Timeline for Why did Sméagol turn into a 'creature' when addicted to the ring, but not Bilbo Baggins?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 20, 2015 at 15:47 | comment | added | alimack | I'd be surprised if Tolkien wasn't thinking of Aristotle's concept of Akrasia (weakness of will). Bombadil would represent the ideal, not desiring Evil, whereas avoiding evil like Bilbo and Galadriel would be the middle course, the worst course is to give in to Evil as Smeagol does. | |
| Jan 13, 2014 at 8:03 | comment | added | Fhtagn | As for the "intention" of the book, in the foreword JRR states that he dislikes any kind of allegory. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 14:11 | comment | added | o0'. | Somehow interesting, but not as an answer to this question. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 8:50 | comment | added | Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI | Note that Boromir wasn't tempted because he didn't have anything to live for, he was tempted because he was desperate to save his city and the Ring became his personal promise of power to do just that. | |
| S Jan 12, 2014 at 6:35 | history | suggested | mikebabcock | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
reformatted for readability; no textual or punctuation (argh) changes.
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| Jan 12, 2014 at 6:24 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 12, 2014 at 6:35 | |||||
| Jan 12, 2014 at 1:29 | comment | added | zwol | Bombadil is immune because he's enlightened, in the Buddhist sense. He doesn't desire anything that the Ring can give him, and so it has no power over him. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 1:07 | comment | added | HelloGoodbye | Block. Of. Text... Literally. It would probably be easier to read if you divided it into a few paragraphs. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 22:59 | comment | added | Shamshiel | The Ring relied on the desire for power and domination. That's what it offered people, and what it gave them - the power to dominate others. The Ring was therefore most dangerous and tempting to the strong-willed characters such as Boromir, Gandalf, and Galadriel and least dangerous to people like Sam, or someone like Bombadil who had completely renounced that sort of thing. "The question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless" in the words of Tolkien. Bombadil was not immune because of his willpower. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 21:26 | comment | added | Valorum | That may well be the case but there's no indication that that was what Tolkien had in mind. The drug metaphor is pure speculation, mostly driven by the 'reinterpretation' you see in the modern films. Tolkien's Bilbo wasn't drug-addled with the ring per-se, but rather said that he felt "thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread" | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 21:19 | comment | added | quux00 | Disagree with @Richard. I think the drug addiction analogy is quite apt and can help to explain the differing outcomes on different people/characters. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 19:03 | comment | added | Valorum | +1 for mentioning Tom Bombadil but -1 for the rest. Not relevant. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 17:58 | review | First posts | |||
| Jan 11, 2014 at 19:03 | |||||
| Jan 11, 2014 at 17:41 | history | answered | Sylvia Mann | CC BY-SA 3.0 |