[Child of the 7th Age]

Doug,

You raise an intriguing question in your first post. Are "failures" predestined? I was thinking about this in the context of Frodo's failure to give up the Ring voluntarily, which, to me, is the central element of the book.

In the Letters, Tolkien actually said it was inevitable that Frodo would fail. He compared it to a person being crushed by an avalanche. We do not blame the person who is so crushed or view it as a moral failure because there could have been no other outcome. According to Tolkien, the only individual who could have succeeded was a "perfect" person, and there are no such people in existence, either in Middle-earth or our own world. So, in that sense Frodo's failure is indeed predestined.

However, there is another wildcard, of course--the relationship between Gollum and Frodo. It was certainly not predestined that Frodo would extend mercy to Gollum and, in so doing, enable him to become an instrument of providence for the saving of Middle-earth.

So, at least in Frodo's case the answer is mixed. Frodo's failure at Mount Doom was predestined, but it was free choice that determined Gollum's role and hence the fate of Middle-earth.

This seems to go along with Tolkien's whole view of the world and of good and evil. We are forever predestined to see evil rise again and again. Nothing that we can do as mortal beings can possibly stop that whole cycle before the end of time. But our response to that evil is our own free choice. And it is that response that essentially determines the fate of Arda.

[ January 09, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]