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#1 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 369
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The Ring Speaks?
Elsewhere on the Net a discussion has raged on whether or not the Ring speaks. So I'd like to get comments and an unscientific poll of those present.
In RoTK, "Mount Doom", Frodo and Sam are on their way up the volcano when Gollum attacks them. Frodo beats Gollum off, tells him to get down, he can't do anything to Frodo now. Then: Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire spoke a commanding voice. 'Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.' So whom do readers think is the speaker here, Frodo or the Ring? |
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#2 |
Orodruin's Flame
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Kananaskis, AB
Posts: 1,194
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doesnt sound like frodo... thats all im saying. lol
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#3 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Southeastern Pennsylvania
Posts: 1,215
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"a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire."
______________________________________ I know this has been argued from both sides, but I don't see why. To me the above quote would obviously be Frodo (a figure robed in white) and the Ring being (a wheel of fire).
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#4 |
AngAdan
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Boerne, Texas
Posts: 856
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I think that it is the mental command of Frodo, projected through the ring., and that this command is very likely a cause of Gollum falling into the fire a little later.
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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Older, richer, and wiser than you "Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor, but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, ... And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me," |
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#5 |
Lady of Westernesse
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Canada (Help! Our parliament building is melting!)
Posts: 761
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I agree. It was most likely the Ring projecting some kind of image of Frodo.
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Yada, yada, yada |
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#6 | |
The Fleet-Footed
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: British Columbia
Posts: 913
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Quote:
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#7 |
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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No, I think it's the ring speaking- at the very least, it was speaking through Frodo, but sam's vision has the words being spoken by the ring itself.
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#8 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In me taters
Posts: 3,288
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Hmm. Maybe this is supposed to be a glimpse of the power the ring could offer someone who could wield it properly. So, to my mind, the answer would be "a ring-enhanced Frodo".
My guess is that this discussion derives from the whisperings that Jackson inserted to convey the temptation characters felt from the ring. |
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#9 |
Swan-Knight of Dol Amroth
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: On the Bay of Belfalas
Posts: 1,125
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I don't see why the Ring would say such a thing, even if it had a voice, which I doubt. I am quite sure that the Ring would have infinitely preferred Gollum as a Ringbearer than Frodo, whom I am quite sure the Ring knew was trying to destroy it. But, like it or no, Frodo had power as a Ringbearer, especially on the slopes of Orodruin, so near the Sammath Naur where it was forged. I think that the words were Frodo's, magnified and given force, not only by the Ring itself, but by Gollum's oath on it.
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"What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions are not beyond conjecture." - Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial. |
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#10 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Houston TX USA
Posts: 245
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I think it's Frodo, but a Ring-corrupted Frodo. Recall that he is soon to claim the Ring for his own. The arrogance of the command certainly stems from the corruption of the Ring-can you imagine Frodo saying any such thing in Ithilien?
The thought that the Ring itself is making this command doesn't pass the smell test for me. Compare this scene with the one of Sam on the stairs of the Tower confronting Snaga. If the Ring were capable of issuing its own commands, I feel that that encounter would have been far different.
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#11 | |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Lonely Mountain
Posts: 161
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Quote:
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"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." - Spaceballs |
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#12 |
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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Come on, people, look at the facts.
![]() In this situation, we are presented with the following (from samwise's point of view): Frodo appears as a figure holding a wheel of fire at his breast, facing gollum, who appears as a shadowy figure. Out of the wheel comes a commanding voice. Now... -Before this passage there are at least two times in which Frodo compares the ring to 'a wheel of fire.' At one point he says that this is all he can see. -The ring has already been treated as though having a mind and will since the very beginning of the tale. -It is made explicitly clear that the voice sam hears comes 'out of the fire'. NOT from the figure. -If Frodo had been speaking, Tolkien was a good enough writer to say so. If Tolkien has gone to the effort of making it clear that frodo isn't speaking, it's pretty foolish to go on with this claptrap about 'mental commands' and such nonsense.
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#13 | |||
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Plainsboro, NJ
Posts: 9,431
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How can we be sure of what Sam saw or heard though. Frodo wasn't robed in white - so Sam only seems to have pictured him like that. Doesn't it go to reason that maybe Sam also pictured the voice coming from the "fire"? I don't think the ring said anything - anymore than Frodo miraculously was robed in white. I think both were purely in Sam's imagination.
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I do find it ironic that Tolkien chose Frodo to appear strong and clothed in white - but yet without feeling - this is moments before he claims the ring as his own. White is usually a sign of goodness - but the description of Frodo isn't necessarily of goodness and he ultimately succumbed to the evil of the Ring moments later. Quote:
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#14 | |
Greatest Elven woman of Aman
Join Date: Aug 2002
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#15 |
Mootis per forum
Administrator Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Spain
Posts: 61,439
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I'd try to develop later. This is a very interesting topic.
I tend to agree with Attalus in this, but I'd want to introduce now a point that may be important: who wrote this scene, Frodo (from what Sam might have told him) or Sam? Frodo, and then Sam modified it?
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#16 | |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Lonely Mountain
Posts: 161
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#17 | |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
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#18 | |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Lonely Mountain
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"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." - Spaceballs Last edited by Thorin II : 01-15-2004 at 05:41 PM. |
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#19 | |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2002
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#20 | |
Greatest Elven woman of Aman
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