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I had to pee up to around 10 times when I saw Return of the King in theaters, and that was during my third watching.
Though my condition has improved as I’ve aged, my wife has gone so far as to suggest that I download an app to my phone which actually sets a timer on your phone which coordinates one’s bladder while one is watching a movie. The basic premise is, that way, you won’t waste a lot of time during a movie going back and forth to the toilet. RunPee is
not only an app, it is an entire website where there is a community of fellow pissers who exchange dialogue about when is the best time to get and urinate during a film. I have yet to really dig into the language and psychology of this community because frankly I’m terrified of the reviews of Lawrence of Arabia. I’m terrified they’re going to say the whole film is one long piss-fest, and I like Lawrence of Arabia.
As for my nervous pissing as a teenager, it came about entirely because I didn’t want to miss anything because I knew, as I watched, that this would be the last time I would see Middle Earth on the big screen. I was wrong largely for two reasons. The first reason was that by getting up to pee I was actually missing part of the film, and the second reason was because Peter Jackson would begin The Hobbit trilogy just a few years later. And while The Hobbit films were not the barbarous human rights atrocity that they’ve been made out to be, Billy Connolly plays a dwarf who rides a motherfucking boar and he only shows up in the last hour of the last fucking film for fucks sake…I’m a little bitter. But that’s only because it’s Billy motherfucking Connolly.
Fuck.
The Lord of the Rings the Return of the King was a beautiful film however, and so for many years I hated myself for never actually finishing the book. It was fun knowing how the story ended, and it was fun appearing smart as I informed people who knew nothing about the series (and who probably didn’t give a shit about it) that I knew that in fact that when the Hobbits returned to Hobbiton the Great Party Tree was destroyed and
the Hobbits actually had to fight a large gathering of ghouls and cretins who had polluted the Shire, but it was all, ultimately, just an exercise in ego. That is when I finally finished The Return of the King at the end of last year, I finally felt as though I was not so much of a “would-be.”
Book six of the Return of the King came and went, and I was left in a rather difficult position: how am I going to write about the last book. Book five at least had Eowyn, but for the most part the final section of the book is for Frodo and Sam, and I don’t have much to say about either. It’s not that I fail to recognize the potential for character exploration as both men have interesting material to work with, but by the end of Return of the King both of these characters have been essentially stripped to the bareness of their souls and are nearly destroyed.
The quest for the Ring, and the physical and psychological effects it has upon Frodo have been analyzed by scholars, fans, bloggers, writers, poets, and that weird guy at CVS pharmacy with the neck-beard who’s actually got great puns the world over. Whether it’s been interpreted as a metaphor for drug use, the ultimate corrupting power of
power, veiled symbolism of unholy temptations, or simply human weakness, ultimately everyone arrives at the same conclusion for why Frodo ultimately fails to drop the Ring of Power into the fire of the Crack of Doom in Orodruin, usually just called Mount Doom: Frodo has no choice. Ultimately the ring corrupts otherwise good people to it’s will, and they are powerless to stop such evil. Temptation is a force that compels and corrupts the will, and those who possess the ring are ultimately undone by this power.
What fool would I be to argue against this interpretation? Apparently a great fool indeed, but I not only disagree with this collected sentiment, I actually find it a dangerous proposition. Though I’m not the only one who find this argument weak.
As I have noted since the start of these essays, Michael D.C. Drout’s lecture series Of
Sorcerer’s and Men completely altered my perception of the trilogy and the ultimate aesthetic effect that Tolkien was attempting in this fantasy series, and I’m still feeling the reverberating effects as I consider each text one by one. What struck me most about his analysis of The Lord of the Rings was the final failure of Frodo, and as he quoted the scene directly I suppose I should as well. Sam and Frodo have traveled over the plains of Gorgoroth, and as they made their way up the side of Mount doom they have been attacked by Gollum. Frodo manages to escape and make his way inside of the volcano and after Sam has spared Gollum he chases after his master who he finds standing on the perch. All is darkness until the fire lifts up and Tolkien writes the scene so that every word matters:
The light sprang up again, and there on the brink of the chasm, at the very Crack of Doom, stood Frodo, black against the glare, tense, erect, but still as if he had been turned to stone.
