Did Frodo Curse Gollum to fall into the the Cracks of Doom?

did frodo curse gollum which made him lose his footing and fall into the cracks of doom there's a lot of evidence that that's exactly what happened was the end of the one ring not just an accident but preordained somehow hi everyone this is robert welcome to in deep geek this video is brought to you by my fantastic patreon community if you want more videos on j.r.r tolkien and lord of the rings as well as other great fantasy and science fiction please click on the subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen and the bell icon when you think about it the climax to the story of the lord of the rings is a bit anti-climactic all that background the epic journey the character development and the one ring is destroyed by accident gollum lost his footing fell and that was how the ring was destroyed we all know the build-up frodo making it to the cracks of doom but his resolve failing at the last moment him putting on the ring then gollum catching him biting off his finger getting the ring dancing with delight and then losing his footing and falling into the cracks of doom it's gained frodo a lot of haters because let's face it he failed in his mission i'll cover in another video why that is probably unfair tolkien himself certainly didn't think that was a correct reading of his story but it is indisputable that frodo didn't destroy the ring and that but for gollum losing his footing and falling it would all have been for nothing the ring wraiths would surely have caught gollum aragorn's army would have been defeated outside the gates of mordor and sauron's dark rule would have spread across middle-earth but what if it wasn't just chance that saved the day what if gollum was fated to fall having been cursed to do it by frodo himself and the ring i want to suggest that that's exactly what happened or at least that's part of the bigger story of what was going on at mount doom in any event this wasn't just an accidental trip and fall it was meant to be just as an aside all of what happened in the lord of the rings was meant to be in a certain sense uru eluvitar willed it to be so but here we're talking about the in-story causalities why what happened happened okay so what is this curse i keep mentioning it happened on the slopes of mount doom right before the end gollum had tracked frodo and sam there and made a last-minute grab for the ring down down frodo gasped clutching his hand to his breast so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the ring down you creeping thing and out of my path your time is at an end you cannot betray me or slay me now then suddenly as before under the eaves of the eminent mule sam saw these two rivals with other vision a crouching shape scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing a creature now wholly ruined and defeated yet filled with a hideous lust and rage and before it stood stern untouchable now by pity a figure robed in white but at its breast it held a wheel of fire out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice be gone and trouble me no more if you touch me ever again you shall be cast yourself into the fire of doom frodo then seems to come out of a trance gasping gollum shrinks back and sam dashes in to protect his mr frodo there's a lot to unpack in that small quote the curse itself sam's vision the wheel of fire and so on but for now let's take the simple point that frodo here tells gollum that if he touches him again he will be cast into the fire of doom and just a few pages later that's exactly what happened that's not a coincidence tolkien wanted us to hear frodo say this and then see it happen and connect the two events tolkien wanted us to see that what frodo commanded happened to understand fully what happened we need to rewind a bit back in the taming of schmiegel in the emin mule frodo makes gollum or smeagol swear by the ring itself to serve the master of the ring him to do as frodo says and frodo even warns him then that it will hold you it is more treacherous than you are it may twist your words beware from that moment gollum was bound to do frodo's will while he was master of the ring if this were a simple vow by gollum that he later broke then maybe it wouldn't be so significant but he swore it by the precious the ring itself the ring itself already controlled golem his entire existence was shaped now around that one ring so swearing by the ring to obey the ring's master was doubly significant frodo understands this even if gollum is too blinded by his desire for the precious to grasp all the implications frodo spells out what it means later on talking to gollum you will never get the ring back but the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end you will never get it back in the last need smeagol i should put on the precious and the precious mastered you long ago if i wearing it were to command you you would obey even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire and such would be my command so have a care smeagol if we needed foreshadowing this is it frodo says that gollum's desire for the ring will lead him to a bitter end that if he tried to get it frodo would command gollum to leap from a precipice or to cast himself into the fire and gollum would be forced to do it actually foreshadowing is not strong enough a word to describe what's going on here tolkien is telling us exactly what will happen at the end of the quest faramir also echoes this message that gollum must keep his word to obey frodo or die telling him that you are under the doom of death but while you walk with frodo you are safe may death find you swiftly within gondor or without if you do not well serve him the setup here is very clear gollum's doom has been spelled out several times but let's go back to when frodo does curse gollum on the slopes of mount doom because there's another layer to all this