What Tolkien’s One Ring can teach us about willpower, pride, and humility

In The Lord of the Rings, nothing holds sway so much upon the imaginations, fears, and aspirations of those in Middle-earth as much as the One Ring.

Attached to the Great Ring is the covetous spirit of the Dark Lord Sauron, who always seeks to corrupt others and bend them to be subservient to his will.

In the sense of Christian allegory, we can see that the One Ring has a resemblance to sin, generally speaking. It is a burden, but – as habits become more deeply seeded with the passage of time – fear creeps in of leaving the sin behind. We grow used to it. And, like so many of the Ring-bearers, we no longer wish to be parted from the vices that constitute the “One Ring” which we struggle with in our own lives.

Not only is J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic talisman of ruin a helpful symbolism for sin, but the story he weaves around it can teach us something about willpower, pride, and humility.

The Sinful Dimension of the One Ring

To the reader who ventures into Tolkien’s expansive legendarium by beginning chronologically with the installments of the central trilogy, much of the Ring’s history is divulged in “The Shadow of the Past,” the second chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring.

It’s here that Gandalf reveals to Frodo the nature of his uncle Bilbo’s magic Ring, a gift bestowed on Frodo upon the latter’s dramatic exit from the Shire.

The wizard explains to Frodo the Ring’s long track record of deception, betraying each of its bearers in turn and heeding only the will of Sauron. It leads its users into deceit and vanity. It leads to a mindset of inflated self-importance and the fixation with fulfilling one’s own desires beyond the welfare of others. As with the case of Gollum, formerly Sméagol, the Ring’s presence drove the creature to murder one of his own to acquire the mesmerizing golden band.

For the Ring-bearers who have allowed the talisman to warp their character, their desire for the Ring can be satiated by any means, whatever the cost. From Gollum’s perspective, his “precious” is worth much more than anyone’s life. To him, life is no longer precious, not even his own. All he can focus on is the Ring.

In Gollum, we also see an example of what happens when addiction to sin sets in. Gandalf explains Gollum’s relationship with the Ring (sin) this way to Frodo:

‘He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter’ (87).

This shows that sin, apart from its malignant effects on those around us, also damages our self-perception. The Ring wounded Gollum with so much regret and confusion that the ordering of his self-love became terribly obscured.

Lastly, the power associated with the Ring leads, like any form of addiction, to slavery. This emphasis of bondage, a theme seen recurring throughout the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, is manifested in the danger of the dark power forcing Hobbit-kind into slavery. Gandalf suggests that the Dark Lord would despise the freedom enjoyed by Hobbits and should be contented to see them become slaves.

As the wizard tells Frodo:

‘It would be a grievous blow to the world, if the Dark Power overcame the Shire; if all your kind, jolly, stupid Bolgers, Hornblowers, Boffins, Bracegirdles, and the rest, not to mention the ridiculous Bagginses, became enslaved’ (79).

In the end, the dark power of sin leads to spiritual bondage with crippling effects that touch every aspect of our lives.

A Battle of Wills

In any war, in any real dispute, the confrontation comes between the wills of two or more individuals. The moral life is, in actuality, a war like no other. And a big part of the fight rests in our decision to do our will or submit to the will of another – such as a superior. It rests also on willing the good of another more than one’s desires for self. Ultimately, it depends on submitting our wills to the Will of God.

In The Lord of the Rings, we see both the effects of willing the good of the other and of willing one’s own desires. It’s an integral part of the struggle.

While the Ring displays the Dark Lord’s domination through the sheer assertion of his own will, it also corrupts its users to the point that they reflect Sauron’s same defect: an egotistical preoccupation with following the will of the self.

Signs of this fixation are perhaps subtle at first. The Ring is no longer just a shiny piece of jewelry; its bearer is no longer a neutral keeper of this talisman. The Ring is “mine,” and the bearer shows signs of being possessive of this tiny object in which the fate of many hangs.

As exemplified by Frodo, the Ring-bearer the LOTR narrative follows most closely, a continual return to sin – getting caught up in it and fixating on it – becomes a pit that one easily falls into.

By the trilogy’s climax in Mount Doom, Frodo’s will, warped by sin, asserts dominance over his intellect and spurs him on to the point of abandoning his quest. Instead of destroying the One Ring, putting an end to all the sin and death, Frodo falls victim to the luster of the Ring and chooses to fulfill his own desires at the expense of saving Middle-earth.

Christ, Sacrifice, and Following the Will of Another

LOTR isn’t all Doom and gloom. It doesn’t end there. Good, in its humility, triumphs over evil in the end, and Sauron is defeated. But this isn’t accomplished without many of the heroes having to make sacrifices along the way.

Boromir chose to defend the Hobbits rather than seek the Ring for military efficiency; he laid down his life for his friends. Frodo, though weakened by sin, has the physical marks of pain left to remind him of what he suffered in order to save the Shire – and all of Middle-earth. Sam Gamgee, his friend, suffered innumerable hardships in order to serve Frodo and to defend his homeland.

In all these cases, the heroes had to will the good of those around them, thereby denying themselves the preferences of their own wills.

In this way, the heroes of LOTR reflect the loving act of Jesus in Gethsemane. In prayer with the Father, Jesus says that He would rather not have to endure His most bitter passion. Yet, out of obedience to the Will of the Father, an unthinkable amount of suffering was inflicted on Him for our benefit:

“’Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:42-43).

Christ offers up His act of selflessness as the prototypical example of submitting our Will to God for the good of those other than ourselves.

 

A note on excerpts: Scripture passages are taken from the RSV Catholic Edition. Quotes from The Fellowship of the Ring come from the book’s seventy-ninth printing (1983 edition) published by Ballantine Books.