From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V4 #3 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Monday, January 14 2002 Volume 04 : Number 003 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: o/which wizard takes it? [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: o/which wizard takes it? ["Susan Kroupa" ] Re: o/which wizard takes it? ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 12:23:55 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: o/which wizard takes it? In a message dated 1/11/02 5:34:44 PM Pacific Standard Time, dbratman@stanford.edu writes: << The Ring can also affect you if you are not in possession of it. Gollum held it for so long that he is permanently enslaved to it. Boromir never touches it and sees it only once (in the book), yet he too falls victim to it. Gandalf says to Frodo, before he sets off, "I don't think you need worry about Bilbo. Of course, he possessed the ring for many years, and used it, so it might take a long while for the influence to wear off - before it was safe for him to see it again, for instance." >> So... it seemed in the movie that Frodo was practically unaffected by the Ring as long as he didn't actually put it on his finger, but from what you say, just being in the Ring's neighborhood should have some effect? Stryder seemed to be beginning to be affected by just being in the Ring's neighborhood? I thought that he was just showing a side of his character, since no one else seemed to be affected the way that he was. Why did Frodo seem unaffected by being in physical contact with the Ring so long (with it hanging from a chain around his neck)? Was Frodo selected (maybe by some higher power) for the task because somehow he was less susceptible to being corrupted by the Ring? << I do read the scene in the book as Phaedre does: that it's Frodo's vision that is affected - but it is the Ring's remaining influence on Bilbo that makes him want to see the Ring again (in the movie, IIRC, it's an accident that Bilbo sees it), and when Frodo sees the "little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands," he is seeing something that, while it does not physically exist at that moment, really is in Bilbo - it's the potential of the Gollum-like creature that Bilbo would eventually have become had he not given up the Ring. It's not just Frodo's own growing possessiveness that is making him suspicious of Bilbo - though it's that too. Tolkien was very good at ambiguities like this. >> So then, after all those years in possession of the Ring, why had not Bilbo been more affected? How long would it have taken him to become the Gollum-like creature? The Ring had lengthened his life, right? So he got benefits from it, and didn't seem to pay a proportional price. The impression I get is that the Ring is like an infectious agent -- whether one actually comes down with an illness after having been exposed, or how sick one gets, depends on the state of one's immune system. Someone with no resistance to an illness can get severely ill after a slight exposure, while someone with a strong immune system might be affected little or at all. And the state of one's immune system can vary according to factors such as stress. Is this an analogy to the Ring's effects? I wish that the movie had spent more time on this, since it obviously was the core of the story, but they had to find ways to use their special effects budget. (Not that the effects weren't good; they were excellent, but I had a feeling that battles were not supposed to be the real point of Tolkien's story any more than the fight scenes are the real point of BUFFY.) Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 11:21:22 -0800 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: Re: o/which wizard takes it? Gayle, I agree completely about the film having too many battles and not enough "character" time! It's the film's major flaw for me, other than the score, which I found overbearing and trite. But, yes, hobbits _are_ less susceptible because they're less suscetible to wanting power. And that's why a hobbit is picked for the task. They are susceptible but not _as_ susceptible. That doesn't mean that the ring doesn't affect Frodo. If you read the books, you'll see that Frodo is increasingly burdened by the ring. By the last volume, it becomes so heavy and so tempting that its physical and psychological weight become almost literally unbearable. Sue - -------- "The Niman Project" now out in the sff.net anthology BONES OF THE WORLD - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 9:23 AM Subject: Re: o/which wizard takes it? > So... it seemed in the movie that Frodo was practically unaffected by the > Ring as long as he didn't actually put it on his finger, but from what you > say, just being in the Ring's neighborhood should have some effect? Stryder > seemed to be beginning to be affected by just being in the Ring's > neighborhood? I thought that he was just showing a side of his character, > since no one else seemed to be affected the way that he was. Why did Frodo > seem unaffected by being in physical contact with the Ring so long (with it > hanging from a chain around his neck)? Was Frodo selected (maybe by some > higher power) for the task because somehow he was less susceptible to being > corrupted by the Ring? > > So then, after all those years in possession of the Ring, why had not > Bilbo been more affected? How long would it have taken him