I had a stray thought recently, inspired by Sam’s reluctance to give the Ring back up to Frodo in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. For anyone who needs a refresher, this occurs in Book VI, following Shelob’s Lair and Sam’s taking of the Ring from Frodo’s (seemingly) lifeless body. When Sam finds and rescues Frodo in the tower, he has a moment of hesitation in giving the Ring back:
Sam fumbled for the Ring and its chain. ‘But I suppose you must take it back.’ Now it had come to it, Sam felt reluctant to give up the Ring and burden his master with it again.
The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, Chapter I, ‘The Tower of Cirith Ungol’, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Of course, the moment passes. Frodo demands the Ring back, and Sam willingly surrenders it to him, in a moment eerily reminiscent of when Bilbo gave up the Ring (similarly under some arguable duress from Gandalf) many years prior. The Quest continues.
Clearly, Sam’s motivation for wanting to keep the Ring in this moment is a cruel mixture of genuine pity for his Master, and the Ring’s constant and insidious temptation. Earlier in the chapter, we saw Sam entertain some rather more classical Ring-temptations, as he envisioned power and glory and gardens swollen to realms – envision, and dismiss almost as swiftly. This final Ring-effort is rather subtler, and all the more effective for it.
I think it’s impossible to miss this moment of the Ring’s influence at work on Sam. What struck me on this read, though, is that this moment also echoes another Ring-moment in Bag End, when Frodo offers the Ring to Gandalf.
‘But I have so little of any of these things! You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?’
‘No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.’
The Lord of the Rings, Book I, Chapter II, ‘The Shadow of the Past’, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The way I’ve always parsed that temptation for Gandalf is that the “pity” he is referring to is a general thing, a pity he holds for all good and beautiful creatures. Gandalf’s desire to do good for the little and wonderful things in the world would, if he bore the Ring, eventually overpower his caution and wisdom, and he would wield the Ring to protect them…and thus himself sink to evil, and turn all that he touched to wickedness into the bargain.
To be clear, I do still think that this is an entirely correct and useful way to read this passage, I do not doubt that Gandalf (or Tolkien) meant otherwise! But the double meaning of Gandalf’s words had never really struck me before, despite the broader context of Gandalf’s words throughout the chapter.
Throughout the chapter, Gandalf is clearly concerned not just with the Ring, but with the heavy burden placed on Frodo himself – reassuring him, offering him advice and consolation, and generally showing concern and sorrow for Frodo’s sake that the Ring has found itself in his care. Gandalf’s pity isn’t just a general thing, I think – it’s also, in this moment, a very specific pity for Frodo and the dreadful duty he finds before him. Gandalf knows that he would eventually use the Ring for the sake of Pity, if he was ever trusted with it – but he also knows that the surest way to tempt him with it is also Pity, but pity for Frodo and for Frodo’s sake. Gandalf, I think, is tempted by the Ring in that moment in the hope that he might spare Frodo the coming grief and toil…just as Sam is tempted, many months later, in Cirith Ungol.
It is, ultimately, a fairly minor observation, and doubtless not a wholly novel one! But given that I’ve never seen Gandalf’s pity framed in that manner, I figured it was worth teasing out a little. In the end, it doesn’t add terribly much – but I do find the idea that Gandalf might have been primarily tempted to take the Ring for Frodo’s own sake (rather than out of a wish to do good with it) to be intriguing, and arguably truer to Gandalf’s overall character. Plus, its paralleling of Sam’s later hesitation is also interesting – it is all too easy to recall the delusions of grandeur, of power, of lordship that the Ring inspires, and to pass over the subtler and more insidious temptations it presents to characters such as Samwise Gamgee and Gandalf the Grey.
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