This is pretty cool, but you have to read the whole thing! <G>
xponent
Tolkiensuess Maru
rob
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sea Wasp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 9:30 PM
Subject: The Ring of Christmas (a repost of a silly theory)
> Since it's both the Christmas time of year AND the Lord of the Rings
> time of year, I felt I should repost this...
>
>
> *------------*
>
> (the following is a transcript of a paper presented by Eukonidor at the
> Fifth Age Conference on Arisia to the delegation from Middle-Earth)
>
>
>
> THE SYMMETRY of CORRUPTION:
> An Examination of the History of
> the One Ring subsequent to the
> "War of the Ring", and the
> Implications Thereof for the
> Future of Civilization
>
>
> As is well known, at the conclusion of the Third Age of Middle-Earth,
> the One Ruling Ring fell into the Cracks of Doom and was destroyed,
> obliterating the works directly tied to the One and undoing the Dark
> Lord Sauron entirely.
>
> Unfortunately, that which is "well-known" can often be incorrect.
> Subsequent events of a disquieting nature demonstrate all too
> conclusively that in point of fact not only was the One not destroyed,
> but it was also taken up by a being more than capable of utilizing it
> for its own purposes.
>
> That being, known to most of the residents of Middle-Earth as "Tom
> Bombadil", encountered the Ruling Ring quite early in its journey
> towards Mount Doom. The incidents involving Bombadil and the Ringbearer
> are often discounted; in fact, at least one dramatic production of the
> story neglects this entirely. And to a mind incapable of visualizing the
> Cosmic All in detail, it is true that this incident does not in fact
> appear to have much bearing on the history of the Ring.
>
> Yet to discount this apparently chance encounter is to discount the
> significance of Bombadil himself. What, than, is Tom Bombadil? Some have
> claimed he is Maia; he certainly cannot be Vala, for the Valar have all
> been well known and accounted for. Yet, in his statements and those of
> others, there are clues -- ones which point to an entirely different
> origin, and which speak volumes of both his power and potential
> vulnerabilities. He is the "Eldest". "Tom was here before the Dark Lord
> came from Outside". The "Dark Lord from Outside" is, of course, Morgoth,
> once called Melkor, mightiest of the Valar. Yet the Valar were the first
> permitted entry to Arda. How, then, could Bombadil be there before them?
>
> Even a very moderate intellect, given this clue and a few other such as
> Bombadil's ties to the natural world, can envision the obvious solution.
> Bombadil is the very spirit of Arda itself; he is the living soul of the
> world of Middle-Earth. (Thus the statements that he could not resist
> Sauron successfully, unless the strength to do so lies within the Earth
> itself)
>
> Such a being cannot be discounted by any who walk the surface of
> Middle-Earth. This casts grave doubts, then, upon any assumption of
> coincidence or happenstance leading to the meeting of the Ringbearer and
> Tom Bombadil.
>
> Much is made of the apparently failure of the Ring to affect Bombadil.
> Yet there is a much simpler explanation, one which unfortunately leads
> to darker conclusions. The Ring was created by a being of spirit, and
> its powers work equally on beings of the flesh and ones of pure mind --
> witness the temptation it worked upon such as Gandalf of the Maiar, who
> was fortunately strong enough to resist it, and Boromir of Gondor, who
> was not. It is then questionable, at the least, to contend that Bombadil
> was immune.
>
> Visibility, however, is an aspect of the physical. The Ring's
> invisibility worked by shifting the being more fully into the shadowy
> realm in which corrupted spirits in Middle-Earth are found, an
> alternative or neighboring dimension in the more mechanistic terms of
> Civilization. Bombadil, however, is the entirety of the world's spirit.
> He cannot be shifted away, or rather if you shift one part, another
> takes its place. The Ring worked perfectly upon Bombadil; he simply
> existed simultaneously on all levels, so that there was no way for the
> Ring to actually make him invisible, unless its power would have
> permitted it to make the entire world invisible -- something beyond even
> the power of Morgoth, let alone his sycophant's creation.
>
> But if Bombadil is the spirit of the world, it follows that things
> which affect the world affect Bombadil. Morgoth's delvings at Angband
> and Thangorodrim, the wars, the "bending away" of huge parts of the
> world, the despoiling of Mordor, and the actions of Sauruman, a thousand
> other things, all would rebound upon he who represents the spirit of
> Middle-Earth. And just as a peach can seem perfectly fine to the casual
> glance, yet be suffering from rot beneath, so too can this damage leave
> Bombadil apparently his normal, carefree, cheerful self yet with
> dangerous and unnoted changes beneath. On these changes the Ring could
> work. In a sense, Bombadil was NEVER far from the One Ring; his spirit
> pervades the entirety of the world. Though the consciousness that was
> Bombadil was, for the most part, distant, nonetheless the echoes of the
> Ring's influence could still touch upon him.
>
> By the time Bombadil met the Ringbearer, the damage had begun.
