Chapter 6: Many Partings
We've touched lightly on this point before, but my memory remains hazy, and what's more, the text never once makes it explicitly clear: what the heck is the deal with the Rings, anyways? What exactly were their powers? What was their initial purpose? Why were they forged in the first place? What benefit did they offer? Why are the fates of so many races now tied directly to them? Why exactly is it that not only the Elves, but the Maiar themselves, must needs diminish because the One Ring was destroyed? When our homeward-bound party encounters a degraded, begging Saruman on the road, he spitefully rails against Galadrial and Gandalf that his one solace is that they tore down their own house when they tore down his, too. How so? What exactly does he mean? Galadrial and Gandalf don't exactly contradict him.
The Elves, likewise, prepare to emigrate across the seas now that the power of the Rings are destroyed--though why they must merely relocate away from Middle-Earth, as opposed to go extinct or ascend to some other spiritual realm or whatever (unless the Grey Havens are some sort of obscure euphemism for death that I'm missing), I remain totally in the dark about. Why are their destinies tied up with the Rings, in a manner that, say, those of Men are not? The Hobbits never had any Rings of Power, so I understand them being unaffected by the equation--but the race of Men sure did, and not only are they not negatively affected by the One Ring's destruction, but they rise to dominate the Fourth Age. Again, why??
There's just this bizarre dream-logic about everything concerning the Rings--but even that cop-out explanation won't fly, since everything else in this text is presented as grounded in a material world with a lived history and real consequences. The Rings are integral to this world, but Tolkien stubbornly refuses to ever articulate why. When the One Ring was simply the last horcrux of the Dark Lord (to use an incredibly anachronistic analogy), I was willing to just go along with it; but if the text is going to insist on foregrounding the broader web of relations between the various Rings of Powers, then I have no choice but to call the text out on its own maddening vagueness.
The fact that the destruction of the Ring has all these other collateral effects is presented by the text as self-explanatory, when it is not. Everything about the Rings remains as opaque and inscrutable in the end as they were in the beginning. These are not mere pedantic side-points to fuss over, but ostensibly the entire focus of the series--it's entitled The Lord of the RINGS for crying out loud! Yes, yes, I'm sure that The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and 12-volume History of Middle-Earth and whatever maps everything out much more explicitly; but frankly, I shouldn't have to do a bunch of extracurricular homework to understand the underlying mechanisms of the novel I've already agreed to read. Of all of the numerous exposition-dumps I've waded through across this series, could there not have been at least one, somewhere, somehow, that clearly lays out for me what the heck the deal with the Rings are?
Don't get me wrong, I've still enjoyed the journey over all, it's a pleasant series to read; but my flailing ignorance about the Rings--an ignorance induced by the text itself--is really starting to bug me.
Ben's Thoughts (6/27/17)
I love this chapter. It feels so very true-to-life, and fills me with real emotion. We've all had events, or periods of time in our lives, that are particularly vivid; particularly meaningful; or are filled with particularly important relationships. Moving on to the next stage of life is always so bittersweet. That's the emotion that this chapter conveys. The hobbits have undergone such difficult but rewarding experiences that to leave that behind is not easy. Sam doesn't really wish to go back to Lorien -- but he does want to relive or perhaps just re-experience, just for a moment, the feelings that he had while he was there in "Fellowship." You can never truly return to prior states of being. But the memories remain so potent, the emotions so real, that you wish it so. Nostalgia is one of the most powerful emotions, in my opinion -- often more powerful than fear, anger, or even love.
And of course, this is when "Return of the King" kicks into high gear with that theme of beginnings, endings, loss, and change. The book always was one of "dying magic"; the Elves passing across the Sea and leaving Middle-earth to Sauron and Men has always been in the background, but here it's incredibly foregrounded. Jacob is left cold by Tolkien's lack of explanation -- he seeks for meaning behind it all. But I think it's fairly true to life that everything remains kind of vague and formless. Isn't that how it works for us? The beginnings and endings in our lives are often meaningless, or imposed by factors outside our control, sometimes with very little explanation or warning.
