Chapter 3: Mount Doom

Jacob's Thoughts (2/5/17)

I don't know if I can do this chapter justice.

Even already knowing the end from the beginning, and especially after so many chapters of frankly shaky plotting and poor pacing, the way that Tolkien finally wraps together all of the moving pieces of not only The Lord of the Ring, but his entire Middle Earth mythology, in such a resoundingly satisfying manner--and that without sacrificing the intimacy, humility, and humanity of his central characters--is nothing short of astounding.  If, after all of our many searing critiques of Tolkien's many literary shortcomings, there were any question as to why Lord of the Rings remains the most widely beloved fantasy series of the 20th century, the answer must be that readers are willing to forgive a lot in a story if the climax is strong--and boy does Tolkien have a crackerjack climax!

I think what makes this chapter work so memorably is the strength of its contrasts: the meekness and weakness of the Hobbits contrasted against the apocalyptic grandiosity of their mission; the Hobbits' relentless hopelessness in the first half of this chapter contrasted with Sauron's absolute terror in the second; the complete darkness of Mordor (such that Galadriel's light won't even work anymore--an excellent detail) contrasted with the complete victory of the finale.

And then there's Gollum.

We've all read the books before and we've all seen the movies, so at this point Gollum's role in the final destruction of the Ring is so much a part of the cultural air we breath that it may be easy to forget just what a fantastic twist it really is.  For the question that permeated near the entirety of Book IV is whether Gollum is good or bad, friend or foe, redeemable or irredeemable, an asset or a liability; back in "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol," I posited that "what is most fascinating is that Tolkien's eventual answer to this question will be--Yes."  Now here at Mount Doom, I find that the answer is also, simultaneously, "No."  Gollum never finds redemption, never gets better, never wins release, his story ends as bitter and tragic as it began--but his selfishness and monomania is also what saves the world in the end!  Even more of a Christ-analogue than Strider, Gollum suffers immeasurably so that the rest of us might be redeemed--he is the Judas who ensures the Atonement who is also still Jesus.  It is an enormously complex ending to that particular character arc, one that complicates any easy good-vs-evil narrative in wonderful ways!

What I also noticed this time round is how those same fraught questions of good and evil apply to Frodo and Sam as well!  Frodo finally succumbs to the seductive power of the Ring in the fatal moment--he fails guys, he fails!--but that same seductive power is also what finally gets Gollum to inadvertantly destroy it, too; what was wicked in both Frodo and Gollum is also what saves Middle Earth--it is the Ring that finally trips over its own feet in the end.

Likewise Sam, who had held the Ring the briefest of them all, fails to kill treacherous Gollum when he finally has the chance, because he finally has some faint inkling of the horrible weight Smeagol had carried in his heart all these long ages--earlier, Sam had even briefly transformed into a sort of Gollum when he has that conversation in the dark with himself!--which, again, also ensures that Gollum lives to fulfill his part in the defeat of Sauron.  The one time Sam finally chooses to be the least bit kind to Gollum is the time he gets a rock to the head for it--but, again, is also how he completes the quest.  Gandalf once said that the mercy of Bilbo would determine the fates of many--so, too, did the mercy of Samwise Gamgee.

Perhaps, if we're going to locate any sort of moralizing lesson in Lord of the Rings at all, it is this: not only is no one person completely good or completely bad, but often our goodness and our badness are made up of the same thing.  What obsessed and poisoned Gollum is also what allowed him to save the world; the naivety of Frodo that allowed Gollum to betray him is also what allowed Gollum to destroy the Ring when Frodo betrayed himself.  Our weaknesses are our strengths; our virtues are our vices.

Like I said earlier, what makes this chapter work is it's contrasts--and nowhere are contrasts more extreme than in the human soul, on wonderful display throughout this chapter, even wider and broader and deeper than the depths of Mount Doom.