“Master!” Cried Sam.
Then Frodo stirred and spoke with a clear voice, indeed with a voice clearer and more powerful than Sam had ever heard him use, and it rose above the throb and turmoil of Mount Doom, ringing in the roof and walls.
‘I have come,’ he said. ‘But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!’ And suddenly, as he set it on his finger, he vanished from Sam’s sight. Sam gasped, but he had no chance to cry out, for at that moment many things happened. (924).
There is always going to be somebody whispering to the reader and saying “the book was better,” and while I won’t say that this scene in the final film of the trilogy was not great, it reinforced the traditional narrative of Frodo’s failure where the book left a more nuanced point. Every word in Frodo’s declaration speaks to the real power of the ring and the effect that it has upon those who bear it or desire it. 
If the reader pays close attention to Frodo’s language it is clear what is compelling Frodo is not solely weakness of spirit or supernatural influence, it is choice. Frodo does “not choose” to destroy the ring, instead his choice is to keep it for himself. And this idea of choice is everything because choice is always a matter of one’s personal conviction. A person chooses what color clothes to dress in, what books to read or not read, what films to see, what religion or philosophy should govern their life, what political beliefs they subscribe to, what games to play or not play, and what sort of people they prefer to spend their time with. Each of these choices reflects the character and values of that individual, and those choices are ultimately founded upon a foundation of desire. I choose to spend most of my time reading and
writing, because I desire to communicate to other people in a different way than conversation, dinner parties, or Eyes Wide Shut Orgies every third Tuesdays at Sarah and Jacob’s house (BYOB). These actions coalesce together to create who I am, but it’s always the desire that compels these choices.
The power of the One Ring then is not just to warp a person using evil magic, what’s truly horrifying is that the power of the ring is to warp a person’s choice.
This of course creates problems because most readers would probably prefer a reality where Frodo does not choose to keep the One Ring, because if it his choice it becomes harder for us to forgive his final failure? If it is just supernatural power, magic, temptation, then it’s easy to forgive the man’s weakness. But as long as the final choice to keep the One Ring for himself is his choice the reader has to make an important decision: is it fair to fault Frodo?
This is where I look to outside books, which, in my case, tends to be the entire space of my office which is not just dedicated to coffee stains, cat hair, 3D prints of busts and statues. There’s an entire shelf dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien (which he shares, just for the record, with Ta-Nehisi Coates), and as of this writing a significant amount of space is dedicated to the writings of Tom Shippey. Shippey is a big name in Tolkien studies, largely because he has become a sort of literary successor to Tolkien, assuming the man’s former position at Oxford University and also writing multiple books about the man’s collected work. Shortly after my inhalation of Drout’s lecture I absorbed every book the library hadabout Tolkien and his body of work, and Shippey’s J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century served as one of the first real stimuli of the of my intellectual flood.
That’s all a fancy-pants way of saying I read a lot of Shippey’s work.
Author of the Century is an important book in looking at almost every level of Tolkien’s oeuvre, and there’s no element of the book series that Shippey doesn’t analyze. Whether it’s the linguistic models of character names, parallel mythic structures of themes, literary references contained within the novels, or even simply studying the shorter poetic works of Tolkien, Shippey is often the sort of writer that cuts open the butterfly to see how it works without managing to damage or smudge the original beauty.
