Fate

“Yet My Heart Guessed That Frodo and Gollum Would Meet Before the End. For Good or For Evil.” Gandalf Speaks of the Weaving Together of Frodo and Gollum’s Fates.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 796-797

Those who have journeyed with Gandalf from the opening chapters of The Lord of the Rings know that this intuition, that the fates of Frodo, Bilbo, Gollum and the Ring are intimately woven together, has been with Gandalf at least since his conversation with Frodo in Bag End in the chapter entitled, The Shadow of the Past, if not before. It was in that chapter that we learnt of Gandalf’s suspicions regarding the nature of Bilbo’s ring and how those suspicions were confirmed when he cast the Ring into the fire and so was able to read the fateful words:

One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Gandalf told Frodo of how Gollum had come into possession of the Ring through the murder of his friend, Déagol, and how he had come to know of the name of Baggins simply because Bilbo had told him his name. I wonder if Tolkien had the story of Odysseus and Polyphemus in mind as he wrote this. If so did he contrast the hubris displayed by Odysseus when he boastfully declared his name as he escaped his captor with the simple honesty that Bilbo displays in telling his name to Gollum? We will return to this later.

But now we will return to Gandalf’s intuition that he speaks of to Pippin here, that “Frodo and Gollum would meet before the end. For good or for evil.” What Gandalf said to Frodo of his intuition was this:

“I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that time comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many- yours not least.”

This is one of the most quoted passages in the whole Lord of the Rings, and one that when cited often focusses upon the word, pity, and rightly so, because when Frodo finally meets Gollum he announces, as if to an unseen listener, that now he has seen Gollum he does pity him. The pity of Bilbo and then of Frodo does play a central role in the story and we will think about this on other occasions, but now I wish to think about the part that fate plays in the story, and then to think about the part it plays in all stories, not least our own.

It is easy, maybe too easy, to link the manner in which Gollum first obtained the Ring with his ultimate fate, to fall into the fires of Mount Doom still holding it. We might argue that Gollum deserved his fate, but then we have to ask in what way Frodo deserved his. For Frodo is wounded by the Morgul blade below Weathertop, stung by Shelob in her lair, has his finger bitten off from his hand just as Sauron lost a finger to the broken blade of Narsil when he lost the Ring to Isildur. And in all this we must think of the way he had to bear a burden whose malevolent power gradually overcame his brave heart until he had no freedom left to choose. Did Frodo deserve this as Gollum deserved his fate? I find it hard to argue that he did. Of course, Frodo had his weaknesses just as we all do, but he would not have suffered this fate if he had not made the heroic choice to bear the burden to Mount Doom, a choice that Elrond declared made him worthy, not to be punished, but to stand alongside the Elf-friends, such as Beren, who were his mighty ancestors.

Frodo’s fate must remain a mystery to us, and so too must Gollum’s. It is not for us to determine the ultimate fate of anyone. Gandalf himself declared to Frodo that “Many that die deserve death. And some that die deserve life.” Perhaps Tolkien was thinking of his closest friends who fell in the battles of the First World War and of his own survival in that conflict when he wrote this. Fate is not something that lies within our ability to understand. We only are given the task either to bear our fate bravely and to struggle to do the good we can within our fate or we can try to fight against it. There is heroic courage in the latter choice and like Odysseus we might be shaped for good in the struggle. He was a sadder and a wiser man than the one who boasted of his name before Polyphemus when he finally returned to Ithaca many years later.

“Now May I Make a Right Choice, and Change The Evil Fate of This Unhappy Day.” Aragorn Chooses to Follow the Orcs of Isengard.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 544-546

Boromir has passed over Rauros in the elven boat in which Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli have laid him, and by virtue of the skill learned by Elves over thousands of years in which craft and nature have become seamlessly woven together the boat is not dashed to pieces by the force of water and of rock nor have its contents been spilled into the river. The three companions have done their duty to their comrade and now they may turn their attention to their duty to the hobbits.

Already they know that Merry and Pippin have been taken by the Uruk-hai, the orcs of Isengard, back towards their fortress across the plains of Rohan and soon it becomes clear what has become of Frodo and Sam.

“So much at least is now clear,” said Legolas: “Frodo is no longer on this side of the River: only he can have taken the boat. And Sam is with him; only he can have taken his pack.”

The companions have a choice. Either they can follow Frodo, as Sam has done, and guide him to Mordor, or they can follow Merry and Pippin and their orc captors towards Isengard. Neither path holds out much hope for them. In doing their duty to Boromir they have lost many hours.

At last Aragorn makes his choice.

“Let me think!” said Aragorn. “And now may I make a right choice, and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!” He stood silent for a moment. “I will follow the Orcs,” he said at last. “I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot abandon our companions while we have strength left.”

Aragorn speaks of the fate of the day. He is seeking after the biggest story that he can find and tell about all that has befallen the Fellowship since it began. The day began with a belief among them all that they would make a decision together and follow it together. Only Boromir had made it clear from the beginning that he would travel on to Minas Tirith whatever choice was made by the others. Frodo is becoming ever more certain that he must make the journey alone to Mordor but he is afraid to tell the others, afraid too of the journey itself. But now the possibility that the Fellowship might make a decision together has been made impossible. In trying to take the Ring from Frodo Boromir has set in motion a chain of events that means that the Fellowship can never take one course of action together again. Frodo and Sam have crossed the Anduin together. Boromir has died defending Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai of Isengard and the young hobbits have been taken prisoner.

Frodo has made a free choice and Sam has gone with him. Merry and Pippin are prisoners. And so Aragorn must honour both Frodo’s freedom and the young hobbits’ captivity. He will not guide Frodo to Mordor. That necessary task will be undertaken by the most unlikely of people, by one who seeks to kill him and to regain the Ring. The young hobbits will regain their freedom in the confusion of battle. The three hunters will not find them again until they meet amidst the ruin of Isengard. No choice that Aragorn will take this day will lead to either course of events and yet he must still choose.

I spoke of the fate of the day, of the task of seeking the biggest story that can be found. The story that Aragorn chooses is that of freeing the captives or dying in the attempt. He knows that it is the dying that is most likely and that, like Boromir, he will probably fall in hopeless defence of two hobbits who probably should not have come with them in the first place but that in choosing this story he opens the possibility that something greater, more wonderful, might happen. And at the very least he will do something worthy of a song.