Frodo Baggins beyond good and evil

 

"I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum...Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? ...he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death."[1]

This is Frodo Baggins, the bearer of the Ring of Power, the most incorruptible agent of "the Good" in middle Earth, expressing his contempt, fear and hatred, for the evil and ugliness embodied in Tolkien's Gollum. He does not know at this point the importance of Gollum to the achievement of his own goal, nor how he himself will ultimately fail in it's pursuit. In fact as a Hobbit he really doesn't know much at all beyond how to enjoy himself, what Taters are, how to cook them, where to get good pipe weed, and a little about the adventures of his Uncle Bilbo.

The wise wizard offers a perspective intended to broaden his awareness of the tapestry which he is part of, and foreshadows the eventual climax of the story:
"do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends...he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end"[1]

Unlike stories we might say that in the World, history and human events, there is no completion, nothing is ever fixed neatly in place or brought to a close, and whatever is does not stay that way for long. Everything is flowing, fading, falling apart and finding new forms.

No sooner have we stepped into the river of time than we are bombarded by a thousand things commanding our attention. The frames of broken houses, chariots, discarded desks and assorted furniture, all rushing towards us with the force of millenia behind them, threatening to knock us unconscious and send us to the depths. 

Many who lost their footing and were swept away pass us by, gasping, spluttering, reaching for anything which might keep them afloat in the maelstrom. Wooden crucifixes, waxwork figures, flags, the bloated corpses of sacred cows, each other. Ships of fools carry fishers of men, their nets, ropes and croziers in a frenzy of activity, extracting the lost and drowning, offering a sense of stability amidst the turbulence, and safe passage to shallow waters beside secluded shores. There, megaliths, churches, farms, factories, and homes line the banks. Flashing neon signs shining above glass facades, stalls offering refreshments, entertainments and some solid ground for the exhausted to lay their head upon. 

Few can withstand the onslaught for long, and fewer still can struggle against the stream towards the source of all this stuff, through the ages, past the grand rubbish dumps of antiquity, into those long forgotten, mist enveloped realms of wonder and beginnings. 

A tale of two rivers

The grand meandering river which is the narrative of Middle Earth, has one source; JRR Tolkien, that one enlightened consciousness who nourished himself and watered his garden, by going to the even grander, far deeper river of time, to cast his pale and draw from it's depths. The source of that river is primordial, perceptible to us only through fragments, shards and the remnants of instinct, memory, and myth which have been extracted from the river and still remain within our grasp.

Today we don't need even need to go, like Tolkien to the banks of that river to sate our thirst. Taps transport chemically treated, fluoridated streams at our command, it takes no effort on the individuals part. All is provided for the denizens of well developed districts by  decaying reservoirs and plumbing systems, fed by channels established a few hundred miles upstream during the Industrial era. 

Many don't concern themselves with the rivers waters at all,  few indeed even know where it is or how it flows, but opt instead for the plastic packaged, sugar and additive laden alternatives to it's life giving waters, mass produced and marketed for no other reason than the extraction of profit from these dependent consumers. A mess of pottage found preferable and far more convenient than any awareness of, let alone connection to, their long forgotten birthright. 

Distant from the river of time they dwell, disconnected from the flow, drawing their curtains every night, to sit before a bright screens neon glow, drifting off in dreams to wake deluded that they know, where they come from, what they are, and where they plan to go. What wondrous sights we show ourselves and think we've actually seen, the places that we've dreamed about, and think we've really been.

While this cycle plays out in a hundred thousand homes in a few dozen ghettos, their distracted inhabitants alienated from everything natural and each other, the rings of power who profit from, provide for, produce and require this state of dependence, erect razor wire barriers and checkpoints, slowly curtailing and eventually removing completely, everyones access to that great river of time which gave us all life, and which brings forth the tools needed for each generation to live it. 

A terrifying chasm opens between people, and their past, present and future, which -while it gradually fills with plastic refuse- various circles of trust have been busy erecting toll bridges over it, allowing passage towards the river for those who know the secret codes, or who are at least willing and able to pay to learn them. Below these accepted routes into history, excavation work is underway, for they intend to take control and redirect the flow of the great river of time entirely, to reap and horde it's treasures until all of the past, present and future belongs to them.

