[Pervinca Took]

Very interesting thoughts, Lotrelf and Tom. That it offered him *everything* back - that really made me think. I had thought of its offering him peace and rest before, but never a restoration of what he had lost. I think that the Ring would have appealed to his intellect, too, though, not just a wish for restoration of self - of what he previously was and had. In fact I think a promise of deliverance and relief might have been more potent than a promise to restore all that he had lost. What he "might have had" became, perhaps, more of an issue after he survived, having not expected to. I see Frodo as having increasingly adopted a kind of "tunnel vision" to keep going and try to get the job done - everything else was sacrificed. The symbolism of the orcs physically taking *everything* from him in Cirith Ungol is a part of this process and perhaps accelerates Frodo's own internal sacrifice of being "stripped to his essential self" (I'm echoing a piece of Tolkien literary criticism here, and can't remember the exact source). What happened to him physically in the tower then happens to him spiritually - even more is taken away from him - taste, sound, even memories of anything beautiful. Perhaps "you can have your old life back" was used as a temptation across the plains of Mordor, though ... but I think he'd accepted the loss and just wanted ending, release.

Tom's theory is also intriguing ... I'll try to come back with some thoughts on that later.

The thing is, the Ring wouldn't have had much more work to do in appealing to Frodo's logic and intellect; it had already won that battle in Bag End when he had been unable to throw it into his own fireplace "because" "the gold looked very fair and pure ... a thing altogether precious." How much more powerful would this argument of "logic" have been in the Sammath Naur? I think the torment and "stripping" process was how the Ring worked in trying to stop him getting to the Sammath Naur in the first place. A simple but powerful intellectual argument would be all that was needed in the Chamber of Fire itself, when it had already worked in the comfort of his own sitting-room. It's a different kind of temptation, because he's trying to do a different deed. Up until now he has tried to avoid claiming it and putting it on, but hasn't had to give up possession. Now he has to try and not only give up possession (the ability to do which he once had, but had lost by Cirith Ungol), but destroy the thing as well. As Tolkien stated in one of the Letters, he could only have done the latter by not doing the former, and hurling himself into the lava with the Ring. Thankfully that wasn't necessary ....