Ben's Thoughts (5/19/17)

This chapter is why The Lord of the Rings holds its place in the pantheon of the great works of speculative fiction of the ages -- and I would argue, fiction in general. It ties up the plot and themes of the text so perfectly, and leaves the reader stunned with the description, action, and resolution of the characters we've come to relate to over the course of three books. I've read this chapter a dozen times or more over the course of my life (although this is the first time in the last fifteen years), and the climax still managed to move me, to astound me anew.

But why? Why does it have so much power? I think the answer is three-fold: description, character, and ambiguity.

First, description. I've always argued that Tolkien's command of language in the pursuit of imagery is all but unparalleled. Many of the passages describing the character's journey and the landscape they passed through leaped out to me as exhileratingly familiar, despite my fifteen-year absence from them. Despite the time that's passed, I remembered them and they resonated with me anew. Other passages were exciting in that they seemed completely new to me. Years of experience reading and writing allowed me to conjure up completely new images of setting and action. I think that is one of the most important jobs of a work of fiction -- it must transport the reader to a new place, must evoke new pictures and ideas. Take some of these passages:

"Indeed the whole surface of the plains of Gorgoroth was pocked with great holes, as if, while it was still a waste of soft mud, it had been smitten with a shower of bolts and huge slingstones. The largest of these holes were rimmed with ridges of broken rock, and broad fissures ran out from them in all directions. It was a land in which it would be possible to creep from hiding to hiding, unseen by all but the most watchful eyes: possible at least for one who was strong and had no need for speed. For the hungry and worn, who had far to go before life failed, it had an evil look."
"The confused and tumbled shoulders of [the mountain's] great base rose for maybe three thousand feet above the plain, and above them was reared half as high again its tall central cone, like a vast oast or chimney capped with a jagged crater. But already Sam was more than half way up the base, and the plain of Gorgoroth was dim below him, wrapped in fume and shadow.... [A]mid the rugged humps and shoulders above him he saw plainly a path or road. It climbed like a rising girdle from the west and wound snakelike about the Mountain, until before it went round out of view it reached the foot of the cone upon its eastern side."
And finally:
"Fearfully he took a few uncertain steps in the dark, and then all at once there came a flash of red that leaped upward, and smote the high black roof. Then Sam saw that he was in a long cave or tunnel that bored into the Mountain’s smoking cone. But only a short way ahead its floor and the walls on either side were cloven by a great fissure, out of which the red glare came, now leaping up, now dying down into darkness; and all the while far below there was a rumour and a trouble as of great engines throbbing and labouring. 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."
Objects anthropomorphized; subtle alliteration; stark imagery evoked by harsh adjectives. My command of sentence structure and my ability to articulate how the precise use of words generates a particular effect is at a low ebb; it's been almost a decade since I've performed any such analysis. But I know a master of the art when I see one.

Second, character. I won't belabor this point too much, since Jacob already addressed it to great effect, but Tolkien takes Frodo, Sam, and Gollum (who, along with Aragorn are the central figures of the narrative) to the peak of their development in the climax. What's wonderful is that these characters are changing, evolving, reacting in what feels like a real way, to the events of the plot up until the very last instant.

Sam is presented with the reality that there is no coming back from the Mountain, and his resolve hardens, rather than shatters, as a result. Later, he comes to grips with his relationship with Gollum, something he's grappled with and we as readers have criticized him for throughout the last few books. In the end, faced with the choice of whether to kill Gollum, Sam makes the decision to spare his life -- just as Frodo and Bilbo did before him -- and thus forges the latest chain in the link that results in the victory of good over evil. Frodo, acted upon by the power of the Ring from almost the first moments that he becomes its bearer, makes the choice to seize it for himself. This turn of events was presaged throughout the chapter, with Frodo uttering increasingly ominous phrases ("It is mine, I say"; "I am almost in its power now"; "all else fades"), and yet it is still a shock to hear him utter it with such finality in the depths of the Sammath Naur. And Gollum, that pitiable creature, is at his lowest-ever moment (the realization that his Master is here to destroy his Precious) as well as his highest-ever moment ("his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far...") Readers speak of the success of texts in terms of how dynamic characters are written. These feel real. We know them. And yet we are surprised by them. Just like life.

