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Oh we're just believing Saruman are we
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Feb 28, 2024 15:30
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euphronius posted:So your interpretation is the river had free will to roll the ring ? Or the ring rolled itself by free will? Why didn’t Saruman say that Why would he have to say it, what else would have?
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Feb 28, 2024 15:31
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The white council did at that time yes . Gandalf later says he was a fool to do so
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Feb 28, 2024 15:31
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euphronius posted:The white council did at that time yes . Gandalf later says he was a fool to do so So, Gandalf says that he was a fool to believe the things said, these same things that you are relying on for your argument. He said it was rolled into the sea. By whom? By no one, Saruman was lying.
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Feb 28, 2024 15:32
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Cavelcade posted:Why would he have to say it, what else would have? Eru. Manwe. Most likely Ulmo in this scenario
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Feb 28, 2024 15:32
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zoux posted:So, Gandalf says that he was a fool to believe the things said, these same things that you are relying on for your argument I’m arguing what Saruman implied and what we should infer from his statement No one should believe him. But that is more in hindsight.
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Feb 28, 2024 15:33
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Cavelcade posted:Why would he have to say it, what else would have? So Gollum's fall at Mt. Doom was just...luck?
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Feb 28, 2024 15:35
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euphronius posted:Eru. Manwe. Most likely Ulmo in this scenario Why would they need to get involved at that point instead of letting the river do its thing? Or, if Eru is going to get involved directly, why let it be made? Why not destroy it once it has been? The Eagles intervention is much more credible to assign to Manwë by even that isn't certain.
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Feb 28, 2024 15:35
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euphronius posted:Your interpretation takes the “was” out. I think you should account for the text saying “was rolled” not just “rolled” Because passive voice puts the focus on the object, and the ring is the most important thing, not the precise mechanism of how it rolled.
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Feb 28, 2024 15:36
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Ravenfood posted:So Gollum's fall at Mt. Doom was just...luck? No, it was the result of a command given by Frodo while holding the ring to which Smeagol was sworn.
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Feb 28, 2024 15:36
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Cavelcade posted:Why would they need to get involved at that point instead of letting the river do its thing? In this circumstance it was Saruman the white speaking as head of the council. In hindsight we know he was searching for the ring and believed it was in the anduin still. He was trying however to mollify the rest of the white council about the ring and to get them to stop worrying about it. That is the context of his lie. Therefore he constructed it such a way for the other to infer that someone else rolled the ring into the sea already and it’s taken care of. Who would Gandalf thing did that ? My guess is most likely he thought Ulmo did it. Edit : thinking about it I think he may have thought Eru? Idk. I don’t know what exactly your are referring to by eagles intervention euphronius fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 15:39
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SimonChris posted:Because passive voice puts the focus on the object, and the ring is the most important thing, not the precise mechanism of how it rolled. Then he would have just said rolled, not was rolled. Unless you mean the entity of the being who rolled the ring into the sea isn’t important . I don’t think that is true
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Feb 28, 2024 15:39
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i hate this argument so much
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Feb 28, 2024 15:45
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euphronius posted:Then he would have just said rolled, not was rolled. Do you think Eru literally pushed Smeagol over the cliff?
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Feb 28, 2024 15:46
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Cavelcade posted:Do you think Eru literally pushed Smeagol over the cliff? Like did eru corporealize and literally push? No It similar to how eru got the ring to Bilbo Edit To use the language of lotr, gollum was meant to slip and fall at that moment euphronius fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 15:49
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euphronius posted:Like did eru corporealize and literally push? No In that case why didn't Sauron slip and fall midforging and avoid the problem altogether? Or equally, is Smeagol wasn't there at that moment, would he have just slipped and fallen wherever?
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Feb 28, 2024 15:55
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God: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems
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Feb 28, 2024 15:56
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I don’t know, I don’t usually question the ways of god
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Feb 28, 2024 15:56
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WoodrowSkillson posted:i hate this argument so much You were right.
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Feb 28, 2024 16:15
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I think the basis of this argument is a failure to understand the proverbial mysterious ways in which Eru works.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:09
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Did Saruman know who had the three elven rings? Specifically did he know Gandalf had one?
