Why Man?

[Child of the 7th Age]

Regarding the Rings of power---

Nine he gave to Mortal Men, proud and great, and so ensnared them. Long ago they fell under the dominion of the One, and they became Ringwraiths, shadows under his great Shaddow, his most terrible servants.

Rings were given to the Dwarves and the Elven kin as well, but they did not become Ringwraiths. Four hobbits carried the ultimate Ring of Power, one for hundreds of years, yet none of these became Ringwraiths. But, in the second age, nine kings became nine nazgul.


Why man? What was Tolkien saying about our nature and destiny?

Yes, I know Aule built the dwarfs with an extra measure of resistence to evil, since Melkor was still active in those days. And I know too how many of the Elves stood on the side of the light for the First and Second Ages, although some did slip especially if we accept the view that at least some orcs were corrupted Elves. And yes, the hobbits are in some sense, men too, although men with a slightly different twist from those who inhabit the world today.

Yet, having acknowledged all this, I still can not help asking, why man? What was different about man, that they should turn into wraiths who were the principal tools through which Sauron worked?

[burrahobbit]

Men die. I think that becoming a wraith is the natural order of things when you don't die.

It might be thought that, since the Eldar do not (as Men deem) grow old in body, they may bring forth children at any time in the ages of their lives. But this is not so. For the Eldar do indeed grow older, even if slowly: the limit of their lives is the life of Arda, which though long beyond the reckoning of Men is not endless, and ages also. Moreover their body and spirit are not separated but coherent. As the weight of the years, with all their changes of desire and thought, gathers upon the spirit of the Eldar, so do the impulses and moods of their bodies change. This the Eldar mean when they speak of their spirits consuming them; and they say that ere Arda ends all the Eldalie on earth will have become as spirits invisible to mortal eyes, unless they will to be seen by some among Men into whose minds they may enter directly.

The spirit eats the body. This doesn't happen to men because they die after too short a time. The Nazgul became wraiths because their souls were trapped inside of their bodies for far too long. That their rings also made them invisible is just a coincidence, they didn't have their rings at the end.

Elves don't become wraiths because it would just take too long (and they didn't have evil rings). Dwarves are just stubborn.

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: burrahobbit ]

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

The Silmarillion has something to say on this:

Seven rings he gave to the Dwarves; but to Men he gave nine, for Men proved in this matter as in others the readiest to his will...The Dwarves indeed proved tough and hard to tame; they ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom, nor can they be turned to shadows.

It goes on to say:

Men proved easier to ensnare. Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and under the domination of the One, which was Sauron's. And they became for ever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows.

(Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, p.289 of my edition)

My reading of this is that it wasn't long life that turned the bearers of the Nine into wraiths, but the domination of the rings themselves, and the influence of the One acting through them. Of course it's still possible that this is a case of the sword outwearing its sheath, but there's no indication of a time-scale. They were also using their Rings regularly, and for greater things than achieving invisibility for short periods, probably hastening their collapse into thraldom.

As for Hobbits, we have an implication from Gandalf that they may have been made of sterner stuff than Men:

Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree roots. I think it likely that some would resist the Rings far longer than most of the Wise would believe.

(The Shadow of the Past)

Perhaps a combination of this trait and the fact that Gollum didn't use the One for great things, or particularly often was what kept him from becoming a wraith. I think that the same thing can be said of Bilbo, and the other Hobbit Ringbearers carried the One for only a short time, and used it hardly at all.

Of course, there's always a possibility that the One was never designed to turn its bearer into a Wraith, or that it was a property of the Ring that required a specific act of will from Sauron, which would still be consistent with the piece quoted above. I'd be interested if anyone could shed any more light on this one.

[Kuruharan]

the fact that Gollum didn't use the One for great things, or particularly often was what kept him from becoming a wraith. I think that the same thing can be said of Bilbo, and the other Hobbit Ringbearers carried the One for only a short time, and used it hardly at all.

I'd lay special emphasis on the use of the Rings. The Nazgul used their Rings to gain power and dominion and thus eventually fell under Sauron's power. The hobbits never used the Ring for this.

However, I think that there is also something to the notion that the One Ring did not confer wraithness. However, that's not something that we would be likely to find out because if a human (or hobbit) tried to claim the Ring as a tool of domination, that nonsense would have been summarily dealt with by Sauron. In other words there was no possibility of a mortal using the Ring for its intended purpose and remaining in possession of it long enough to become a wraith.

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

[burrahobbit]

You may be right, Squatter of Amon Rudh. Without a direct quote I'd say that it is between "natural process" and "the rings did it." Though either way, the rings did it.

Of course it's still possible that this is a case of the sword outwearing its sheath, but there's no indication of a time-scale. They were also using their Rings regularly, and for greater things than achieving invisibility for short periods, probably hastening their collapse into thraldom.

Their rings certainly sped the process up, yes, but as I said above, they may not be the only cause.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Absolutely.
Mortal: "I claim this Ring, and shall use it to make myself great among the Mighty"
Sauron: "No you won't"
And the rest, apart from a rather sad, wet thud was silence

[ August 10, 2002: Message edited by: Squatter of Amon Rudh ]

[Raefindel]

But what of this? When the nine were being corrupted, Sauron still had posession of the One.