remember how we saw this curse in the kind of vision from sam's perspective he sees gollum as a crouching shape scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing a creature now wholly ruined and defeated yet filled with a hideous lust and rage in other words he sees gollum as he truly is on a magical or spiritual plane as it were the same goes for how he sees frodo as stern untouchable now by pity a figure robed in white but at its breast it held a wheel of fire frodo is still robed in white he's ultimately a good person but now crucially untouchable by pity pity is the word tolkien uses throughout this story to describe how the hobbits bilbo frodo and sam have treated gollum it's what made them spare gollum's life but now frodo doesn't have pity the ring has affected him too much so his judgment of gollum is to condemn him to death a merciful death perhaps but death nonetheless but we can take this even further because although i've been talking about frodo cursing gollum if you read the text closely it seems that it isn't actually him doing it it's the ring we read that frodo is a figure robed in white but at its breast it held a wheel of fire out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice the voice and the curse came not from frodo but out of the wheel of fire this is indisputably the ring itself a couple of paragraphs earlier we read that frodo is grasping it through his shirt at his breast where the wheel of fire is and the phrase wheel of fire is itself used only two other times in the entire book both times it is frodo describing to sam what the ring looks like to him and how it is starting to dominate his thoughts it is the ring itself the cursed golem that if gollum ever touched it again he would cast himself into the fire of doom by the way i've been using the word cursed here though i don't think that's necessarily the right word the ring had power over gollum and frodo as the ring's master also therefore had power over gollum the instruction to cast himself into the fire of doom was a command one that gollum was bound to obey consciously or unconsciously pulling this together tolkien crafted a situation where gollum promised by the ring to obey frodo and frodo warned him that the ring would hold him to it then faramir cursed gollum to death if he served frodo poorly then frodo warned gollum that if he tried to take back the ring he would command him to leap from a precipice or cast himself into the fire and that gollum would be bound to do it such is his subjugation to the ring's power then when gollum betrayed frodo when tried to take back the ring frodo with all the rings power effectively places a word of command into him that if he touches him or it again he shall be cast into the fire of doom when gollum takes the ring from frodo by the cracks of doom he effectively seals his own fate despite all the warnings he had had when he fell moments later he didn't fall by accident he fell because he had been commanded to at one stroke this completely changes our understanding of not just technically what happened there at the end but what themes and messages we can draw from the whole story the traditional understanding of what happened that frodo failed because the power of the ring was ultimately too much for him but the right result happened anyway because of gollum being gollum is actually a little disheartening when you think about it that for all the mercy and pity and love and self-sacrifice that preceded it it wasn't any of that that made the ultimate difference it was just that gollum wasn't paying attention to where he put his feet now we have a new way of looking at this it wasn't just gollum being destroyed by his own weakness of character this was the ring itself we are told that sauron had poured all of his cruelty malice and will to dominate all life into that ring and that is what blazed forth in that command cruelty malice and a desire for control of others it's the ring's power that made frodo lose his pity for gollum the one ring ultimately caused its own downfall it was destroyed by its own cruel command to gollum gollum wouldn't have been there at all but for bilbo's pity then frodo's and then sam's just minutes earlier when he could have killed him that pity or mercy was not weakness but strength it got the hobbits and the ring to where it needed to be and the one ring's cruelty and power to control was ultimately not its strength but its greatest weakness the destruction of the one ring was not an accident it was because the strength of evil in the world and the ring inevitably caused its own downfall and good triumphed despite or perhaps even because of its weakness and that i think is what tolkien wanted us to understand from the finale of his story if you'd like to see more videos on the world of jrr tolkien and the lord of the rings please click on the link to the playlist on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support the channel or get access to some content i produced just for my patrons please click on the link to my patreon page on the right of the screen thanks for watching that's all for this time i'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 457,342

Keywords: in deep geek, deep geek, lord of the rings, the lord of the rings, lotr, middle earth, tolkien, jrr tolkien, did frodo curse gollum, frodo, smeagol, gollum, end of lord of the rings, end of lord of the rings return of the king, the one ring, ring, how did gollum die, did frodo fail, mount doom, cracks of doom, lotr cracks of doom, how was the ring destroyed, one ring destroyed, sauron, curse

Id: UE6we0VZ-gI

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/MaxRavenclaw]

The whole concept of pouring part of you into a magic item has always fascinated me.

[u/FathomlessPlumbing]

Let it not be said that a soft magic system can’t ever blow your mind with its inner machinations and complex workings.