[Child of the 7th Age]

Heren -

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. It's a good one!

Back to something Saucepan Man said...

The question remains, however, why certain individuals are “selected” for suffering. Gandalf says, for example, that Bilbo was “meant” to find the Ring. The almost inevitable consequence of this is that he or (more likely) Frodo will be charged with the task of destroying it, if it is to be destroyed....My own view is that, while Eru refrains from simply just stepping in whenever He wants (which would deny His Children their free will), He allows himself to do so when evil would otherwise prevail (or, to use H-I’s analogy, when the mess in the bedroom serves to undermine the structural order of the house ). But He never does so directly, but rather through His Children (such as Frodo), who still have a choice whether to go through with what He requires of them. Frodo could have turned back at any point, although that in itself raises an interesting question of what Eru would then have done to prevent Sauron’s total victory. Why Frodo? I think that it was because he was best suited to the task at hand. If he couldn’t have done it, then no one could have.

I concur with this. In LotR Gandalf implies that Frodo was "meant" to have the Ring and uses words that suggest the choice was made by Eru or by someone else "beyond". But I do have one question that centers on Weathertop and Frodo, and touches on the topic of this thread. Exactly how much risk does the person assume when he/she agrees to go along with Eru's given task?

At Weathertop, Frodo was injured by a wraith and, merely because of that simple physical act, he almost became a wraith himself. Maybe it is unfair to raise "if" questions, but this thought has nagged at my mind a long time. What if Frodo had actually turned into a wraith? Unlike the other wraiths, he had not given in to the lure of the Ring. He had not been 'spiritually defeated' if you want to use such words, but had merely been unfortunate enought to suffer a physical injury. How would Frodo have deserved the horrible fate of turning into a wraith? This seems like supreme injustice!

Admittedly, this didn't happen in the story, yet Tolkien depicts a world where it could have happened, and part of me finds that unsettling. It's one thing to agree to take on the task of Ringbearer and, as a result of that choice, you eventually die or your spirit is so broken that you have to leave for healing. At least in those situations, you haven't forfeited your entire being. There is still the possibility of "redemption" even if only after death. (What happens beyond the circles of the world is anyone's guess since Tolkien does not tell us, but the possibility of renewal has not been ruled out.) It's another thing, however, to be transformed into an inherently evil shadow creature where there is no hope of redemption, and all this merely because you said 'yes' and then suffered a physical injury.

There are a couple of possibilities here...

Perhaps Frodo's fate really did hang in the balance and it was simply a matter of luck and/or the Elvish skill in healing that determined whether or not he suffered the fate of becoming a wraith. If he pulled through that was fine, if not he was a "casualty" of war. In that case, those who take on the role of Eru's instruments because they believe it is the right thing to do are actually naked and unguarded to the evil in the universe. They may lose not only their life or their peace of mind but their very 'soul' through no action or failing of their own. That sounds terrifying to me.

If we look at it from the perspective of certain aspects of "Christian" theology in regards to original sin, we could say that Frodo "deserved" anything he got because he was inherently evil by birth. We do know from Morgoth's Ring that Men of Middle-earth had an ancient story that told of their "fall" and estrangement from Eru, one they were not willing to share with other races. But to transport Chrisitian theology wholesale into Middle-earth and simply say Frodo 'deserved' to be a wraith, because of original sin doesn't seem in keeping with the tale Tolkien was spinning or even the way hobbits are depicted.

There is another alternative. Perhaps, behind the scenes Eru really was keeping an eye on things, not just in this matter, but in other situations as well. Perhaps Frodo's "luck" in recovery is no more an accident than other instances of chance in LotR. The problem is that unless Tolkien explicitly drops hints by using the pregnant passive or intimates that providence is at work in the story or his Letters, the reader simply isn't sure. There are an awful lot of times in LotR when the forces of good enjoy amazing luck. The pieces almost seem to fall in place as if someone was doing something behind the scenes. Is that Eru at work, or merely the vagaries of true chance? If it is Eru, the charges of sadism or even aloofness would not apply.

My guess is that it's awfully hard to make any judgement on Eru because we know so little. We know Eru is distant, so distant that we can only guess at what he is doing or feeling. A lot of our problem lies in the fact that, as readers, our own perspective is so dang limited. (Gosh, this sounds a lot like 'real life'!)

Finally, I don't think you can have any discussion of Eru's role in Middle-earth in regard to suffering unless you consider the essays in Morgoth's Ring that Tolkien wrote near the end of his life, specifically the discussion between Andreth and Finrod. What was going on here? The tone of these essays and what Tolkien was suggesting were so very different than everything that had gone before. If Eru already was considering a plan to "step into" the world of Man, you have a very different Eru than that depicted in the rest of the Legendarium. Was Tolkien having the same kind of second thoughts that led Bombadil to post this question and us to become engaged in the discussion? Was he uncomfortable with the distant Eru he had depicted in most of the Legendarium? Or was this just the natural personal expression of a man coming closer to the end of his life? Was Tolkien doing what I often admittedly do....transferring his personal concerns and feelings into the story itself?