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Forget Shippey. I will read Tolkien. Does not Gandalf himself reject having the ring for fear of how he would eventually use it?
The Shadow of the Past
Frodo: You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the ring?
Gandalf: No! cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a powerstill greater and more deadly.
Does not Galadriel also reject the ring for fear of how she would eventually use it?
The Mirror of Galadriel
Frodo: I will give you the one ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me.
Galadriel then gives the whole "set up a Queen .... love me and despair .... I pass the test... " speech.
The only one in the entire book who seems immune to the powers of the ring is Bombadil. And what does Tolkien do with this amazing incongruity? Nothing.
Maybe davem is right about the spirituality and pureness of Bombadil. I do not see how that makes him necessary. For me, he adds nothing to the basic story and his appearance and doggerel only make him a bad joke.
I ask again, try to imagine him in the first film spouting the lines
"Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo.
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow"
I can hear every comedian on late night TV or cable or in comedy clubs talking about the dongs in the Lord of the Ring movies. And how long before the work dillo becomes something slightly varied and the object of more snickering and derision. And once the comedians were done every crude boy on the playground would repeat it. Any kid who liked the films would be pelted with jokes about them liking dongs and the like.
Bombadil would have been a disaster.
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