StW
Have to agree with Mr Hicklin here. When you state:
Quote:
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Galadriel then gives the whole "set up a Queen .... love me and despair .... I pass the test... " speech.
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The whole quote is:
Quote:
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And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!' She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light Faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'
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She has the freedom to reject the Ring & remain herself. If she takes the Ring & uses it she will be corrupted by it, because in order to use it one has to 'claim' it, effectively become one with it. However, she can reject it completely (with a laugh, take note!). Faramir too can reject it freely.
There are two reasons that the Ring must be destroyed - & that it will
inevitably &
automatically corrupt
everybody is not one of them. The first, main, reason is that If Sauron gets hold of it the only chance of defeating him will be gone forever; the second is that even if Sauron were to be defeated without destroying it, while it exists there is a chance that it may fall into the hands of one powerful enough to use it who will give in & claim it. That doesn't come from Shippey, btw, but from a reading of the text itself.