Looking at this book then I looked to see how Shippey handles this problem of Frodo’s choice:
With that he puts it on for the sixth and final time. It is a vital question to know whether Frodo does this because he has been made to, or whether he has succumbed to inner temptation. What he says suggests the latter, for he appears to be claiming responsibility very firmly […] Against that, there has been the increasing sense of reaching a centre of power, where all other powers are ‘subdued’. If that is the case Frodo could no more help himself than if he had been swept away by a river, or buried in a landslide. It is also interesting that Frodo does not say, ‘I choose not to,’ but ‘I do not choose to do.’ Maybe (and Tolkien was a professor of language) the choice of words is absolutely accurate. Frodo does not choose; the choice is made for him. (140)
Looking at this passage Shippey seems to come to the conclusion that Frodo has no real say in the matter. But if one looks to another one of his books, The Road to Middle Earth,
he provides a far more nuanced perspective:
Nevertheless it seems that there the external power is abetted by some inner weakness, some potentially wicked-impulse towards the wrong side. In the chamber of Sammath Nauer one’s judgement must also be suspended. Frodo makes a clear and active statement in his own evil intention […] Are Frodo’s will, and his virtue, among those powers? To say so would be Manichaean, It would deny that men are responsible for their actions, make evil into a positive force. On the other hand to put the whole blame on Frodo would seem (to use a distinctively English ethical term) ‘unfair’; if he had been an entirely wicked person, he would never have reached Sammath Nauer in the first place. (144)
Shippey seems to arrive at what I would call a really mature understanding of good and evil and the nature of temptation. Like so many aspects of life, one’s actions are usually a multifaceted creature which is determined on your individual self and environment. Who I am and what decisions I make in my own home are entirely different from the decisions I make when I’m at work. Both spaces create my reality and the way I’m supposed to behave in that reality, and before I become ungodly academic about this its fair to say that your environment has as much determining factor on your choices as whether or not external forces play a role in your decisions.
For this I have to go to heavy metal, because just two years ago I went with a friend to see my favorite band Slipknot in concert. They were the last band to go on and my friend Josh really wanted to get in a mosh pit. So when Lamb of God came on, and we were both very very very VERY drunk, he handed me his forty and hopped into the hurricane which was the mass of bodies running and fighting in a large circle. I recognize comparing a Lamb of God mosh pit to Sammath Nauer is probably ridiculous, but in fact it actually bears some resemblance, because while my friend Josh was fine to hop into the chaos that was the pit, I stood at a distance watching grown men and women escape from the carnage with bloody noses and black eyes laughing while on the stage twin guitarists stood in front of atom bombs blowing up and head-banging. I chose not to go into the pit, largely for reasons of self preservation, but also because it was my choice.
A pit in a heavy metal concert is not a force of pure evil, (although “Force of Pure Evil” would be a great title for a Metal Album) but anyone who’s attended a concert knows
these “rings” are spaces where rational thought disappears and one is left solely to one’s passions and impulses.
I guess what I’m trying to communicate is that Frodo’s decision is complex, and arguably the zenith of the entire trilogy, because in this moment Tolkien challenges his own conception of evil as something of absence, and allows the reader to question how we look at our own choices. And Shippey, to his credit, provides a beautiful analysis of it.
As to the questions of how far responsibility is to be allocated to between us and our tempters, how much temptation human beings can ‘reasonably’ be expected to stand—these are obviously not to be answered by mere mortals. Tolkien saw the problem of evil in books as in realities, and he told his story at least in part to dramatize that problem; he did not, however, claim to know the answer to it. (145)
The problem of Frodo’s choice is that it is a problem, largely for the reader. Up to this point Frodo has seemed to be a purely good person, or at least a good person who’s
experienced great struggle and has done the best he could. The ultimate choice to keep the ring for himself however calls many character aspects into question. Was this always his intention, and did he intend to keep the ring from the start? Or is it simply that the power of the ring is just too tempting and he realizes what he could be and do with its power? Is Frodo even in his right mind when he makes this decision, or is it the combination of the Ring and the fires of Mt. Doom?
I’m not sure that I have an answer that feels satisfying. My personal take at the end of everything is that, while the Ring is ultimately exerting the influence over Frodo, the extent of that influence is allowing Frodo the space to feel he can make this terrible choice. And at the end of everything perhaps the ultimate power of the One Ring is not that it possesses any sort of supernatural power other than to allow people their selfishness. This is not a terrible supernatural power, but it is a frightening prospect nonetheless for the reader who knows their own mind, and the terrible impulses and sudden desires they may have and not share.
