I liked the chapter on evil the most out of Shippey’s book so far. I thought that it was really interesting how in the time frame between The Hobbit one and The Hobbit two, the concept of the ring changed from almost nothing to the ring that symbolizes evil. All of the sudden, in this gap of time, the ring becomes something which is loved by Gollum whereas before he was not as attached to it. I really liked that Shippey outlined the three main points that drive the whole Lord of the Rings set. Now that I think about it, the following three items that Shippey states really do determine the story: the ring is incredibly powerful to anybody who possesses it, the ring is dangerous to whoever has it, and the ring has to be destroyed by the Cracks of Doom. I like that mini map of the story a lot. I think that is cool how over time, people started seeing that power can alter character rather than power just showing a person’s character. I would agree that the power of the ring can alter people’s characters. I believe that most people are good and that when they come into a situation where they are able to rule something or they have some kind of power, they spoil. Also, I never really paid attention in the story to who was affected by the ring and who was not. Shippey pointed out that only certain characters became addicted and others laughed off the power of the ring. I see all this now, but I think that it gives the ring more power. Once it latches onto a person, it can make them addicted to the point of death. We only see certain characters being ruled by the ring because they were given the opportunity to experience it. We don’t have time to see other characters get hooked or the story would be another fifty books long. I think there is more effect if we see the ring try to destroy only a few people.
When Shippey starts talking about the wraiths and shadows, he makes some really good points about fantasy. When he started talking about twentieth century fantasy, he explains how human nature is grossly evil. Humans are actually very inhumane. The chapter leads Shippey into talking about how a lot of these fantasies have been written by war veterans. War is an evil that is sometimes necessary, but it is still inhumane. The tragedies and fear that war veterans go through is enough to leave dread in their soul and the feeling of wrongness. I think that it is great that these veterans wrote fantasies to try and shake their hard and scared feelings. Also, I just want to say that the quote from Merlyn’s book on page 120 hit me hard. We do not think of these things as cruel on an everyday basis, but they are.
Once again, Shippey described in a nut shell the process that was gone through when coming up with the word Ringwraith. As said before, it leaves me with an appreciation for the vocabulary that Tolkien used in The Lord of the Rings. I would go crazy trying to go through a long process for each word. I think I would get incredibly confused going through the process because I am a musician, not a language person or philologist! Going on, I would not want to turn into a wraith. It sounds incredibly gross. Shippey describes them as bodies that die long before the wraith soul does. Not only the physical aspect of wraiths is gross, but the idea also. They give good meaning to the quote, “misery loves company”. I think it is cool that Tolkien used so many ideas from sixteenth century literature and authors and was still able to come up with his own such as the Ringwraiths as responses to his life experiences.
I love the explanation of shadows that Shippey gives. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien uses the word by many different characters to portray evil. I have to say I also love the riddle, “What is that is not” (129). That in and of itself really describes shadows I think. The two concepts of evil intrigue me and make me think about the story in a different perspective. I think that you could get yourself into trouble believing the Boethian view because if you tend to believe that there is no such thing as evil, then you are probably more apt to risk harming yourself. I tend to agree more with the Manichaean view on evil; that it does exist and is a force which needs to be resisted and fought.
I liked the part of the chapter that talks about the ring and evil. It wasn’t hard to read and it was interesting learning different viewpoints that I never even thought of. I also have my own opinions now that my gears started turning. I think that when the ring is heavy on Frodo’s hand when he is handing it to Gandalf that it is a combination of the ring and Frodo’s conscious. I think they play off of each other. I think that both Boethian and Manichaean views are each showing on and off. I also like thinking of the ring as having a mind of its own. To me, the story is set around this ring that has a power over creatures. Giving it a “conscious” makes the story more interesting to me. If it was just a hunk of metal, the ring would be a very boring center of the story.
There were only two things that I think are truly worth commenting on in the luck section of the chapter. The first is that Frodo was given good luck by Gollum in the end and that you should never give up in an event whether it is considered good or bad luck. The first idea is really neat. For some reason, it makes Gollum seem so much better to me. Here is this creature that has been bad through and through for years and probably should have been killed so many times. He is spared his life by tons of people who pity him. In the end, one of the good characters experiences an act of luck through this pathetic creature. Sure, Frodo’s finger was bitten off, but he escaped a life with the ring and fear and lived. Gollum was granted good luck throughout the story and when his ran out, he passed it along to Frodo. I think that is an incredibly neat idea. The second idea is a good moralistic idea. I agree that one should never give up in an event because I feel that luck is primarily dependent upon what effort is put in. You can usually only have good luck through courage, confidence, and skill.
I like, “…the Gandalfs and Galadriels, could imagine becoming bad, whereas Sauron’s great weakness, even tactically, is that he cannot imagine the self-destructive strategy of destroying the ring forever” (147). I think that clears up part of the confusion that was caused when the ring was not able to overtake everybody that it was around. It seems like there were certain characters were able to tell that if they took possession of the ring, that they would fall to some greater horror than if they sat back and watched someone else travel through the journey with it. I also think that this idea shows that not all creatures are horribly inhumane and cruel.
I like how Shippey talks about the critics and the crabby one in particular. The idea was on how the good guys came out happy in the end of The Lord of the Rings. Well, they really do not. Frodo ends up going to the Undying lands because he just cannot see living at home in his hobbit hole after everything that he has been through. There really is nothing there anymore. That would be a sign of unhappiness for anybody. Sam and the other hobbits end up moving on with their lives but that really doesn’t necessarily mean that they are happy. After everything that those creatures endured, I would not be completely happy ever again. You can pretend to move on, but like the war veterans, the hurt is always there. One last thing, I liked the “theory of courage” that came around by saying that you can die happy knowing that you did the right thing. To me, that is a grand idea. When it is my time, I would like to be able to say that I made the right choices and was able to accomplish an incredible amount in my life.
Keilah Bradley October 29, 2008, at 05:03 PM
