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Old 10-26-2016, 01:44 PM   #1
Fordim Hedgethistle
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Join Date: Feb 2004
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Fordim Hedgethistle has been trapped in the Barrow!
Gandalf....fortune teller??

Quick Query About Something I Have Wondered About For Years:

In Gandalf's letter to Frodo in the chapter "Strider" (you all know it: the letter that Barliman neglects to deliver), Gandalf adds the following postscript:

"Do NOT use It again, not for any reason whatever!"

My Query: to that point in the text (and, I had always assumed, in his life) Frodo had only put on the Ring once: at Bombadil's house to see if it was unaltered by Tom. This of course happens just the day before Frodo receives the letter which was written by Gandalf months earlier (at midsummer). So, did Gandalf somehow foresee what Frodo was going to do and usefully add it to his letter? If so, then he would also have foreseen that the letter was going to go astray and reach Frodo only after he'd put on the Ring at Bombadil's.

All of which seems pretty unlikely to me. Gandalf with prophetic vision is something Tolkien never even hints at, and it leads into all sorts of problems with his character and actions.

So, I'm left with four possibilities:

1) There are OTHER times at which Frodo used the Ring that are simply not recorded in the tale -- but if so, when and under what circumstances are we to imagine Frodo using the Ring?

2) There is another time already there and I've just missed it somehow the dozens of times I've read the book.

3) The postscript is an editorial remnant of some kind by Tolkien -- that is, the letter originally appeared in a different context or at a different point in the story and in that original context it made sense.

4) I'm misreading the postscript completely: that when Gandalf says not to use it "again" he is not referring to a repeated action by Frodo ("Don't YOU do it again") but a repeat of the action more generally ("Don't use it again like Bilbo did").

While option four would seem to make the most sense, I just can't bring myself to buy it -- Tolkien was too careful with his language for such ambiguity and Gandalf seems adamant that Frodo not repeat his own action.

So, anyway, help?
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