Tolkien's words in this particular passage are a little loose and obtuse, to be certain. At first he suggest that "of the others, only Gandalf might be expected to wield the ring" and remarks that by claiming the ring Gandalf would become even worse than Sauron.
But immediately afterward, he recalls quite swiftly that he said the very same thing about Galadriel in TFOTR, where he describes her temptation, her clear ability to not only contend with Sauron and to perceive his mind, but to repel Sauron's advances to perceive hers, but also her prophetic and powerful revelation that, if she were to take the ring, she would indeed supplant Sauron and become a monstrous evil as his replacement, only in her case, the evil that she wrought would spring from a distorted understanding of "love" -- one that would bring only "despair."
Realizing quickly, in his draft of the letter, that he said exactly the same thing about Galadriel as he said about Gandalf, he says: "In [TFOTR] it seems Galadriel considers herself capable of wielding the one ring and supplanting Sauron. If so, then so were the other guardians of the three, especially Elrond ..."
Well, here, Tolkien is writing and affirming using rhetorical speech; careful attention to his words is needed. He writes that Galadriel "seems" to believe she can wield the ring and replace Sauron, but in fact there is no "seems" about it: Tolkien's scene in The Mirror of Galadriel clearly in dicates that she DOES believe it, and that, in fact, she knows she can, for Tolkien describes her realization of what would happen if she succumbed to the temptation, i.e. the creation of a queenly figure more terrible than the dawn, one who would turn love into despair, etc.
She is under no delusion of power, for even after she rejects the ring and is no longer tempted, Sam Gamgee asserts that he wishes she HAD taken the ring, because he felt that she, of all people, would have the power "to make some folk pay for their dirty work." To which Galadriel replies, "I would. But, alas, it would not end there."
So Galadriel knows she could wield the ring.
In the draft of his letter, then, words like "seems" are not intended to question what Galadriel understood about herself (since Tolkien is explicit in the book about what she thought!) and the same applies to his clause, "if so." Here, he is again speaking rhetorically, for there is no question of "if." By saying "if so," he is admitting the possibility that she could indeed wield the ring (or, at the very least, he is not ruling it out) for he immediately delineates exactly HOW Galadriel and, for example, Elrond would go about asserting their power, i.e. they would build-up empires and armies and military forces in the very same "policy" used by Sauron.
Tolkien next states that a direct, magical confrontation with Sauron, person to person, was never contemplated by any of them (even Gandalf) and backs this up by using Gandalf as an example, and saying, "imagine Gandalf in such a scenario," and noting that, even with the ring, Gandalf confronting Sauron in person would be a "delicate balance" with no guaranteed outcome.
So, using a scholar's coy, rhetorical language --one in which Tolkien contemplates his own characters as if he were observing them from a detached standpoint-- he is essentially saying, at first, that only Gandalf the White could perhaps be expected to wield the ring, then he quickly catches himself and remembers what he said about Galadriel in the actual book, and acknowledges that she, too, would be capable, and, if she had taken the ring, he describes how she (or even Elrond) would have supplanted Sauron, and that none of them would have contemplated a direct fight with Sauron in any case, because it would be an uncertain outcome --even if Gandalf was "imagined" in such a confrontation.
His words in the letter about the deceitful quality of the ring appear to have more to do with what he said about someone like Sam Gamgee or Gollum in the books, and their delusions of greatness, concerning the status and power that could be theirs, when in fact they did not possess great native powers of their own, unlike the Wise.
So, yes, a bit of a rambling, sloppy draft from Tolkien, but in the end he reaffirms all of the points he made in the books about the main characters in question. Again, even after overcoming the temptation to take the ring, Galadriel has the wisdom and presence of mind to assert that, yes, she WOULD have made Sauron and his minions pay for their evil, if she wielded the ring, but that it would not end there and she would've become evil, just as Tolkien describes how Gandalf would have become evil as well, distorting goodness in the same way that Galadriel would have distorted love.
The question of greatness between Galadriel and Elrond is a non-question, for Tolkien is abundantly clear that Galadriel is mightiest, greatest, fairest, wisest of all the Eldar, on a par with Feanor, and thus greater than Elrond. Only Luthien surpassed any of them, but she did not survive and Galadriel did.
No comments:
Post a Comment