Third and finally, ambiguity. More than ever, at the end of the chapter, I was left wondering just what Tolkien meant for us to take away from all of this. Is it an extended Christian allegory -- Frodo, the everyman, cannot complete the journey on his own and must be carried, and the burden lifted, by other parties? But that doesn't square with Frodo's utter failure in the face of the temptation and power of the Ring -- and the fact that Gollum is not an enabling figure, but one who takes away the source of temptation by force. Is it an illustration of Gollum as the ultimate addict -- his desire is his ultimate undoing? But that doesn't square with the realization that Gollum's addiction is the only thing that saved Middle-earth in that moment. What exactly are we to make of Frodo's failure? Is Tolkien saying that there is no such thing as someone who is truly heroic in the face of unspeakable evil? After all, Sam, now a Ring-bearer himself, acknowledges the unspeakable weight of that burden, with the implication that he himself might have fared no better than Gollum: "[N]ow dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again."

This ambiguity of meaning is found in the title of the chapter itself: "Mount Doom." The origin of the word "doom" is Germanic, where it meant "to put in place," signifying an inescapable outcome, sometimes with a legal connotation, as in the inescapable consequences of a broken law or poor choice. Was Frodo's decision to claim the Ring inescapable? Given what he went through during the last three books, it's hard to say it wasn't; his will was finally overcome. But at the same time, we have Sam's pivotal choice to spare Gollum, as others did before him -- the choice that saved the world. Was that outcome, too, inevitable?

So why is it, as I walk with Sam down into the mountain, that I wait with baited breath that maybe, maybe this time, Frodo will make the right choice, and throw the Ring into the fire? There has to be a choice, doesn't there?

Therein, perhaps, lies the power of the text. It's one that keeps you asking questions long after the chapter itself has been read. It forces you to confront the characters' choices and experiences in light of your own tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses. Something we all do far too infrequently.

Eric's Thoughts (7/20/17)

This chapter IS Lord of the Rings. The whole is greater than the sum. Imagery, character, literal crushing weight. It is a keystone chapter that upholds vast world building by Tolkien. Suddenly everything Tolkien has done wrong seems to work. Not-scary wights in Barrow Downs? World building. Bombadil? Just world building. Feet dragging in Return of the King? World Building.

At this stage, the reader has been through forests, marshes,  mountains, and Elf-Kingdoms. Middle Earth exists, and the reader believes. Tolkien finishes the journey by forcing the hobbits to endure a final march of death:

