“…wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant… Barad-dûr, fortress of Sauron.”
Listen – strange Maiar distributing jewellery is no basis for a system of government. You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some Valinorean tart lobbed a ring at you!
The Men of the North, to the Lord of Angmar, The Silmarillion. (via markedasinfernal)
We’ve all seen films in which someone sinks or melts in lava. But really, friends, this is a fantasy.
If you had the misfortune to fall into lava, you wouldn’t sink far. Molten rock is denser than you. Even logs float when they topple into floes, so you’d be like a cork in a sea of molasses. It’s also much hotter than any living creature. It would partially cool and congeal around a human body, just as it does around trees in its path.
Flesh bakes rather than melting. Stay in a floe too long and you’ll turn to a cinder. But volcanic fume inhalation might kill you before you could die from burns.
Yes, lava is serious business. It should never be disrespected. But it doesn’t always mean instant death. Two researchers have stepped into active floes and been rescued. Both lived and retained the use of their legs. Read more about real lava here: When Geologists Step Too Close.
On another note, I didn’t much like Peter Jackson’s decision to show the death of Gollum. Tolkien didn’t subject us to Gollum’s last moments. He fell and was gone. This choice was both more chilling and more merciful, and a lot less cartoony.
^____ THIS.
And goddamnit, the Sammath Naur was not a convenient sight-seeing walkway for ring-bearers. It was Sauron’s own road to his FORGE, and Sam and Frodo walked down it and into the shuddering mountain in the dark, probably amidst the vast, over-sized, and eerily quieted mechanisms, unlit except by the sudden and occasional streamers of lava shooting like streamers from the distant chasm that transected the path.
I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE SEEN THE FORGE, MR. JACKSON. ;__; I AM UNHAPPY THAT I DID NOT GET TO LOOK UPON THE ANVILS AND FURNACES OF A FALLEN MAIA. Instead I got Pride Rock inside a volcano. Ah, what could have been.
YES OH MY GOD YES ALL OF THESE THINGS. AND WHY NOT THE FORGE. CAN YOU IMAGINE SEEING THE SURFACES SAURON’S HANDS TOUCHED AS HE WORKED HIS GREAT CRAFT AND POURED HIMSELF INTO HIS RING
small aside: I totally picture Sauron finishing his Ring and then toppling to the floor, suddenly slow and deprived of some essential part of his being, suddenly bereft of the might of his Maiar nature for a few moments, feeling the rasp and strife of air filling his lungs by slow and uncertain pressure differential; and then, weak and gasping, sick from the taste of bitter mortality filling his mouth like some brash liquor, reaching to take the golden Ring from its perch– piercing the wheel with his finger, skin meeting hot metal– and feeling all of himself again, only now flavored with molten gold, only now the faintest hair’s-breadth from his skin.
I imagine him unsettled, beginning the first stirrings of the longing that would drive him for the rest of his days; I imagine him trembling with fear and the few seconds’ knowledge of the weakness of flesh; I imagine how even the sweetness of power would never again surmount the knowledge of how easily, how simply, he could be separated from himself.
That is a hefty assumption, my friend, and laden with pro-Istari bias. Also we have no evidence the senior Mr. Baggins DID have any intention of dealing with the object according to court direction, as evidenced by the fact that he bequeathed it in the first place rather than seeking to return it to its rightful owner OR to destroy it aseventuallyand arguably legallyordered by a so-called competent court!
And I can’t believe you’re using the ‘it was in his pocketses but he wasn’t planning to USE it, no precious’ defense on top of all this. Shameful.
Ah, yes. This is what I am spending years of my life to achieve: nonsensical debates about fictional property disputes. However, let it never be said that I half-arsed arsing about. The following is based primarily on general English common law principals, because that is probably what Tolkien would have done.
1. We must assume that this dispute lies within either the civil, equitable, or criminal jurisdiction of the Aratar, simply because the only alternative is determining the taking of the Ring to be an act of war and, as far as I know, there is no agreement between the sides as to what the process should be here.
2a. Mr B. Baggins was for a long time (~60 years) not aware of the rightful owner’s existing claim, despite making (albeit limited, but reasonable in his circumstances) inquiries as to its origin, nor did the rightful owner make what the reasonable person would deem reasonable efforts to make known his claim. Such a pause in the maintenance of claim would usually give rise to a claim of adverse possession and the property would rightly be Mr B. Baggins’s, but the timescale would undoubtedly be altered in relation to the enchanted property of a technically immortal being.
2b. Assuming that the adverse possession argument fails: once Mr B. Baggins was made aware of the claim, at which time he was also directed by an agent of the court, he (reluctantly) complied with the direction by forfeiting his claim and transferring the property to another.
3. The property, now in the possession of Mr F. Baggins as per the direction, was laden with the additional directions that it be destroyed in a certain manner under the supervision of an agent of the court and that it not be used for any other purpose. The second direction was breached on numerous occasions, but this would give rise to a charge of contempt of court, not theft.
