Quote:
Originally posted by Davem:
Tolkien clearly believes that evil is a(n im)'moral' choice but an choice made by a free being. If Frodo is overwhelmed by a more powerful external force then Tolkien is saying nothing that a thousand other writers haven't also said. But i don't think he is . I think he's saying that the battle is more an internal one than an external one.
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I would have to say it's more of an internal battle within oneself as well. Take violent video games for example. Now, I stand that if a kid can handle the sort of things that are in let's say the game
Grand Theft Auto, if he can maturely handle that game, then he can play it without becoming "attached" to it. Unfortunately not all kids are like that, some will take the game too far, and even play it for hours and hours and hours at a time, they are indeed addicted to it, and therefore are corrupted by the game. Let's look at the situation with the Ring.
The Ring isn't all powerful, there are those who can resist it, Bombadil, Galadriel, Faramir, Sam, and Bilbo. Then there are those who can't Frodo, Boromir, and Gollum. Out of the one's who resisted, the person who had it the longest was Bilbo, and he gave it up freely (with a little nudge to help him of course), but he gave it up rather easily. As we get a quote from Faramir here in
A Window on the West:
Quote:
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"Alas for Boromir! It was too sore a trial!" he said. "How have you increased my sorrow, you two strange wonderers from a far country, bearing the peril of Men! But you are less judges of Men than I of Halflings. We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. Not if I found it on the highway would I take it I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow and be held by them.
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Here Faramir makes it seem as if it's internal struggle, that there is a choice in the matter. He said "It was too sore a trial," and Boromir did face the trial, and it was too sore for him to handle. Faramir later says, "Even if I were such a man as to DESIRE this ring." Note,
desire which makes it seem as if you have to "want" what the ring offers to you, and Faramir doesn't "want" any of that. You have to "desire" what the Ring offers to you, and that would make it a choice, an internal struggle between taking it or not.
In Frodo's situation I think we can connect it to my anecdote about "Grand Theft Auto." He had the Ring for so long, he was obviously weighed down, wounded, spiritually demoralized because of it, and he in return became attached to it. But who wouldn't have? If somebody was stuck in Frodo's spot who wouldn't have done what he did? Of course besides Bombadil, but he would have lost it even before he got to Mount Doom.
The way I view this is Frodo didnt FAIL the quest, he FAILED the personal test (I rhymed). The
quest was to destroy the ring, by any means, and the Ring got destroyed. The ultimate job of the quest was to get the Ring into the fire, and the Ring got there. The personal test Frodo did fail. He had a choice, throw it in, or not, and he decided to keep it, so he failed that internal test within himself, but he completed the quest.
One has a choice, there is always a choice within somebody, the Ring can't control how somebody reacts, to it's power. All it can do is lure a person to it, and some people are lured by it, others don't fall for it. As I stated before if there are those who can resist the Ring's lure, then I think that goes to prove that it's more of an internal struggle, more then the external Ring's force of controlling people. One has a choice in the matter of doing it or not doing it. Just like the game situation, it's not like
Grand Theft Auto "forces" kids to go around rape and shoot people, there are those with the strong enough "will" to resist it, and there are those who can't. Making it the internal conflict within each person.