> Internally Bombadil was filled with conflict, yet never having had
> anyone like himself to speak with, he could neither understand nor even
> verbalize the existence of his conflict. It is clear that he bent the
> Ringbearer's path to himself; this is a trivial exercise of power that
> even the Elves could manage. Eventually, he gained momentary possession
> of the Ring -- and it was then that his simple, direct cleverness
> tricked all of the Wise. With the same skills of a sideshow magician,
> Bombadil palmed the One and returned to Frodo Ringbearer an
> identical-seeming Ring -- a lesser Ring, which unlike the Nine, Seven,
> and Three was unadorned, yet which by the Ruling Ring's enchantment was
> still bound to it.
>
> What followed would, of course, have been impossible had any lesser
> being taken the Ring. Perhaps one of the great Maia, or a Valar, could
> have done what Bombadil did, but even that is of doubt. But Bombadil is
> born of the World, and in the world his power is great beyond easy
> reckoning. While the Ringbearer journeyed, he kept much of the power of
> the One channeled to the lesser Ring that Frodo now carried. Had anyone
> performed the same test Gandalf had in Bag End -- casting it into the
> fire -- the substitution would have been unmasked. But Bombadil knew
> that it was exceedingly unlikely anyone would, unless they were given
> reason to suspect a substitution, and he made sure that there were no
> such grounds for suspicion. At the ultimate moment, he directed not only
> the full power of the One, but some of his own might through the Earth
> that is his to command, and the works of Sauron that depended upon the
> One were unmade. The Nazgul appeared to die, and Sauron himself became a
> great shadow and was blown away. To all appearances, the One was
> destroyed, Sauron undone, and the rest is known.
>
> But what, we ask, were the motives of Bombadil?
>
> Following the changes through the subsequent ages, and looking at the
> damage done by the Enemy and his Servant in the prior ones, a pattern
> emerges. Technology can be an aid or a hindrance; the mining of metals
> and forging of them can be done destructively or not. The wars, and
> destructiveness of technology, in Middle-Earth have nearly all stemmed,
> not merely from pride, but from covetousness -- the desire for material
> things, and the mistaking of this desire for a need, and the
> satisfaction of the desire for happiness.
>
> Bombadil is a being like a caring parent -- in fact, many cultures view
> the Earth-spirit as female, not male. It wants its "children" -- those
> who inhabit the world -- to be, for the most part, happy. Bombadil is
> the essence of growth and life, but the essence of Morgoth's works, and
> those of his protege', is and was corruption, barrenness, sterility, and
> a turning inward in search of unfulfillable desires.
>
> The small corruptions done to Bombadil's spirit over the Ages
> accumulated, and were worked upon by the Ring's peculiar tendency to
> find one's weaknesses and play upon them. Bombadil then took the Ring
> for himself and found a mad logic to the contradictions that were
> plaguing him. If his "children" found joy in these things, then joy
> there must be, even if it seemed painful to him. So he would embrace the
> pain and make it a joy.
>
> The rise in material and commercial culture, and its strident and
> ever-quickening pace -- something seen more than once in the history
> since the great War of the Ring -- reflects the efforts of Bombadil to
> reconcile his spiritual knowledge with the corruption that has infected
> him.
>
> Bombadil has always chosen to have a locus -- a place in which he is
> content to do his own work, far from the easy access of others. With his
> newfound purpose, however, the backwoods and rivers and natural vistas
> no longer held a fascination; he needed a place of isolation where he
> could have vast workshops to produce these "things" that people coveted,
> that seemed in his now-bent mind to be the focus of joy. Therefore he
> travelled far to the North, to lands lost to mortal access by the
> "bending" of the world, but not lost to him since they remained yet a
> part of what he was. At the ruins left by Morgoth, in the uttermost
> North, he settled. And to him in tatters came the Nine, and he drew
> others to his cause -- elves and orcs together in unholy accord, the one
> drawn by Bombadil's call, the other by the power of the Ring. And in the
> reopened delvings he began to create. The Nine he reshaped into more
> fitting seemings. Dark Lord he might be becoming, yet his essential
> personality was not entirely gone, and perhaps could not be ever
> entirely destroyed; the full power of Middle-Earth may well lie beyond
> even the Ring to reshape in its entirety.
>
> Bombadil became a subtly corruptive spirit -- apparently a bearer of
> gifts (reflecting, of course, the original guise with which Sauron had
> tricked others into the snare of Ring-Forging, Annatar), but his gifts
> carried with them the corruption of desire. He encouraged the
> gift-giving, taking pleasure in the giving, yet the very power he used
> was to slowly emphasize the need for ever MORE gift-receiving on the
> part of the mortals involved. In early days he was seen in a number of
> guises, but as the effects of Bombadil's Corruption began to be seen
> more and more throughout the world, his image was refined -- partly by
> himself, and, in accordance with the way it had begun, partly by the
> very organizations of mortals that his corruption had helped to define.
> The Nine were now Reindeer, or so they would appear to most, and
> Bombadil, still jolly and cheerful, was Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus.
> The origin of the Christmas celebrations of course were tied to the old
> celebrations of nature which Bombadil had now forsaken.
>
> But what of Sauron? The One still, in fact, existed. Thus Sauron could
> no more have been destroyed than the Nine.
>
> This much is true; yet with a Power so great in utter and complete
> control of the One, Sauron had been reduced to a state lower than any he
> had previously attained. Barely able to regain power to manifest at all,
> he became a sour and weak spirit, assuming a generally humanoid form. He
> had of course lost all ability to take a pleasing form after the first
> War of the Ring, but now, reduced as he was, he could not even assume
> one with majesty or terror, but one of simple ugliness, to inspire
> distaste or pity. So weakened was he that he could not even remember,
> clearly, who and what he was.
>
> Instinctively he sought the places least affected by the power of the
> Dark Lord Bombadil, for if he were to recover at all, he had to spend
> many years indeed unmolested and unremarked. By coincidence or destiny,
> the place he chose was the Shire, or rather what the Shire had become in
> the intervening years.
>
> The Hobbits, always insular, over the years became more and more inward
> focused. Their borders became harder and harder to find or define as
> time wore on, and not only they personally, but their entire land,
> seemed to remain remarkably free of the taint of Bombadil's Gifts. Why
> this was is clear to any adequate mind, but is not the subject of this
> particular discourse.
>
> An Age passed, and the Hobbits changed, as did the world around them,
> but in a different way. Still unaffected by the Power of Corruption, at
> least for the most part, they exchanged gifts at Christmas but did so in
> the spirit that was outwardly intended, succumbing little, if at all, to
> the corruption of the One combined with the First, and what little
> corruption seemed to take hold was only in the frenetic enthusiasm of
> their celebrations. Due to the changes in the world, the lingering Elven
> magic gifted to them through Sam Gamgee, and certain other obvious
> influences, they became a diverse people in appearance, yet still
> completely isolated; in fact, many if not all of them had ceased to
> think of there being any outside world, and indeed to reach the outside
> world from the place that had been the Shire was now a task no ordinary
> mortal could manage.
>
> Sauron, not even a shadow of his former self, of course detested the
> joy and generosity of these people; in part, because he confused his own
> memories with those he ripped from others, he adopted an almost
> Gollum-like attitude, associating all "presents" with the one "precious
> present" that he'd given himself, and despising the ceremony of
> giftgiving. He was, however, also fearful and wary, knowing somehow that
> these harmless-looking creatures had been responsible for the condition
> he now found himself in, and for uncounted years he lived there,
> skulking in the mountains that now cut off the once-Shire from the rest
> of the world, a bogeyman to the little people below (originally calling
> him, in mangled Elven,Gaur ringe-oron ("the werewolf of the Cold
> Mountain"). Inevitably this was shortened to "The Gaurringe" and
> eventually to "The Grinch".
>
> Eventually, towards the end of the 5th age (the latter part of the 20th
> century in Earthly terms), his bitterness overcame his fear, at least to
> the extent that he determined to make everyone in the lands below as
> miserable as he himself was. On Christmas, he raised up what little
> power remained to him, and stole every gift that had been prepared for
> the celebration, and their food as well, thinking that not only would
> they be deprived of the joy of giftgiving, but of eating; perhaps they
> would starve, or turn upon one another in their misery.
>
> However, the Hobbits, or what they had become, had long since
> recognized their own joy in community and being together; thus their
> traditional celebratory rituals -- singing in the new year at the end of
> the old, which was how they viewed this particular celebration --
> proceeded unchanged. It wasn't that they didn't notice the things
> missing, but that they possessed an absolute certainty that they could
> work out such problems as long as they, themselves, were unharmed.
>
> What happened next could not have happened if things had gone at all
> differently; had Sauron been stronger, Bombadil weaker, the Hobbits and
> their descendants less resistant to corruption, the tale would have a
> different ending. But Sauron was weak, yet still a conscious mind, and
> all minds desire some kind of communication with others. And for two
> ages he had had no such communication. The song reached him where he
> stood, ready to cast all the accumulated treasures into the void on the
> other side of the mountains. And it touched a part of him which had been
> thought dead ages agone, that which had once borne the name Aulendil,
> and awakened in him the possibility of friendship. For in the past Ages
> was he too well known, both to himself and others, and trust would have
> been long, long in coming, and never fully would it be given. Now was he
> almost unknown, and that which he had been not even a rumor to these
> people. And with that came hope, and with hope there re-awakened within
> him the knowlege of the Light of Aman. The Light rekindled, he rose, and
> for the first time in uncounted years one of the Maiar stood upon the
> soil of that which had been Middle-Earth. Then did he return unto the
> people that which he had taken, and took up his abode among them. With
> this clarity of strength and purpose had come recognition of the
> changes, and he now resolved to discover what had happened to the
> world... but that, too, would take much time, as would becoming firm and
> accustomed to being one with the world itself.
>
> Thus the Symmetry of Corruption; the corruption of the land that
> Morgoth and Sauron promoted led to the downfall of the Dark Lord, and
> the corruption promoted by the new Dark Lord led to the rise of one who
> had been utterly fallen. There is hope in even the darkest of events,
> and a cautionary word is needed even in the brightest of times. Remember
> these words, and think upon them, Wise of Middle-Earth, for the next Age
> is upon thee, and how you deal with the Powers that now reawaken will
> determine the shape of all things to come.
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
> http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
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