How far could you go?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

...guess what? I'm bringing it up.

I don't think that Shelob or the Paths of the Dead or even Gorgoroth would scare me from going. But I think I'd die before I even get to Lorien. Maybe unable to walk another step, since it's the farthest I've walked all my life. Maybe die of thirst and/or hunger. Maybe killed by the first orc I encounter. Maybe trip and fall and break my neck. Or any other way to die.

In other words, I think I'd manage psychologically but not physically. I'm no Eowyn.

But, on the other hand, it's easy enough for me to say that I'm up for it now in my cozy room with a fride full of food a few rooms away. I don't know what I would say/do if I was in the Fellowship, since, well, I was never in it.

Well, as for physically keeping it up, I wouldn't be so dismissive in that respect. I mean, if you e.g. couldn't keep your pace, I am sure the Fellowship would adjust it. After all, they had all the Hobbits with them. As for being killed by an Orc, that's the same case - there are Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf to fight and protect the rest. So you'd just fall into the group of the Hobbits, and unless you were completely unlucky and got hit by a stray arrow (which, however, could happen to anyone), I think it's not any more likely that you'd be stopped by the physical aspect any more than anyone else would.

On the other hand, I believe the biggest question - which we cannot answer with 100% certainity, I believe - would be how would we react to the lure of the Ring being present. The Ring for sure had some influence on every member of the Fellowship, and the question probably is whether we'd manage not to turn into Boromir or somesuch. Of the other obstacles, I also believe for most of people the general lure would be the Merry-Pippin-thing, i.e. the wish to return home and be at peace (which, however, I think would be one of the easier to overcome, once you have decided that you want to participate in completing the quest, or at least speaking for myself), but very importantly, also the Sam thing. I mean, let's imagine somewhere in the middle of the way you learn that your home is about to be occupied by some nassties and your family and friends are going to be driven away from their homes and all that, and that the nice tree orchard of your youth (or insert whatever in your surroundings which has a place in your heart) is going to be cut down (you can subsitute that on the most material level, but also e.g. for your hometown/country getting a new government which will make "total rearrangements" in some way you certainly won't like - just think analogically) - now that would be probably for me a moment to at least stop and start having doubts whether I shouldn't have stayed where I was.