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Old 08-11-2009, 10:54 AM   #1
Fordim Hedgethistle
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What was Frodo's temptation

Ok, here's a quesion which I've been thinking about for a long time, both in the privacy of my own dark imagination and more openly here on the Downs (and sometimes amongst very forgiving friends over a pint or three):

What did the Ring promise Frodo that made him finally 'give in' and claim it for his own?

In every other case where we see someone taken by the Ring or tempted by it we are given some indication of the lies being whispered to them by the Ring. Off the top of my head I can think of (being too lazy to look up all the references and trusting to someone with more energy to do it for me if it becomes necessary or useful):

1) Gandalf saying that he would take the Ring from a desire to relieve suffering

2) Gollum is promised "fissh" all day long and sitting on a throne and being The Gollum

3) Boromir wants to be a Captain and defeat Mordor

4) Sam has wild visions of himself as a gardener healing Mordor and turning it green

5) Galadriel wants to be a queen and rule/preserve Lorien forever and unchanging

But we don't get anything like this for Frodo. All we get from him about the Ring is the vision of a wheel of fire with a great Eye in it...hardly a tempting proposition for him I would think. And as he nears Mount Doom the visions of the good things he loves (the Shire) fade rather than grow (it would make sense to me that the obvious lie the Ring would tell him would be that by claiming the Ring he will save the Shire from corruption and stain forever).

So what are we to make of this apparent blank in the narrative? Why has the author left it out?
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Old 08-11-2009, 11:04 AM   #2
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Frodo said things on at least a couple of occasions that might have given hints as to his desires.

Quote:
I should like to save the Shire, if I could...
FOTR The Shadow of the Past

Quote:
I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.
ROTK The Grey Havens



Perhaps the Ring finally convinced him that the only way to ensure the Shire would survive was for Frodo to claim it and return there.
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Old 08-11-2009, 12:55 PM   #3
Fordim Hedgethistle
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That's always been my instinctive thought but it doesn't really resolve the problem of why we are forced to assume that in the first place. Wouldn't it make a heck of a lot more sense if the author were to come out and tell us something along those lines? Or even for Frodo to announce that as his desire in some way? But instead we have his assertion that he can no longer remember the Shire...if the Ring were whispering away to him about saving the place, wouldn't it be presenting him with visions of the Shire just as it presented visions of a flowering Mordor to Sam, fishes to Gollum and of victory to Boromir?

And those quotes you give lead to another interesting point: given that Frodo's desire is to save the Shire and that he knows the only way to do it is to throw the Ring away, would that even be the tactic 'chosen' by the Ring? The Ring works by promising what its power can give (satisfaction of selfish desire; providing something that the bearer wants for him or herself) but since Frodo's motivation is selfless perhaps the Ring had nothing to 'work' on. In which case, how was it able to triumph over Frodo in the end? Was Frodo coerced or forced by the Ring in a way qualitatively different than what happened to others, who were perhaps more seduced rather than 'forced'? (If Frodo was indeed forced at all...it's just a thought.)
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Old 08-11-2009, 01:27 PM   #4
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But instead we have his assertion that he can no longer remember the Shire...if the Ring were whispering away to him about saving the place, wouldn't it be presenting him with visions of the Shire just as it presented visions of a flowering Mordor to Sam, fishes to Gollum and of victory to Boromir?.)
Perhaps when Frodo says he can 'no longer remember the Shire', he refers to the fact that his memories of it at that time are gone, replaced by what is fed to him by the Ring; delusions that he knows at lucid moments to be false. Just a theory, to be sure.

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And those quotes you give lead to another interesting point: given that Frodo's desire is to save the Shire and that he knows the only way to do it is to throw the Ring away, would that even be the tactic 'chosen' by the Ring?
I don't know that the Ring itself 'chooses' the manner in which to break a Bearer. As Gandalf said, the desire of it corrupts the heart; it appeals to the deepest want of its victims, merely using whatever tools are already present. If the desire to save his home was the only way to Frodo's heart, the Ring had to have worked on him using that.

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The Ring works by promising what its power can give (satisfaction of selfish desire; providing something that the bearer wants for him or herself) but since Frodo's motivation is selfless perhaps the Ring had nothing to 'work' on.
Wasn't Sam's motivation selfless also? To save the Ring from capture and continue on with the mission?
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Old 08-11-2009, 02:26 PM   #5
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What promise did it give Isildur?
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Old 08-11-2009, 03:19 PM   #6
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What promise did it give Isildur?
It seems he was just 'generically' tempted by its beauty at first, then had the idea he would keep it as an heirloom of his House. What could it promise him? He was already a king and had just (apparently) defeated Sauron forever.
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Old 08-11-2009, 03:29 PM   #7
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What promise did it give Isildur?
What about: the power to rebuild the glory of Númenor, unsullied by its Fall, in Middle-earth?

In Fordim's examples for the desires fed by the Ring, the common motive seems to me
  • fulfillment of the deepest desire the respective person had independent of the Ring, plus
  • a tendency to self-aggrandizement, the wish to be more important, to play a bigger part or to play their part more effectively / on a larger scale, to fulfil their desire all by themselves, to reshape reality to their liking.
The first desire may be completely selfless and for some greater good (indeed is so in all the cases cited except Gollum's, who had been under the Ring's influence for centuries); it's only with the second aspect that selfishness creeps in and begins to overwhelm whatever good there was in the first desire.
Where does this take us regarding Frodo? I once sketched an experimental scenario in this post (last paragraph, skip all the philosophical ramble), but that was more playful than serious, I think we have to dig deeper.

Anyway, Fordim, thanks for starting this thread! It was high time.
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Old 08-12-2009, 12:48 PM   #8
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What promise did it give Isildur?
It's weregild. Isildur took it as payment for the loss of his father, brother, and Numenor.

So any promises along the lines of restoring those losses would have been very well-taken, though you'd have to be pretty deluded to think you could raise the dead, Ring or no.
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