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Feb 28, 2024 19:31
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WoodrowSkillson posted:i hate this argument so much I guess we've discovered the Poe's Orangutan for Tolkien fans
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Feb 28, 2024 19:39
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I think very few people knew who had the rings. Probably the people who had them and like, cirdan, because he gave his to Gandalf. Saruman would have tried to take Gandalfs ring if he knew.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:40
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Why didn't Eru simply take the ring to Mordor himself?
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Feb 28, 2024 19:40
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Saruman did think for a moment that Gandalf had the one ring and then laughed at him as an idiot when he figured out he didn’t.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:59
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sleep with the vicious posted:Did Saruman know who had the three elven rings? Specifically did he know Gandalf had one? It's not exactly going to be tricky to suss out that the legendarily wise rulers of the four remaining Elven-realms in Middle-Earth are the most obvious choice to hold the Three, especially since at least three of them have some sort of magical effect acting on or associated with them (and the Grey Havens might, even if we're not really told about it). Which one of the four didn't have a ring might have been the hardest to deduce, and Círdan secretly giving his to Gandalf probably made it a much trickier puzzle - Elrond and Galadriel are obvious but which of the two others, Círdan or Thranduil, has the third? Trick question, it's neither! I doubt Saruman ever figured that out. I wonder if he was hoping that the ring he made in an attempt to duplicate the Great Rings (he calls himself "Saruman Ring-Maker" when he's trying to get Gandalf on his team) would help him see through the ability of a Ring-wearer to hide their Ring from the perception of others, as Galadriel explains to Frodo. Obviously it doesn't work, or he'd have spotted Narya on Gandalf's finger, which would have answered that question, and also royally pissed him off given his jealousy of Gandalf.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:46
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I'm willing to buy that there was no (direct) divine intervention in Gollumn falling into the cracks of doom. Oaths are promises made to a higher power, which is why they're more binding than a regular promise: you are calling on that higher power to strike you down if you break your promise. In a polytheistic context, you'll usually name the god and the punishment during the oath. In a Christian context, both can be implied: you are swearing by God, and the punishment is damnation after death. But there's plenty of examples of the oath making those explicit, including in Tolkien's own writing:quote:Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean, Later in the Silmarillion, the sons of Feanor lament that not even Manwe himself can render the oath null, because the oath was made to Eru, and so only God himself can unbind them from it. This is the kind of stuff that's extremely common in the kinds of historical documents and literature Tolkien was steeped in his whole life, even if oaths are seen more as just fancy promises in today's less-religious world. But there's still remnants of it, in e.g. putting your hand on the bible to swear your oath on the witness stand. Gollum's oath, however, is not to God, nor is it left implied. He swears by the ring. An unusual higher power, but it's very clear what the enforcement mechanism for this oath is: the ring itself will enforce it. The punishment is left unspecified at this point, but later on, in Return of the King: quote:Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. The 'wheel of fire' is, of course, the ring; this is a metaphor that gets used multiple times previously, setting up this scene. So, we have an oath, calling on the ring to enforce the promise; when Gollum breaks the promise, the ring itself specifies the punishment should he break it one more time, and then, 3 pages later, Gollum breaks his promise yet again and the stated punishment happens. The passive voice, which I agree is often used to hide the hand of God, isn't even used in the scene where Gollum dies: quote:‘Precious, precious, precious!’ Gollum cried. ‘My Precious! O my Precious!’ And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone. So my take is that while divine intervention pervades Lord of the Rings, it is not *directly* present in this precise moment. e: I assume a good chunk of the thread has already read this, but here's a cool blog post on how oaths functioned historically: https://acoup.blog/2019/06/28/collections-oaths-how-do-they-work/
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Feb 28, 2024 20:51
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Feb 28, 2024 20:55
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euphronius posted:That section from Sauron’s pov is a little strange. How would the narrator know what Sauron was thinking ? I guess Frodo kind of mind melded with him once he put the ring on We get a fox's POV at one point in the story.
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Feb 28, 2024 21:10
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Lemniscate Blue posted:It's not exactly going to be tricky to suss out that the legendarily wise rulers of the four remaining Elven-realms in Middle-Earth are the most obvious choice to hold the Three, especially since at least three of them have some sort of magical effect acting on or associated with them (and the Grey Havens might, even if we're not really told about it). Interesting, but Thranduil as a suspected Ringbearer feels strange to be honest, he always seemed to be of lesser standing than the others, both in ancestry and in his domain being more corrupted.
