Frodo at Sammath Naur - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

davem · 01-12-2004, 04:12 AM

I can't help feeling that the reason the Ring overwhelms Frodo at that point is that he is at his weakest. The Ring offers, or seems to, what the individual feels they lack. Only Tom Bombadil isn't tempted by it because, as Goldberry says 'He is'. ie he is 'complete', not lacking in anything, with no desire for any more power than is innate & natural to him. All the other characters are tempted by the Ring because of what it can offer them - power, control, victory (apart from moral victory). Frodo is at a point when he lacks everything except the strength to stand up - if even that strength isn't given him by the Ring at that point. So he is totally vulnerable to the power of the Ring. He has nothing, probably feels he is nothing, so for him the Ring would be everything. He would possibly feel that to destroy it would be to destroy himself & everything that mattered, or had mattered to him, to replace it with a void, total emptiness, nothingness. The Ring would have suddenly become, for him, the opposite of that. So the choice is the Ring, or the horror of the void. Perhaps it felt like by not destroying it he was 'saving' the world, keeping it in being.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 5:15 AM January 12, 2004: Message edited by: davem ]

01-12-2004, 04:12 AM	#11
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	I can't help feeling that the reason the Ring overwhelms Frodo at that point is that he is at his weakest. The Ring offers, or seems to, what the individual feels they lack. Only Tom Bombadil isn't tempted by it because, as Goldberry says 'He is'. ie he is 'complete', not lacking in anything, with no desire for any more power than is innate & natural to him. All the other characters are tempted by the Ring because of what it can offer them - power, control, victory (apart from moral victory). Frodo is at a point when he lacks everything except the strength to stand up - if even that strength isn't given him by the Ring at that point. So he is totally vulnerable to the power of the Ring. He has nothing, probably feels he is nothing, so for him the Ring would be everything. He would possibly feel that to destroy it would be to destroy himself & everything that mattered, or had mattered to him, to replace it with a void, total emptiness, nothingness. The Ring would have suddenly become, for him, the opposite of that. So the choice is the Ring, or the horror of the void. Perhaps it felt like by not destroying it he was 'saving' the world, keeping it in being. <font size=1 color=339966>[ 5:15 AM January 12, 2004: Message edited by: davem ] __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects."