Hobbit Lessons by Devin Brown;

Author:Devin Brown;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781426778803
Publisher: United Methodist Publishing House
Published: 2013-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

As we have seen, one of the main messages in The Hobbit has to do with the power that gold—or at least our excessive love of it—has to ruin lives and destroy all that is good. Excessive love of gold is at the root of the animosity that exists between the dwarves and elves, as the dwarves still believe that the elves owe them for work done long in the past. It was the great store of gold under the Lonely Mountain that brought Smaug there in the first place. This same gold nearly leads to the outbreak of violence after Smaug is gone.

Of all the gold that appears in Tolkien’s fiction, none is more sought after and causes more problems than the golden Ring that Bilbo finds beneath the Misty Mountains. While the Ring is one of the great rings of power—and so is connected to our desire to dominate and rule over others—it is also an object that brings out an almost irresistible desire simply to possess it. Virtually everyone who comes into contact with the Ring struggles with the temptation to take it and keep it for themselves.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, readers learn the long history of how Gollum came to have the Ring, a story that began many years before Bilbo’s encounter with him in The Hobbit. As the last great alliance of men and elves is able to overthrow Sauron, Isildur takes up the shards of his father’s sword and cuts the Ring (and the finger wearing it) from Sauron’s hand. This is the second time that Sauron has been overthrown, but like a bad penny he somehow keeps coming back. Then, despite the counsel of Elrond, who urges him to cast the one Ring into Mount Doom, Isildur claims it for his own.

We could point out that if Isildur had listened to Elrond’s advice and destroyed the Ring then and there, Sauron would have been permanently destroyed and all the bloodshed depicted in The Lord of the Rings would have been avoided. Probably we each could point to times in our own lives when if we had listened to someone’s advice, we, too, could have avoided many problems.

But, like Isildur, we did not want to listen. Isildur’s desire to have the Ring turned out to be greater than his wisdom.

Isildur excuses his seizing the beautiful golden object by saying it is his weregild, or payment, for the death of his father and brother. But soon the Ring betrays him, as Tolkien suggests our greed for gold will always do. Surprised by a band of Orcs while out on patrol, Isildur puts on the Ring to become invisible and dives into the river. But while he is swimming, the Ring slips from his finger. As it sinks to the muddy depths, Isildur is revealed to the Orc archers and is slain.

The Ring sits on the river bottom for over two thousand years, until one day two hobbit-like creatures named Deagol and Smeagol decide to go fishing.

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