Skip to main content

Why are Gollum, Worntongue, and Saruman made to be so horribly forlorn of support

I mean, Gandalf talks so much shit to Wormtongue... but it is almost precisely similar to Sarumon's shit-talking of him at the finish of the novel, an action that lead to Wormtongue's smiting of him with a sword, delivered, it is made to seem, righteously -- one is almost meant to feel momentarily good for Worntongue, in that he refused to be further degraded. Does Gandalf abjure total rejection of Gollum, Wormtongue and Saruman because he, being a Tolkien representative, knows each one of them is going to endure a period of being totally alone, of being naked, vulnerable, hounded, hated, and friendless -- and thus a far worse fate than any of the Fellowship has to endure, for none of them is ever THAT alone -- and that this fate is somehow actually undeserved for their representing a "crime" that is in everyone... that is in HIM?

What is Gollum? -- the most inquisitive and curious of his kind, so the text explicitly states. What is Saruman? -- the most heedless of established authority; the most modern. What is Wormtongue? -- an ambitious intellect, who makes a grab at things that ought to be available to all, but whom some proclaim -- the stupid and stodgy, that is -- absolute ownership of. Tolkien was chastising part of himself, the part that wanted to grow outside of constraints... and almost too much: verged on being conspicuous, drawing too much attention as to why so much over-hate?... as if the "guilty" party had to be punished to absolve the punisher any suspicious co-ownership of the same motives/motivations.

There's a bit at the end of the destruction of Sarumon's tower by the Ents, where Treebeard begins to identify with Saruman, saying, "you know, if someone did the same to me -- destroyed all of my home -- I might try and hide out in a hole too," and Gandalf replies, "No, you are not the least bit like him, for you would never destroy --" and I thought, what's going on here is that Tolkien is performing a kind of pseudo-empathy, pseudo-identification, through Treebeard, so that he can convince himself that he tried that... he tried to get really inside their head, when the truth is he has to keep some firm distance from them else go down the hellish hole of merciless punishment -- handed out by Middle Earth, if not by Gandalf -- they exist in the narrative to be destroyed within.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Watch out, liberal extremities!

Watch out, liberal extremities! websmith says: “White people and an increasing number of minorities are tired of being called racists by the true racists and more appalled that this loony bleeding has spread from the heart to the brain." This is what many progressives are going to have to get used to hearing -- that THEY are the true racists! I've said this before but '60's liberalism goes down when enough people have decided that, in sum, it was never truly about what minorities, impoverished people wanted/needed, but instead what certain AFFLUENT WHITE PEOPLE wanted to believe those they ostensibly spoke for wanted/needed. They (progressives) will be made to seem, not the most caring, but the most negligent, most truly self-serving. Of course, most democrats in power will not be too afflicted by this, because they're ready to turn on the ’60s too. Why? Because, sad to say, they're getting in mood to want to see the weak and needy set-up as punishment-worthy a...

Conversation about Agulis at the Gene Wolfe Facebook Appreciation Club

James Pepe New Member  ·  20 hrs I’ve been rereading BotNS (this is my second read of it) and I just finished the part where Sev fights Agulis with the avern. I’m interested to hear what people think of the accusations Agilus levels agains Sevarian. Agilus says Sev has wronged him three times. Are we meant to take these accusations seriously? They're very strange. Is this just a last ditch attempt by Agilus to get out of being killed, or is Sev actually guilty of something, either legal, moral, or cultural. Are the powers that Agilus refers to simply that the avern didn’t kill Sev when it wounded him? Here the quote, “First by entrapment. You carried an heirloom worth a villa about the city without knowing what it was you had. As owner it was your duty to know, and your ignorance threatens to cost me my life tomorrow unless you free me tonight. Secondly, by refusing to entertain any offer to buy. In our commercial society, one may set...

Discussion of Short Sun, at the Facebook Gene Wolfe Appreciation site

Mike Bennewitz January 15 at 5:56 PM Some thoughts on the themes in Book of the Short Sun [Spoilers] I've just finished a re-read of Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun. Short Sun infected my mind more than Long Sun, I guess. I don't have as many questions about LS as I do about SS. Wolfe is very obsessed with doubled identity throughout Short Sun. It's woven into so many aspects of the book that unless there is a transubstantial meaning I'm missing, I'm going to have to take it as a big clue that the narrator's identity is doubled. You could be forgiven for not realizing that the narrator has two mind/spirits inhabiting his body throughout half of the series. While Wolfe obscures this a little bit, he's telling you nearly everywhere that things are doubled. • A Binary System of two planets • Two quills in the pen case • Neighbors are like doubled humans, 4 arms and 4 legs. • Animals of Blue are doubled. 8 legs, 2 trunks, 4 eyes...