Re: Should Bilbo have felt more of an adverse effect of using the Ring? Compared 2 Fr
From the standpoint of writing the story, as story-teller,
Tolkien had no notion when writing
The Hobbit that the Ring was anything other than an
item that happened to make Bilbo invisible. It was later, when tying together the new story that became
The Lord of the Rings that the Ring took on its dark significance.
Within the Tale, however, the fact that
Bilbo took so little hurt from it was remarkable: so remarkable that
Gandalf remarks upon it in “Shadow of the Past” in
Fellowship of the Ring:
‘...as I know there is no Power in the world that knows all about
hobbits. ... Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots. I think it likely that some would resist the Rings far longer than most of
the Wise would believe. 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. Otherwise, he might live on for years, quite happily: just stop as he was when he parted with it. For he gave it up in the end of his own accord: an important point...’
The Ring did not turn Bilbo into a wraith, not had it completely consumed
Gollum in 400 or 500 years (
ibidem):
Even Gollum was not wholly ruined. He had proved tougher than even one of the Wise would have guessed – as a hobbit might.
Frodo was stabbed, stung, starved, and strained to his last strength: only while lost and hungry in
Mirkwood, fighting the
spiders, was Bilbo in such straights. (Ok, and when he first got the Ring and had to follow Gollum to the passage leading to the
goblins’ Back Door.) But at no time was Bilbo physically stressed as much as Frodo, or mentally or spiritually assaulted in the same way. Bilbo had a trinket: a useful (and profitable!) trinket, but not a matter of world importance to him. Frodo set out from
Rivendell to destroy this thing, a danger to the world and to all that he loved and cherished, an act that the Ring was apparently specially designed to prevent its bearer from doing were it separated from
Sauron. (
Isildur,
Sméagol, Bilbo and Frodo all referred to the Ring as “
precious.”) Again, from the same source,
‘A
Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo.
It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else’s care – and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know, Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it.
(I wonder if Gandalf spoke from personal experience about the slipping off bit. And it is notable that
Círdan the Shipwright gave the Ring
Narya to Gandalf:
Círdan was a keeper who gave up a Ring of Power. Perhaps the Three Rings, which Sauron never touched, were not inflicted with this spell of possessiveness, because
Celebrimbor was able to give
them up to
Gil-galad and
Galadriel, but not the other sixteen Great Rings.)
I think it was the constant stress, worry, and knowledge that he was trying, or supposed to be trying, to destroy the thing that wore on Frodo: the Ring was trying to preserve itself: and in the end, the Ring conquered Frodo. This was unavoidable, as Tolkien explains in Letter 181:
[Frodo] is in a sense doomed to failure, doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his ‘will’: that is against any choice he could make or would make unfettered, not under duress.
Bilbo was never under that kind of duress, and was able to give up the Ring only with considerable and painful (for both of them!) assistance from Gandalf, who was acting in an angelic capacity to offset the
evil, possessive influence of the Ring to overpower Bilbo’s will. Gandalf performed this same function for Frodo at
Amon Hen, when Sauron was searching for him. But in the Sammath Naur, where “all other powers … were subdued” (
Return of the King, “Mount Doom”), Frodo was alone and by himself, unaided. Even Galadriel’s phial could not provide any light there. Frodo was on his own, and his will was broken, his person overcome, by the malevolent power of the Ring.
After his adventure ended, Bilbo was well-fed, comfortable, safe (and undiscovered), and fabulously wealthy so that he could have anything he wished: except peace from the Ring, which made him “‘feel all thin, sort of
stretched, … like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.’” (“A Long-Expected Party”,
Fellowship of the Ring) Gandalf repeated these words to Frodo: “‘…[Bilbo] was getting restless and uneasy.
Thin and stretched he said. A sign the ring was getting control.’” (“Shadow of the Past” in
Fellowship of the Ring) But from the day Gandalf first told Frodo about the true nature of the Ring, Frodo was determined to destroy it, and so set himself at odds with the Ring from the start:
‘I do really wish to destroy it!’ cried Frodo. ‘Or, well, to have it destroyed. I was not made for perilous quests…’
Much, much more about this can be said, and I hope it will be said in this thread by others.