Our wants are not always selfless, in fact almost all of them are selfish. Our wants are our selfish desires, and the real threat of evil is the temptation to act on everyone of them. Frodo was a good person, but ultimately no one could stand against the temptation to do and have everything they want. Frodo’s redemption then is the journey itself, for while he is ultimately a failure, his effort to deliver the ring to Sammath Nauer and Orodruin comes from a want and desire to be a good person and save the home he loves.
Goodness then, at the end of The Return of the King, is about overcoming personal selfishness and sacrificing for the general good. The hero cannot win this fight, because selfishness and temptation is ultimately too great an opponent, this is made clear when Gollum steals the ring from Frodo by biting off his finger and falling back into the fires of Mount Doom. Frodo too cannot escape the destruction of the Ring. He ultimately leaves Middle Earth with Gandalf, Bilbo, and the last of the Elves to the Grey Havens.
Though I suppose all of this is not entirely correct, for at the very end of this long journey is Sam who does not desire or want for much except a home, and good tilled earth. And Tolkien gives the man just that:
At last they rode over the downs and took the East Road, and then Merry and Pippin rode on to Buckland; and already they were singing again as they went. But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Eleanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said. (1008).
This ending may in fact offer the reader one more, and far more satisfactory conclusion about the journey. Want and desire is not a solely selfish emotion, and can in fact lead to one’s salvation, as long as one’s wants are not so great to blind one to what you have.
*Writer’s Note*
All quotes taken from The Return of the King were cited from the Mariner paperback edition. All quotes taken from J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century were cited from the hardback Houghton Mifflin edition. All quotes taken from The Road to Middle Earth were cited from the paperback Houghton Mifflin edition.
**Writer’s Note**
I realized not long after finishing this essay that there were multiple forums dedicated entirely to the question of Frodo’s failure, arguing whether in fact his final act is a failure. As I said before, I land in the middle of this issue personally but each person is different, and dialogue is vital to the health of the humanities. So if the reader is at all interested in seeing a few of the multitudinous perspectives which govern the Tolkien fan-base feel free to follow any of the links below:
http://www.thetolkienforum.com/index.php?threads/does-frodo-actually-fail.8873/
https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=334
https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/2u5467/did_frodo_fail_at_the_cracks_of_doom/
https://www.planet-tolkien.com/board/13/2986/0/did-frodo-fail
***Writer’s Note***
I get that being a queer man this argument is probably pointless, but it must needs be repeated, I don’t believe that Frodo and Sam are gay. But even if they were that doesn’t make any part of their relationship stupid, silly, grotesque, or not worth exploring, and if you’re the kind of shitty asshole who disagrees with me then go fuck yourself. You take a long and emotionally exhausting adventure carrying the Ring of Power to Oroduin so that you can cast the ring into the fires of Samath Nauer ultimately to be undone by the will to dominate before managing to destroy the ring after all and hold each other close as the land of Morder begins to crumble in the aftermath of the collpase of the spirit of Sauron and NOT develope a bromance. Go on. Seriously. I dare you.
of the finest executed lines in cinema history.
of patriarchal masculinity.
anything in terms of real agency because the society of Rohan is very much medieval England.
doing some initial research for this essay, and talking to friends who I consider Tolkien resources, the general summation was usually the same.
more-or-less dispatched King Theoden Eowyn stands between the Witch King, his literally flying bat-dragon-monster, and threatens to kill him if he should touch Theoden, offering up the line that made both me, and my mother, fist-bump.
wave feminists.
to before she falls in love with Faramir the son of the Stewart of Gondor.
easier.
teachers and gym coaches use to tell us. And, I’m pretty sure, the reader probably has taken this interpretive route as well.
have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing. (699).
