The One Ring and Fate

[Crisspin]

I had a discussion with a friend regarding a riddle. The riddle was part of the Middle Earth Play-by-Mail game. It basically went as follows :

Some see it as fate, some see it as the embodiment of evil.

I answered this with the simple The One Ring. My reasoning was that the ring was a fate centric plot point. I had always viewed it as fate that Bilbo found the ring, just as it was fate that tied Aragon to the rings travails back through his entire family history. Further fate is seen with gollumn being the one who dies with the ring. The ring had desire and forced itself in directions that I always viewed as fate.

Further and more clearly, I saw the ring as the embodiment of Sauron. Since Sauron is not in the books, it was the ring that was his embodiment within the stories.

My friend argued vehemently that the ring had nothing to do with fate. Most of his argument was based on Tolkien never specifically stating that the ring represented fate, or that any level of fate is clearly stated within the story. I disagreed with the argument that fate does not have to be implicitly stated to exist, it can and is implied in his stories.

Any thoughts?

[j. d. worthington]

I'd say it goes back to the dichotomy between "predestination" and "free choice" so tied up in Tolkien's Christianity. There is a plan, an overall order to things, but along the way are also opportunities for freedom of choice, free will, which may alter the pattern considerably. Tolkien balances these two things throughout his work, just as he did in his religious beliefs. Therefore, while the Ring does indeed have some elements of predestination in it, ultimately is not "fated", for there is the possibility of setting aside what would seem the inevitable outcome, which is something that would go against the very concept of Fate per se. The Christian idea of predestination, however, has places where free will may set aside portions of the pattern, at least....

[Raynor]

I disagree; the betterment of Middle-earth would've been served if Eru took responsibility for Melkor and willed him back in line.

I agree:

Originally Posted by Letter #153

Free Will is derivative, and is.'. only operative within provided circumstances; but in order that it may exist, it is necessary that the Author should guarantee it, whatever betides : sc. when it is 'against His Will', as we say, at any rate as it appears on a finite view. He does not stop or make 'unreal' sinful acts and their consequences.

Tolkien also made some interesting remarks about the predestination of good and evil:

Originally Posted by Notes on motives in the Silmarillion, iii, Myths Transformed, HoME X

Manwe was the spirit of greatest wisdom and prudence in Arda. He is represented as having had the greatest knowledge of the Music, as a whole, possessed by any one finite mind; and he alone of all persons or minds in that time is represented as having the power of direct recourse to and communication with Eru. He must have grasped with great clarity what even we may perceive dimly: that it was the essential mode of the process of 'history' in Arda that evil should constantly arise, and that out of it new good should constantly come. One especial aspect of this is the strange way in which the evils of the Marrer, or his inheritors, are turned into weapons against evil.

and that definitely mirrors his views about the real world, as expressed in his letters:

Originally Posted by Letter #64

All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives.

If I were to speculate, there seems to me that in LotR fate works mostly for the good, than for evil, seeing how Bilbo found the ring, won the riddles, Gandalf refrained from consulting with Saruman about the ring, Gandalf's statement about Frodo being predestined to destroy the ring, Gildor's words about fate when "accidently" meeting the hobbits, Gandalf's words about Frodo being saved by fate when he met the nazgul, etc etc