So, in the defence’s submission, the chain of title goes as such: Sauron, creator, rightful owner > Isildur (deceased), thief and murderer, no claim > Deagol (deceased), finder, claim valid against the whole world except the rightful owner > Smeagol, thief and murderer, no claim > B. Baggins, finder,
claim valid against the whole world except the rightful owner, possible claim as adverse possessor > F. Baggins, custodian of property under court direction, no claim in the property itself but has obligation to deal with the property according to direction.
I ain’t even mad I’m just gonna push this over to @simaethae because I’m pretty sure this is the most gorgeously legal response to her post I’ve seen.
okay, looks like my bluff has been called and I’m going to have to make an actual argument! (few things have ever pleased me more than my post turning into an actual discussion of the ownership of the Ring, this is not where i expected to end up but is nonetheless great)
So, @hubriswashispetard, I think describing Bilbo as a “finder” is a very generous construction! There is certainly much to criticise in Gollum’s own behaviour, but while Bilbo may have “found” the Ring, he quickly became aware that it was in Gollum’s possession. Theft from a thief can’t be considered to give Bilbo any legitimate claim: he can’t exactly be said to lack notice that the Ring was stolen property. He did, after all, steal it himself.
As such, it’s far from clear to me that adverse possession is a relevant factor. Bilbo is handling stolen property. There is no applicable statute of limitation on theft or related crimes under English law, and, as neither he nor Frodo are bona fide purchasers for value – neither of them gives consideration for the Ring and Frodo appears to be informed as to its history, therefore giving him actual notice of its status – there has been no transfer of ownership such as to extinguish the original owner’s claim.
(It did occur to me to wonder whether the One Ring is an object which can be owned, given that it seems to have some limited degree of sentience. I think it’s fair to say that while it displays volition – it slips from fingers and compels its bearers to put it on at appropriate times – it appears not to have actual personhood, so the Bagginses are only guilty of theft rather than kidnapping or slavery.
The Ring contains part of Sauron but in the absence of judicial guidance as to the status of the soul, this – seems to take me to the rule that there is no property in the human body, i.e. you don’t own your own body parts. That’s weird, I had no idea. Anyway, this just circles back to the conclusion that the relevant factor is the legal ownership of the Ring itself rather than any bits of Sauron it might contain.)
I note the possibility that the confiscation and destruction of the One Ring was ordered by the Aratar and that Frodo acted in accordance with their directions. This seems something of a stretch: Saruman, who is surely no less an officer of the court than Gandalf, is clearly opposed to any such course of action.
Sauron owns the Ring, Bilbo stole it, Frodo is handling stolen property. Did I really just spend time researching this? Yes, and it feels completely worthwhile.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
AU where nothing is changed but the Eye of Sauron is just one giant googly eye glued to the top of the tower
Sauron had not served Morgoth, even in his last stages, without becoming infected by his lust for destruction, and his hatred of God (which must end in nihilism). Sauron could not, of course, be a ‘sincere’ atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure. He probably deluded himself with the notion that the Valar (including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply abandoned Ea, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with it any more. It would appear that he interpreted the ‘change of the world’ at the Downfall of Númenor, when Aman was removed from the physical world, in this sense: Valar (and Elves) were removed from effective control, and Men under God’s curse and wrath. If he thought about the Istari, especially Saruman and Gandalf, he imagined them as emissaries from the Valar, seeking to establish their lost power again and ‘colonize’ Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated imperialists (without knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism, which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwe as precisely the same as his own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. He was only a rather cleverer Radagast – cleverer, because it is more profitable (more productive of power) to become absorbed in the study of people than of animals.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The History of Middle-Earth X: Morgoth’s Ring. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. (London: HarperCollins, 2002.) 397 (Myths Transformed, Text VII “Notes on motives in the Silmarillion” (i))
“His cynicism, which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwe as precisely the same as his own, (…)” –> Here we have Sauron placing himself on equal footing with Manwë. Better yet! He considers Manwë to have the same goal as himself, but the difference between Manwë and himself, according to Sauron, is that he’s better at achieving it than the most powerful Vala still remaining in Eä. Sauron’s arrogance is astounding.
Also extremely interesting in this citation is that Sauron believes Melkor also failed, but at what exactly? Dominating Arda [for the greater good] in order to bestow a certain system on it? This gives so much food for thought!
Morgoth’s Ring is such a gift of a book. It keeps on giving and giving. Thank you, OP, for sharing this citation. c:
I think Sauron percieves that Melkor failed at domination, period, since shut away beyond the Doors of Night he could not dominate anything, much less everything as he’d desired. The cause of their conflict with the Valar is that they desire to dominate Arda – and so they take the Valar’s refusal to permit their dominion as the Valar desiring that dominion for themselves, rather than the Valar defending both their own works and those weaker beings (Maiar, elves, men, dwarves, etc.) who do not wish to submit to Melkor’s dominion.
So. A guy who calls himself “Lord of Gifts” has a big workshop in a land full of holly where he tells a bunch of elves to make cool objects. Later he travels around the world dropping off these cool things as presents for people who he thinks show potential.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I choose to believe it would work if I could think about it long enough.
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