Nevertheless, I will try to impose some sense to it all, given my knowledge of Tolkien's legendarium. The Elves were the first race of sentient beings to awaken in Middle-earth, many ages ago. They lived through Ages of Earth without sun or moon; they were the "children of the stars" that traveled to Valinor, Tolkien's version of heaven where the Vala (gods) dwelt, long ago. Many Elves -- including many we encounter in The Hobbit and LOTR (such as the Elvenking of the wood-Elves, Legolas, and most of the people of Mirkwood and Lorien) -- never traveled to Valinor and chose instead to remain in Middle-earth. Those who did and returned are the "High" Elves, who beheld the light of the Valar in ages past or are their descendants (Galadriel, Cirdan, Elrond).
But the Elves' time in LOTR was coming to an end. With the creation of the sun in the First Age of the world came the awakening of Men, who spread to fill the earth. Some Men were friendly with the Elves; many were not (see even the Rohirrim's fear of the people of the Wood), but they were all destined to become the inheritors of Middle-earth; no longer subservient or lesser than the Elves but in fact the lords of the earth. The Elves' magic (read: power, ability, ties to each other and the physical world) was naturally fading. One concrete reason for this change (something more physical, perhaps, than the vague explanation that it was just "their time") was the fact that Valinor, or heaven, the home of the gods, was physically removed from the sphere of the Earth. Only those granted a boon from the Valar could now come to Valinor. In that sense, Jacob's question about whether the Elves are actually ascending to another sphere of existence is in fact correct.
Into this cycle of change and transfer of power comes the Three Rings. Sauron was the one who introduced the Elves to ringlore, in the Second Age, before they realized his true nature as a servant of Morgoth. The purpose of the Three Rings, reading between the lines, was to heal, preserve, and inspire the Elves, despite their waning power and influence. Imagine a race confronted with the fact that your very presence in the only world or home you ever knew was becoming obsolete. (This sounds very much like growing old and seeing your children and grandchildren growing past and away from you, a similarity that I think is no coincidence.) The power of the Three Rings was to stave off the mass depression that was leaching into the Elvish people.
Of course, since Sauron was the mastermind of ringlore, we can perceive the innate selfishness (justifiable, perhaps, but selfishness nonetheless) of the Three Rings. When it is time, it is time; trying to preserve what is lost does not help anyone. But then Sauron made the One Ring, which we are told was the Master Ring, with some kind of power over even the Three that Sauron never personally touched. The power of the Three was turned from preserving the power of the Elves towards fighting the Enemy. It makes sense that when he was defeated, the purpose of the Three was utterly spent. Neither could they be used to prolong the power of the Elves when the Fourth Age was come and the ascendance of Men was cemented.
In the end, of course, Jacob is correct -- all the guff about the Rings is just some fairly transparent trimming to the story. While it's fun to learn in "Grey Havens" that Gandalf had one of the Three, the whole time we knew him, it doesn't really add anything to what came before. I am a firm believer, however, in the themes that Tolkien is espousing -- cycles, passing the torch, and fading with dignity. Bilbo is the exemplar of this cycle: retaining his humor, wit, and interest in friends and family while formally and informally passing the torch to the next generation (symbolic in the gifts he gives the hobbits). There is a warmth and dignity to those final sections of the chapter that I hope we can all achieve in our life when we confront change, loss, and the ultimate passing.
Eric's Thoughts (9/4/17)
The highlight of this chapter is the brief appearance of the villain Saruman, who is described as an old ragged beggar leaning on a staff. In his ragged form, once again, Saruman is offered mercy. And once again, Saruman rejects it.
I can't help but suspect that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had a talk about theology once or twice. Saruman's repeated rejection of mercy is very similar to Lewis' Great Divorce. Indeed, Saruman's infinite, unrelenting pride gives him the incapacity to understand why Gandalf and the others offer mercy in the first place. Saruman cannot accept others' mercy because he once dominated the council of wizards and was one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth. Even Gandalf would take Saruman's counsel. To be seen in rags by his former friends; that must gnaw him from the inside. To accept their mercy, well, that would just be giving them the satisfaction that he was wrong, right? Humbug!
As will be seen, sympathy for Saruman is not the best approach, however. The man is a snake, and Saruman's capacity for evil is not done yet. Perhaps spurred by his close encounter, Saruman turns to the Shire to seek revenge. One thing I wonder -- is Saruman aware that the hobbits Merry and Pippin spurred the Ents to war? If so, it adds another layer of pettiness to the man--even though he has lost, he wishes to destroy as many lives as possible before he is caught and taken from the world.
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