This is obviously not the case with All of the Hobbit ring-bearers. What difference did it make?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I'd say that it meant that Sauron couldn't consciously have been working towards the precipitation of the bearer into wraithdom, whereas he could have been doing just that with the Nine.

[Raefindel]

I would agree with you, Squatter.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Their rings certainly sped the process up, yes, but as I said above, they may not be the only cause.

Certainly Men weren't supposed to live for hugely extended periods, which the Rings allowed them to do by unnatural means. My inclination would be to look for the signs of spirit wearing out the bodies of longer-lived mortals, such as the men of Numenor, although the fact that their lives were naturally long may well invalidate the point.

[burrahobbit]

The rings were several hundred years old when the Nazgul first appeared. Who knows how long that had been in position of the rings? And who knows if they were invisible all the time then? I have no idea how long a Man would need to live before starting to turn into a wraith naturally, but I don't think the Numenoearns had lived that long yet. The best example that I know of is from Laws and Customs of the Eldar, which I gave above. Elves and Men have essentially the same bodies, so I think it can be applied well enough.

[Tigerlily Gamgee]

Very interesting discussion... much has been said about what happened to the nine men who took the rings, but I don't believe that this has been touched on yet...

Why man? What was Tolkien saying about our nature and destiny?

It's hard to say whether Tolkien had meant anything by this or not. There are so many influences and hidden meanings in his writing that it is possible...
Perhaps it was all part of the story, or maybe he was influenced by men he saw around him everyday. I've read that Tolkien was influenced a lot from his own life and that he wrote the evils in the book in relation to the evils in his life... the machine. His homeland was being detstroyed.
It is quite clear that man is corrupted by the machine. Look at how we live today. We rely on machines. It's quite sad really. People freak out if they lose power for a few hours. Just as the nine kings in The Lord of the Rings were corrupted by the ring of power, and therefore relied on it's power.
This is just a little comparison on my part... though far-fetched some may view it.

[mark12_30]

Consider Tolkien's outlook as a catholic. Every Ash Wednesday, each catholic gets his / her forehead dotted with ash, and is carefully told:

"Remember, man, that thou art dust
And unto dust thou shalt return."

Then Tolkien created several other races that were specifically not-man. I think he did so to have something stronger to work with, something less temptable, something perhaps a bit less fallen-- and perhaps, for contrast. (I know, elves can sin, and dwarves and hobbits too. But they are stronger, less tempted, as noted above.) But man-- dust to dust, ashes to ashes. For Tolkien, as a standard Catholic, redeemption for man in his sin can only be through the incarnation, crucifiction, and resurrection-- which, in the world of Middle-Earth, hasn't happened yet. So, yes. In the Catholic viewpoint, without access to the incarnation, crucifiction and resurrection, man always fights a losing battle.

Especially when he sells his soul to the devil out of lust for power. Then he loses VERY quickly indeed.

--Helen

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Which is exactly what the Nazgul have done. Good point.

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Squatter of Amon Rudh ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

Thank you everyone, for your perspectives on this question. I have a case of the creeping crud (Houston style), and haven't gotten back before.

Is it a natural process caused by a soul being trapped too long in a body, or rather the actual domination by the Ring itself, perhaps strongly influenced by the use of that Ring by the person in question?

Is it possible that more than one factor could have been in play? Neither Bilbo or Frodo turned into "wraiths" yet they were both affected and in need of healing. Aragorn, for example, seemed to inicate it was possible for hobbit to turn into a wraith.

Let's look first at Bilbo, It seems that his "stretching" of the soul had more to do with longevity beyond the normal hobbit lifespan rather than any conscious decision to use the Ring for something beyond invisibility. The exact opposite was true of Frodo who was only 50 or so years when he began the Ring quest, having inherited the thing some 17 years before. He too was in danger of turning into a wraith for different reasons. He, unlike Bilbo, was consciously aware of the potential of the Ring, at least to some small degree, and presumably more subject to its temptation, to say nothing of the fact that Sauron was now more actively scouring about for it. So perhaps there was one more than one particular way of corruption.

Squatter of Amon Rudh --LOL. I love your vignette with Sauron squashing the mortal.

Helen-- Your point of tying this whole process to Tolkien's Catholicism and that view of man is well taken. I was kind of hinting at that as I initially typed out my question (not Catholicism per se, but our concept of the fall), but didn't have the grace or words to state it as well as you did!

I still have many questions about how the hobbits themselves relate to the great fall (since they themselves are supposed to be men), and may do a thread on that some day.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Raefindel]

There is one other thing I'd like to bring up. That is which ring each bearer held. I don't know that much about how the rings were forged but, if I'm not mistaken, (and correct me if I'm wrong, because I well may be) Were not the Elves rings forged BEFORE the one? And the 9 and the 7 AFTER The one? Would not this have made a difference as well? I certianly remember the line that the 3 "he has never touched"

[Mister Underhill]

According to the Tale of Years, the three Elvish Rings were forged some ten years before the One. Though the chronology isn't specific on the others, it seems to be quite clearly implied that they were all forged prior to the Three, which represent Elvish ring-lore at its height.

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]