Depression is as much a physical ailment as it is an emotional burden, not enough people really seem to recognize that. There’s the sadness, and morbid-as-fuck thoughts in which you try to rationalize why your existence is flawed, pointless, and a waste of other people’s time, but these sensations are only part of the larger show. I’ve begun to recognize more and more that my depression tends to manifest in physical ailments such as twitching, headaches, panic attacks where it feels like I can’t breath. And the most depressing thing about all of this crap is that I’ve begun to realize how ephemeral my body is, which is another way of saying I’ve become more and more aware of the aging process and so I’m realizing this clap-trap of a form is the only body I’m going to get.
pain. I’ve said to my friends who have suggested therapy that, “I just enjoy being broken.” And as Gollum suggests to Frodo that he taker back the ring, it’s clear Gollum wants it back not because he wants to help others, he just wants to go back to a space and place where he could be comfortable being broken.
really can be a case made for the reality that Gollum is suffering from a real form of depression. I’m not ignoring the supernatural power of the Ring, but the pattern of behavior suggests a deeper struggle.
however something was left out that begs this initial question.
reality of depression. My condition is not necessarily improving dramatically, but writing about it like this, finding connections to it in real life and fiction, and telling my story like this has helped me moving forward. It’s helped me claim my position in my own narrative as the, if not hero, at least the man of his own making.
bulging muscles and hair down to my ass. It was a beautiful time in my life when the word metal was an adjective rather than a noun, and the soundtrack to my life was Corey Taylor screaming while Clown banged on beer kegs with an aluminum bat. And of course these wild-man fantasies would be accompanied by loads of sex (Often with buxom wood nymphs, and sometimes with other bearded wild-men but such occasions were rare because I was still in that awkward phase when I pretended that browser histories weren’t a thing and that I wouldn’t wind up gay if I jerked off to two dudes having sex “just that one time”).
miniature version of A Tolkien Bestiary, and looking at this wonderful book a better idea of what Ents actually are comes into play:
each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the toots, thin and mossy at the ends. (452).
It’s hard to say, write really, that I identify with Treebeard without feeling like an absolute hipster. It’s easy to nod along with someone and their words, it’s quite another thing to commit to action and demonstrate conviction. It might also be because the current political environment in the United States is not friendly to anyone outside of the two-party, two-side system. Treebeard stands in the face of those who would have him pick one side or the other, and ultimately he does pick a side. It would seem then that Treebeard’s ultimate decision to join the fight of the War of the Ring is a real political gesture, however my only conflict with this argument is that Treebeard is a man with his own sense of time.
defending their homes. Unlike the Men, who were greedy and vain, or the orcs, who were vicious and cruel, the Ents fought only for the trees and the earth and the safety of the natural world. This is not a particularly sexy position to take in an armed conflict, but it stands to be reminded that it is ultimately the reason most people would or should want to fight.
provides some real sense of hope as a reader, and a real form of identification. Watching the year 2017 unfold, and watching my country dissolve into contested and petty partisan conflict a figure like Treebeard was refreshing and hopeful because it was an example of a being who could look past it. The time of trees is older and longer than the times of men. Outside of my office window stand two pecan trees. They are most assuredly older than I am, and I’m sure they’ll be there long after I am dead. In their time they will provide food for squirrels, shelter for birds, and sleeping space for plenty of stray cats who will no longer be strays once my wife has discovered them. It’s not a profound, or highly insightful comment on the battle
between good and evil, but trees, like Ents, are beings that offer a long series of selfless acts at their own expense.
greater than his “One does not simply…” meme. It’s also for this reason that I decided to go against my original impulse when approaching my review of Book II of The Lord of the Rings.
exactly help that my best friend Kevin and I spent literally an entire year arguing with a friend of ours about the proper way to pronounce Balrog (he was obsessed with calling it Balronko). Now obviously the fight scene I’m describing was in the second film The Two Towers, but even when I had watched The Fellowship of the Ring with my Dad on that rented VHS tape I had never seen anything like the Balrog in any movie. It was a creature that seemed like it should have been in a medieval passion play rather than a feature film, but I became enthralled.
provides the reader with an explanation:
spellbound, or else that they are witnessing something incredible.
appearance of this creature has it’s own implications for each character. For Legolas, being an Elf, the appearance of the Balrog would something of a nightmare because the elves would surely remember through records and oral tradition what kind of a monster the Balrog would be. Gimli being a dwarf who has just observed the desecration of his race’s hall and temple by orcs is already emotional, but the appearance of the Balrog is proof that his people’s greed brought about the reawakening of this creature. If the dwarves had not been greedy and dug so deep into the earth his cousin Balin might still be alive along with the rest of the people of Moria. Gandalf’s reaction is unique because it has been steadily established that Gandalf’s role in Middle Earth is something beyond most people’s comprehension and that he is being guided by some supernatural entity, order, or compulsion.