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Feb 28, 2024 21:14
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Thranduil is 100% the poor relation. Wine baron in the backcountry. Descended from a mere courtier of Elu-Thingol. Probably doesn’t even know any high elves. And he’s got a dungeon…how gauche can you get. They’d let Celeborn have a ring first.
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Feb 28, 2024 21:24
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YaketySass posted:Interesting, but Thranduil as a suspected Ringbearer feels strange to be honest, he always seemed to be of lesser standing than the others, both in ancestry and in his domain being more corrupted. If Sauron suspected him he might have moved into southern Mirkwood as the necromancer in part to try and take Thranduil's potential ring, based on assuming (correctly) that he would be the weakest of the three, so Thranduil's realm being the most corrupted might be a facet of Sauron focusing his efforts to do so. It does feel strange, though. Cirdan, Elrond, and Galadriel seem like the main candidates. Thranduil seems like a reach.
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Feb 28, 2024 21:26
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For all Sauron knows the Three have already headed back to the Undying Lands.
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Feb 28, 2024 21:33
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Phy posted:I guess we've discovered the Poe's Orangutan for Tolkien fans I thought that was Balrog wings
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Feb 28, 2024 21:52
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Ravenfood posted:If Sauron suspected him he might have moved into southern Mirkwood as the necromancer in part to try and take Thranduil's potential ring, based on assuming (correctly) that he would be the weakest of the three, so Thranduil's realm being the most corrupted might be a facet of Sauron focusing his efforts to do so.
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Feb 28, 2024 22:01
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So Sauron couldn't tell that three of the members of the White Council who drove him from Dol Guldur were wearing the three elvish rings of power?
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Feb 28, 2024 22:02
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cheetah7071 posted:I'm willing to buy that there was no (direct) divine intervention in Gollumn falling into the cracks of doom. Oaths are promises made to a higher power, which is why they're more binding than a regular promise: you are calling on that higher power to strike you down if you break your promise. In a polytheistic context, you'll usually name the god and the punishment during the oath. In a Christian context, both can be implied: you are swearing by God, and the punishment is damnation after death. But there's plenty of examples of the oath making those explicit, including in Tolkien's own writing: The Ring yeeting itself into Mt Doom to fulfill Gollum's oath is poetic and also matches Tolkien's love to make evil things be the cause of their own destruction
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Feb 28, 2024 23:00
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The reason I feel that Saruman, Sauron, and anyone else trying to logic it out would have had to evaluate Thranduil as a potential bearer of one of the Three is that the Grey Havens under Círdan don't seem to show the kind of magical preservation and protection that Lothlorien and Imladris do under Galadriel and Elrond. It's possible that it is and that we're never told of it because the narrative doesn't visit the place, but Saruman having become the foremost expert on Ring-lore among the Wise and Sauron having written the OS that they run would have had to know that those effects were due to what the Three were made to do, even if neither of them had ever laid hands on them. What other Elven domain does show some kind of magical protection? The Woodland Realm. Celebrimbor choosing to give Thranduil one of the Three would have been a surprising choice, but given the evidence it's a possibility. The point is, nobody other than Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, and Círdan knows for sure. Anybody else has to take that possibility into account, even if just to investigate. zoux posted:So Sauron couldn't tell that three of the members of the White Council who drove him from Dol Guldur were wearing the three elvish rings of power? This is a good point! I don't know. Maybe he felt their presence among the forces massed to drive him out (it wasn't just a handful of demigods cosplaying as an adventuring party). Maybe he couldn't perceive them because he didn't have the One at the time, and his connection to the Three is weak or nonexistent without it? The Three can be safely used when Sauron doesn't have the Ring, after all. Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 23:01
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Phy posted:I guess we've discovered the Poe's Orangutan for Tolkien fans That implies that there's any argument that Tolkien scholarship and fandom have ever gotten tired of having.
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Feb 28, 2024 23:03
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BRB, just going to jump in my Time Machine to tell the 1915 version of JRRT about the phrase “Tolkien scholarship”
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Feb 28, 2024 23:32
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