  • As the light grew a little he saw to his surprise that what from a distance had seemed wide and featureless flats were in fact all broken and tumbled. Indeed the whole surface of the plains of Gorgoroth was pocked with great holes, as if, while it was still a waste of soft mud, it had been smitten with a shower of bolts and huge slingstones. The largest of these holes were rimmed with ridges of broken rock, and broad fissures ran out from them in all directions . . . For the hungry and worn, who had far to go before life failed, it had an evil look.
Of course, what would be the external obstacles without internal conflict to match? Tolkien lets the Ring wreck havoc among old friends, foreshadowing Frodo's doom, causing the reader to wonder if Frodo is ready for the final test:
  • ‘I can’t manage it, Sam,’ [Frodo] said. ‘It is such a weight to carry, such a weight.’ Sam knew before he spoke, that it was vain, and that such words might do more harm than good, but in his pity he could not keep silent. ‘Then let me carry it a bit for you, Master,’ he said. ‘You know I would, and gladly, as long as I have any strength.’ A wild light came into Frodo’s eyes. ‘Stand away! Don’t touch me!’ he cried. ‘It is mine, I say. Be off!’ His hand strayed to his sword-hilt. But then quickly his voice changed. ‘No, no, Sam,’ he said sadly. ‘But you must understand. It is my burden, and no one else can bear it. It is too late now, Sam dear. You can’t help me in that way again. I am almost in its power now. I could not give it up, and if you tried to take it I should go mad.
  • ‘Do you remember that bit of rabbit, Mr. Frodo?’ he said. ‘And our place under the warm bank in Captain Faramir’s country, the day I saw an oliphaunt?’ ‘No, I am afraid not, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘At least, I know that such things happened, but I cannot see them. No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.’
After addressing internal conflict, Tolkien again pivots back to describing the world and painting images:
  • The Mountain crept up ever nearer, until, if they lifted their heavy heads, it filled all their sight, looming vast before them: a huge mass of ash and slag and burned stone, out of which a sheer-sided cone was raised into the clouds. Before the daylong dusk ended and true night came again they had crawled and stumbled to its very feet.
Back and forth, internal to external and back to internal, and the mountain and final test only looms ever closer. Mount doom, of course, is more than just a mountain. It represents an impassable obstacle given the Hobbits' weak strength. Frodo cannot do it. He begins to crawl. And whether Tolkien did it purposefully (or was it chance just like Gollum's slip and fall?), Tolkien captures something absolutely brilliant when Sam picks up Frodo and carries him up the mountain:
  • As Frodo clung upon his back, arms loosely about his neck, legs clasped firmly under his arms, Sam staggered to his feet; and then to his amazement he felt the burden light. He had feared that he would have barely strength to lift his master alone, and beyond that he had expected to share in the dreadful dragging weight of the accursed Ring. But it was not so. Whether because Frodo was so worn by his long pains, wound of knife, and venomous sting, and sorrow, fear, and homeless wandering, or because some gift of final strength was given to him, Sam lifted Frodo with no more difficulty than if he were carrying a hobbit-child pig-a-back in some romp on the lawns or hayfields of the Shire. He took a deep breath and started off.
To Frodo, the Ring's burden is crushing. But to Sam, the Ring weighs absolutely nothing. Tolkien shows that the Ring is merely a psychological burden; it exists solely in the mind of the wearer. Tolkien does not advertise this fact, however. He almost addresses it in passing. Mount Doom (the chapter) is epic in scope but also contains subtleties even the most astute reader might miss given the chapter's page-turning nature.

The strangeness and other-worldliness of the chapter compounds. Gollum attacks, and the attack lights a fire under what life remains in Frodo.  Frodo commands Gollum to be gone, and Sam takes a more practical view: 'Look out!' cried Sam. 'He'll Spring!'

Frodo looked at [Sam], as if at one now far away. 'Yes, I must go on,' he said. 'Farewell, Sam! This is the end at last. On Mount Doom doom shall fall. Farewell!'

(Frodo's comments are to say the least . . . ominous.)

Gollum is defeated and instead of fighting back, curls into a ball. Suddenly Sam then sees "Gollum's shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace of relief ever in life again." Sam forgives Gollum and turns to join Frodo at the summit.

What does Sam find? The light of Galadriel fails, and walls on either side cloven by a great fissure , out of which the red glare came, now leaping up, now dying down into darkenss; and all the while far below there was a rumour and a trouble as of great engines throbbing and labouring.

The light springs up, 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.

And in one of the creepiest moments in all of literature, Frodo claims the Ring:
  • ‘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!’
Frodo attacks Sam and knocks Sam out cold. Sometime later, Sam awakes to find Gollum battling an invisible thing:
  • Suddenly Sam saw Gollum’s long hands draw upwards to his mouth; his white fangs gleamed, and then snapped as they bit. Frodo gave a cry, and there he was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm’s edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.
Of course, we all know what happens. Gollum slips, and with that single unlucky slip Sauron's entire empire collapses.

What to make of this chapter? Has Tolkien dragged the reader through page after page, chapter after chapter, only to reveal that no one is capable of this task? That good conquers evil only as a matter of chance?

Frodo the mild-mannered hobbit is not the first to try this. All of this could have been prevented if Isildur had thrown the Ring into the fires in the first instance, but he could not. Frodo similarly could not. Tolkien suggests that no one has the power to throw the Ring away and destroy it. But then, just maybe, if Frodo had not undergone his long journey and transformation, might if he stepped into Isildur's shoes been capable of destroying it? Could Sam have had the strength to do it if he took it forcefully from Frodo?

The answer from the clues of the text is plainly no, but still the reader is left wondering. Would I have been able to? Would you?

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