultimately pessimistic about the outcome.

Whenever I read this line, it jars me out of that slow-moving, dreadful heaviness of Mordor and the last leg of the quest. Just in time, too!

“Note that his 'fate' ceases to trouble him, which seems to be some kind of balm to soothe his troubled soul, but this also makes him lose his sense of caution, and he goes to sleep alongside Frodo rather than keeping watch.”

Yes, that release from vigilance that occurs sometimes in the most desperate circumstances. It is almost a separation from the personal condition, a dissociation from the peril the person finds himself in. At a certain point, the individual can do no more, and just lets go for a moment, or an hour, etc. Life carries him for that time, and then he can start to try to steer again, if that’s his personality.

The quote about the star cuts into the chapter like a star itself, doesn’t it?

Cloudberry