showed that these characters are participating with a history and a culture. And this reaction reveals a depth in the universe.
or absent in them, and I’ll hopefully get into this more when I get to the character Gollum, but for now it’s important to observe Gandalf standing against the Balrog because it becomes more than just a wizard fighting a fire-demon. For Tolkien this small moment is a summation of his entire creative philosophy about the nature of good and evil.
Then the echoes died as suddenly as a flame blown out by a dark wind, and the enemy advanced again. (321).
Computer programmers, hardware specialists, table-top game developers, video game designers, and even authors themselves have been inspired by the “Old Professor” and have taken this inspiration and created products and arts that have inspired the next generation of innovators. While Tolkien himself tended to be harsh to this fan base during his lifetime, going so far as to call them the “deplorable cultus,” the generation of stoners and dreamers took a great work and made it something important to the culture and zeitgeist, and thus I return to my foolishness.
LEGOs I did eventually return to it. My regular reader may dimly remember that I began an audio-lecture series sponsored by Barnes & Noble titled Of Sorcerer’s and Men. This series, which was masterfully delivered by the professor Michael D.C. Drout, was incredible and reminded me of everything that I originally loved about The Lord of the Rings.
possible to write about those book in parts, tackling an entire 1000 page novel with one review is like trying to eat The Old 96er from The Great Outdoors. Those who try will wind up crying like John Candy before wrenching the whole thing back up. Fortunately for me Tolkien broke his series into six “books” letting each larger book contained of two small books themselves. The Fellowship then consists of Books 1 and 2 and it seems far healthier to tackle the series that way than attempting one large reflection.
talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
frequently noted was how the strength of the series was not so much because the hobbits were symbolic of any religious or spiritual significance, but because they were decent common folk.
concerned far more with their families, whether their neighbors are a decent sort of people, whether they have enough to eat, and whether or not they are attending parties.
they could get them). They were hospitable and delighted in parties, and in presents, which they gave away freely and eagerly accepted. (2).
love to sit and discuss some of the fantastic elements that make this book so impressive, and I do intend to. The conflict is that fantastic elements by themselves don’t provide much opportunity for reflection. One of the consistent charges against the Triology is that the books have no relevance to average people. Part of this is the unfortunate, lingering elitism that plagues the fantasy genres which is absolute bullshit. But the other charge, that it’s style doesn’t fit the age in which it was written feels a little more fair. Most of the non-hobbit characters speak like they were taken from epics of
‘I don’t know what has come over you, Gandalf,” he said. ‘You have never been like this before. What is it all about? It is mine isn’t it? I found it, and Gollum would have killed me, if I hadn’t kept it. I’m not a thief, whatever he said.’
important to recognize that Jackson did this scene right and because he did this passage stood out to me. But looking past the film, this scene in one in a long series of moments that Gandalf offers that hint at his true “nature” or “form.” Gandalf is, if I can move into the neck-beard nerd territory, something called a Maiar, a being who precede most of the “time” of Middle Earth, and actually proceeded the making of the world. I won’t bore the reader with the complex mythos of Tolkien’s world (that’s for when I review the Silmarillion) but this background info provides the context of what makes Gandalf important in the first book.
real relevance for the reader. The concept of “deep time” was one that began during the Victorian era when geologists began to argue that the world is actually older than we once thought. Where before the world was only a few thousand years old (according to sources like The Bible), by looking at the actual layers of sediment in the earth, and discovering fossils or organisms long exitinct, human beings were able to determine that our time on this earth was only relatively recent and that we were merely one example in a long lifetime of the planet.
world of Hobbiton is one that the reader can certainly recognize because it’s a world that directly mirrors our own. There’s neighborhoods of people who worry about parties and gardens and harvests. There’s sheriffs and mail-men and pubs where people gather to