to become the > Gollum-like creature? The Ring had lengthened his life, right? So he got > benefits from it, and didn't seem to pay a proportional price. > > The impression I get is that the Ring is like an infectious agent -- > whether one actually comes down with an illness after having been exposed, or > how sick one gets, depends on the state of one's immune system. Someone with > no resistance to an illness can get severely ill after a slight exposure, > while someone with a strong immune system might be affected little or at all. > And the state of one's immune system can vary according to factors such as > stress. Is this an analogy to the Ring's effects? > > I wish that the movie had spent more time on this, since it obviously was > the core of the story, but they had to find ways to use their special effects > budget. (Not that the effects weren't good; they were excellent, but I had a > feeling that battles were not supposed to be the real point of Tolkien's > story any more than the fight scenes are the real point of BUFFY.) > > Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 13:35:02 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: o/which wizard takes it? Resisting the temptation to reduce the Ring's effect to a mathematical formula, which would be a profoundly un-Tolkienian approach, one can see nevertheless that susceptibility to its evil power is a function of several variables, of which physical proximity is relatively unimportant (it plays its part in Boromir's case, but not in Saruman's). More important are length of exposure, amount of use, and as important as these, the attitude one brings to possessing it - though as both Gandalf and Galadriel emphasize, not even the purest attitude can overcome the other factors & the desire for possession that even the purest heart will develop once it owns the Ring. Still, it can retard it. When the matter is first explained to him, Frodo says "I suppose I must keep the Ring and guard it, whatever it may do to me," and Gandalf replies, "It will be slow, slow to evil, if you keep it with that purpose." Slow but not ceased. Tolkien carefully modulates Frodo's increasing susceptibility: his desire, which too often he succumbs to, to put the Ring on to escape even when he knows (as in his later encounters with the Nazgul) that it won't help; his visceral repulsion at the mere thought of even Bilbo or Sam taking it; and his inability at the end to destroy it - all these are fairly subtly and gently suggested. The Ring does work to evil in Frodo, but slowly. That is why he is the safest keeper, and both his attitude and his toughness are apparently typical of hobbits. Time and attitude are also the key to the differing fates of Bilbo and Gollum. Bilbo held the Ring for 60 years, which may seem long - but it's only about a tenth of the time that Gollum held it. Bilbo began his ownership by accident and with pity of the wretched Gollum, while Gollum began his with greed and outright murder - and that, as Gandalf observes, makes a tremendous difference. In the end, it's probably what made Bilbo able to give the thing up. Aragorn's situation is subtler than shown by the film. The film implies, in his last encounter with Frodo, that he is tempted but resists. No such scene occurs in the book. When he first meets the hobbits, Aragorn points out by way of proving his bona-fides that he could take the Ring right away by force if he wanted it; and as he does no such thing, the matter never again comes up. When Frodo learns that Aragorn is the heir of Isildur (the last "legal" owner), he exclaims, "Then it belongs to you!" Aragorn replies that it belongs to neither of them, but it's ordained (he doesn't say by whom) that Frodo should hold it for a while. Aragorn thus can be (and has been) compared to someone who knows that drugs are addictive and is therefore not even tempted to try them. Boromir is someone who doesn't think he'll get addicted and is therefore the most susceptible. Gandalf and Galadriel, as more powerful beings and therefore the most perilous possible Ringbearers, are equivalent to AA members, who know they have the addict's personality and therefore must reject the drug most vehemently, without the luxury of Aragorn's calm placidity on the matter. When (at the end of volume 2) Aragorn dares to use the palantir, which more than the Ring is his by right, Gandalf expresses great concern for him, but Aragorn brushes this aside, rightly though barely so. Because use has to be preceded by desire, I think this is more precise than the illness metaphor, because the degree to which mental attitudes contribute to illness is murky, while they play a clearer role in addiction, more akin to that of the Ring. Though you (Gayle) were on the right track with this. Gayle also wrote; > I wish that the movie had spent more time on this, since it obviously was >the core of the story, but they had to find ways to use their special effects >budget. More that they thought not enough people would see the film if they didn't splash sfx around. At least they made the sfx serve the story instead of the other way around. >(Not that the effects weren't good; they were excellent, but I had a >feeling that battles were not supposed to be the real point of Tolkien's >story any more than the fight scenes are the real point of BUFFY.) Absolutely, entirely, yea verily. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V4 #3 ***************************