The will and rings of power

There are at least two ways of imagining a ring of power. Tolkien, likely following Plato[2], conceptualises it as a golden ring one wears upon their finger, which grants them a magical power like invisibility enabling them to attain what they initially lacked, escape reprisals, and reach places they might never have seen without it. 

Another would be a circle of trust and cooperation which pools resources, influence, and wealth, for the purpose of sustaining and further enriching the members of that circle, far beyond any singular member's lifetime. Families take the form of circles of trust and power, forming a nucleus at the centre which radiates out into the ever widening concentric rings of social groups, classes, city states and countries. Some circles of trust eventually form great trees, which stand tall against the winds of change for thousands of years, but few are so firmly rooted in place, and none can escape the eventual withering as time takes it's toll.

In Tolkien's narrative the Ring has a will of it's own, which eventually, if not almost immediately, overpowers and corrupts that of it's bearer, even those in close proximity soon become victims of it's inherent drive to return to the one who fashioned it. The hapless individual who desires to own it, their will towards self efficacy, power and glory, being used to bring it out of obscurity and ever closer to the source of it's power. This is how the Ring initially came to Bilbo, and through him escaped the darksome depths where Gollum dwelt in fascination of it's majesty.

A similarly subtle influence appears to operate within social rings of power, which sees those who find themselves in the position of bearing their great weight, almost immediately consumed. Shaped against their will into conformity with the ring and it's makers designs. No matter how strong their will they cannot bring something so vast, something tied to the destiny of so many lives, entirely under their command. 

Having endured the hardships and perils of his journey all the way to the heights of Mt. Doom, Frodo stands before the precipice, ready to cast the Ring into the molten liquid from which it can never return, but gazing one last time at it's magnetic lustre, he seems to forget in an instant all he'd been through, all he'd sacrificed, everything that was at stake and is finally possessed by it, putting it on his finger and vanishing. This is the point where Gollum's unbridled selfishness and absolute corruption, his irrational and all consuming desire to possess it in his hands, inadvertanly brings to pass the thing most hateful to him, the rings destruction and reabsorbtion into the fiery mass below. The greatest evil thereby brings to pass the ultimate good. Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit.

The primal forces of nature which fuel the continual process of becoming , driving us  in perpetuum  to unknown destinations, past the point of trying to comprehend, name, master, and channel them into the social bonds, structures, and habits which give form to the substance within them, rush towards to their inevitable contradiction and eventual transcendence. 

The river bursts it's banks

Rising temperatures in the extremities of this World, have begun to cause a deepening of the waters feeding the river of time, bringing a strengthening of currents which threatens to wash away the ossified forms everyone has come to know and love. The masses confined by the habits they've grown accustomed to, bemoan the tangible lack of action from a distance which mediates their experience of anything real.

By the river, work has intensified. Frenzied attempts to harvest it's wealth by constructing back channels in every direction, have begun to undermine the stability of the surrounding area. The large networks of deeply rooted trees which once lined the river, have been felled to construct more ships for fools, who in turn require greater quantities of nets. 

Cement mixers and rubble are brought in to add structure and stability to the banks which keep it's quickening flow confined. Everything seems to be sinking beneath the wheels of industry, and everyone's vast & ever increasing accumulations of material resources only seem to add to the weight of the World. 

The guild of netmakers, who are beginning to question whether they might extract greater rewards by harvesting the rivers riches themselves, are not alone in forming circles of trust, and new bonds to secure their particular advantage.

New rings of power begin emerging to allay the fears of a flood, which threatens to wash away all the ossified forms people have grown to know and love. Somewhere to the East amidst the desert sands, a shape with lion body and the head of a man, gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, begins to move it's slow thighs, it's hour come at last, begins to rise and slouches towards the rivers edge.







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[1] pg78 The Fellowship of the Ring
[2] The Republic, Book 2:359a–2:360d