Dowsing for Divinity

I promise not to turn Dowsing for Divinity into a LoTR-themed blog, but this is an interesting topic, especially in the light of current events where people are using their absolute power to commit atrocities (Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu) and to condemn people who are protesting against those atrocities (Kamala Harris), and a certain demagogue is promising his deluded followers that they will “never have to vote again”.

So I think it matters what we think about power, people who wield power, and how they wield power.

It’s also worth noting that Tolkien was writing in an era when totalitarian regimes had taken over a number of European countries, and he had seen at first hand the nightmarish destruction wrought by the First World War, and could certainly easily imagine the horrors of the Second World War on the basis of his experiences in the trenches. So the subject of power and its effects, and what type of people could resist the temptation to wield absolute power, would have been on his mind.

The widely-accepted reason why Peter Jackson depicts Faramir as being temporarily corrupted by the power of the Ring is because of the effect that the Ring has on everyone else. But let’s look at what Tolkien has to say about this.

In The Silmarillion, Isildúr son of Anarien cuts the Ring from Sauron’s finger but is almost immediately slain by orcs, so he doesn’t have a chance to become corrupted by it. It falls into the Great River Anduin and is lost.

The first person to come into contact with the Ring after the long ages in which it lay in the Great River Anduin is Sméagol, who becomes Gollum. Sméagol murders his brother Déagol for the Ring. But Tolkien says that Gollum only uses the Ring for small deeds of petty theft, and eventually ends up retreating into a cave in the mountains, where eventually Bilbo gets the Ring (in The Hobbit). Tolkien says that the Ring tires of the petty deeds of Gollum and wants a larger stage on which to wreak havoc.

Bilbo is the next holder of the Ring, and Gandalf counsels him not to use it. He and Sam Gamgee are also the only people ever to give it up voluntarily, although Bilbo almost doesn’t. But being a hobbit, he doesn’t think about the possibility of getting power over others or acquiring great riches.

Gandalf takes the Ring from Bilbo, puts it in an envelope, and gives it to Frodo. Frodo then has it for a long time and it becomes a very painful experience, because the Ring-Wraiths (the Nazgúl) are awakened. Sauron has become aware that the Ring has been found and is in the possession of a hobbit by the name of Baggins. Nonetheless Frodo is very rarely tempted to use the Ring and only uses it in the inn at Bree, to try to escape from the Ring-Wraiths and later, successfully, to evade capture by orcs.

It’s notable that both Bilbo and Frodo offer the Ring to Gandalf and he declines:

‘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 strengh 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 to great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.’

Tolkien expanded this thought further in a letter:

Gandalf as Ring Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained ‘righteous’, but ‘self-righteous’. He would have continued to rule and order things for ‘good’, and the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which was and would have remained great).
—The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien # 246 to Mrs. Eileen Elgar (Sept. 1963)

When Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin stay with Tom Bombadil, Tom (who pre-dates LoTR in Tolkien’s creative process, and represents the spirit of the Oxfordshire countryside) is supremely uninterested in the Ring, and even makes it invisible for a moment, instead of it making him invisible. Note that Frodo is not yet sufficiently in its grip that he can’t temporarily give it to someone else.

Aragorn sees the Ring in the Prancing Pony at Bree, but he is not tempted to take it from Frodo.

Later, when the Fellowship are staying at Lothlórien, Frodo offers Galadriel the Ring, and she is briefly tempted by the idea, but resists the temptation:

Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

“I pass the test”, she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.”

Tolkien writes about this in three of his letters and confirms that Galadriel was genuinely tempted, but that she successfully resisted it because she has previously thought about it and resolved that she would not take the Ring.

Galadriel also explains to Frodo that in order to use the power of the Ring fully, his mind would have to be trained to wield the power.

Boromir tried to take the Ring from Frodo but he repents of his mistake and pays for it by defending the hobbits from the orcs. That’s why Aragorn says that Boromir has triumphed, because he repented of his attempt to get the Ring.

So, plenty of people have successfully resisted the temptation to use the Ring. So why should Faramir not be among them? He is not interested because he knows that one of its names is “Isildúr’s Bane” and he has studied ancient lore books; also because he likes adventure and green growing things; he loves swords not for their own sake but for the aspects of life that they protect. He knows how to be a leader, but he is a leader who genuinely cares about the men under his leadership. So because of all this, he is not interested in the Ring. He says:

I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.

After Frodo and Sam leave Ithilien, the next time the Ring changes hands is when Sam temporarily takes it from the unconscious Frodo (who he believes to be dead). Then he realizes Frodo is still alive when he hears him singing when he’s captured by the orcs, and rescues him, and gives the Ring back to Frodo. Sam is not interested in the power of the Ring because he loves gardening and Nature, and the Ring and the power it offers are the antithesis of all of that.

Finally, just as Frodo is on the brink of the Cracks of Doom, the only place where the Ring can be destroyed, he succumbs to temptation and says he will not destroy it—but then Gollum bites off his finger with the Ring on it, and falls to his death in the molten lava.

Tolkien emphasizes in one of his letters that it was Frodo’s earlier act of mercy when he spared Gollum’s life that brought about this victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

It’s clear that once any of these people got hold of the Ring, it would corrupt them according to the ways in which their personality type could be corrupted, but they wisely refuse the opportunity.

Why does it matter?

It matters because what we believe about power, and how we respond to its manifestations, affects all our relationships, in both personal and professional interactions.

If you believe that command and control is the only way to get other people to do things, or if you believe that people only ever act out of self-interest — as in Game Theory, one of the most pernicious theories ever devised — then not only is your vision of humanity severely compromised, but worse, you will behave as though this is true.

Thankfully Game Theory has been demonstrated to be highly flawed, as the people who came up with it suppressed the results of their experiments that did not fit with the theory.

In reality, there are many people who act in the interests of the community. These include the protesters who protest against climate change, against the genocide of Palestinians, against war, against the indiscriminate slaughter of animals, in favour of LGBTQ+ rights, in favour of democracy and human rights. There are all the people who risk their lives to help others — the medics who volunteer in Palestinian hospitals, the people who try to get food aid to the Palestinians. There are people who help others even though it is of no direct benefit to them.

The power of leadership was compared to the power of the Ring by Bob Moses in the middle of the civil rights struggle, just after three activists had been murdered. He gave the volunteers the choice of continuing with their involvement in the struggle. He too passed the test.

If I was offered a position of power, I would do my best to share the power, and make sure that my actions benefited others. How do I know? Because that’s how I run my coven.

And I know that if I was offered the Ring, I’d decline (or chuck it in the nearest volcano). I’m not sure if I would accept one of the three Elven rings either, because their power derived from the One Ring.

Tolkien also knew what his reaction to being offered the Ring would be, and he gave Faramir the same reaction. This choice should have been respected in the film, and I think this shows that Tolkien’s attitude toward power was rather different than Peter Jackson’s.

So, not only was Jackson’s decision to make Faramir susceptible to the power of the Ring wrong in terms of fidelity to Tolkien’s story, it was also wrong in terms of how humans actually respond to the opportunity for power over others.