Power, in the tyrannical sense, wears down the most noble of men. It is an acidic force, capable of corroding even the most sturdy of moral compasses. This harsh truth has taken its toll on Bilbo Baggins, as Tolkien makes obvious within the opening chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring. In the preceding Hobbit novels, the senior Baggins is a lovable protagonist who yearns for purpose through adventure, and develops his bravery in an admirable manner. However, years of wielding the almighty ring of power have taken a hefty toll on his mental state, rendering him a shell of his former self. Gandalf explains this to a young and naive Frodo in Chapter Two, stating that “neither strength nor good purpose will last — sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him” (Tolkien 47). This devouring process is already in full effect by the time Gandalf visits Bag End, exposed through Bilbo’s irritable and paranoid behavior towards his old wizardly friend.
J.R.R. Tolkien was a man shaken by his time, having experienced the horrors of trench warfare prior to writing the acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy. This series is (and should always remain) timeless, because it reveals the dangers of the totalitarian mindset in a fantastical manner. The fallibility of the “well-intentioned man” is a concept worth exploring, and worth disseminating to all. Professor Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto emphasizes this in his chilling foreword to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago: “mere good intentions are not sufficient to make us good men and women” . Rather, he sees these supposed “good intentions” as a consequence of “historical ignorance,” and a sign of our “hidden appetite[s] for vengeance” (Peterson XXIII). Realizing this is a key defense mechanism against the recurrence of positive sentiment towards totalitarian ideology, which is an all too common phenomenon, and part of the folly of modern man.
Leave a Reply