Inklings Forever Volume 5 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Fifth Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Article 16 Friends 6-2006 The Quest for Pity and Mercy in Tolkien's Middle Earth Woody Wendling Temple University Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Wendling, Woody (2006) "The Quest for Pity and Mercy in Tolkien's Middle Earth," Inklings Forever: Vol. 5 , Article 16. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol5/iss1/16 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume V A Collection of Essays Presented at the Fifth FRANCES WHITE COLLOQUIUM on C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS Taylor University 2006 Upland, Indiana The Quest for Pity and Mercy in Tolkien’s Middle Earth Woody Wendling Wendling, Woody. “The Quest for Pity and Mercy in Tolkien’s Middle Earth.” Inklings Forever 5 (2006) www.taylor.edu/cslewis The Quest for Pity and Mercy in Tolkien’s Middle Earth Woody Wendling As a lover of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The kill Gollum, or at the very least to blind him. But then, Lord of the Rings, I would like to muse briefly on the “A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, books’ theme of pity and mercy, in particular that welled up in Bilbo’s heart.” Bilbo’s pity stayed his shown by Bilbo and Frodo. I will start with several hand, and prevented him from killing Gollum when he selected quotations from the books, then speculate on had the chance. Tolkien’s sources, and conclude with Tolkien’s I was surprised to discover that today’s version of “sermon illustrations” of pity and mercy. The Hobbit, the prologue to the “tribal bible,” is the “revised standard version.” This passage on pity was Selected Quotations not in the original (1937) edition of The Hobbit. Tolkien substantially rewrote the “Riddles in the Dark” We each have our beloved Tolkien passages. My chapter, to emphasize Gollum’s wretchedness and favorite one-liner in The Hobbit occurs just as Gollum Bilbo’s pity, as he was writing The Lord of the Rings.2 has lost the Ring: “Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We He sent his new version of the chapter to his publisher, hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!” I wish to Allen & Unwin, as “a specimen of rewriting” which he focus on the passage that immediately precedes had not necessarily intended for publication.3 Tolkien Gollum’s lament: was taken by surprise when the new version of the chapter found its way into the publisher’s page proofs “Bilbo almost stopped breathing, and went for the second (1951) edition of The Hobbit. This stiff himself. He was desperate. He must get rewritten version is the one we have today. away, out of this terrible darkness, while he Early on in The Fellowship of the Ring, in the had any strength left. He must fight. He must second chapter of the book, Tolkien stresses this theme stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It of pity and mercy in a conversation between Frodo and meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was Gandalf. Incidentally, this conversation was set much invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum later in the movie, after entering the mines of Moria: had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A Frodo: “. What a pity that Bilbo did not stab sudden understanding, a pity mixed with that vile creature, when he had a chance!” horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or Gandalf: “Pity? It was pity that stayed his hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if and escaped in the end, because he began his lifted by a new strength and resolve, he ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.” leaped.”1 Gollum has lost his prey, Bilbo Baggins, and his precious, the Ring, but little does he know that he almost lost his life. Bilbo’s first instinct was to stab and The Quest for Pity and Mercy in Tolkien’s Middle Earth ● Woody Wendling Frodo: “I am sorry. But I am frightened; and I kill them and he will repossess “his Precious.” Just do not feel any pity for Gollum. he is as outside Shelob’s lair on the stairs of Cirith Ungol, bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves Gollum almost repents and shows pity toward Frodo. In death.” this scene, Gollum returns to find Frodo and Sam sound asleep: Gandalf: “Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that “Gollum looked at them. A strange expression die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam do not be too eager to deal out death in faded from his eyes, and they went dim and judgement. For even the very wise cannot see grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum twist him, and he turned away, peering back can be cured before he dies, but there is a up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate engaged in some interior debate. Then he of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has came back, and slowly putting out a trembling some part to play yet, for good or ill, before hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s the end; and when that comes, the pity of knee—but almost the touch was a caress. For a Bilbo may rule the fate of many—yours not fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers the least.”4 have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by Author Ralph C. Wood considers this speech to be the years that had carried him far beyond his “the moral and religious center of the entire epic,” “its time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields animating theme.”5 He notes that this passage, “The and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many,” is “the only thing.” declaration to be repeated in all three volumes of The Lord of the Rings.”5 In this chapter we also discover But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out that Gollum was shown mercy not only by Bilbo, but by softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was others in the intervening years. The author Fleming wide awake. The first thing he saw was Rutledge observes the “conspicuous Mercy shown to Gollum—‘pawing at master,’ as he thought. Gollum even before the saga begins, starting with Bilbo, then continuing with Aragorn and the Wood- ‘Hey you!’ he said roughly. ‘What are you up elves and then Frodo (instructed by Gandalf), then to?’ Faramir, and finally in the last hour even Sam, who refrained from killing Gollum on the brink of Doom. ‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Gollum softly. ‘Nice This Mercy (Pity) is the theme that is highlighted by master!’ Tolkien perhaps most of all.”6 When Frodo gets his first chance to kill Gollum, in ‘I daresay,’ said Sam. ‘But where have you their face-to-face encounter in The Two Towers, he been to—sneaking off and sneaking back, you begins to feel pity: “Poor wretch! He has done us no old villain?’ harm.”7 Gandalf’s previous words on pity and mercy come back to Frodo’s mind as “voices out of the past,” Gollum withdrew himself, and a green glint so that Frodo is merciful toward Gollum. When Frodo flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider- gets another chance to have Gollum killed, in “The like he looked now, crouched back on his bent Forbidden Pool” chapter of The Two Towers, pity again limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting intervenes. Frodo stays Faramir’s hand: moment had passed, beyond recall . .”9 Faramir: “What have you to say now, Frodo? Sam’s thoughtless response to Gollum was for Why should we spare?” Tolkien perhaps the most tragic moment in The Lord of the Rings. According to one of Tolkien’s letters, Sam Frodo: “The creature is wretched and hungry, “plainly did not fully understand Frodo’s motives or his and unaware of his danger. And Gandalf, your distress in the incident of the Forbidden Pool. If he had Mithrandir, he would have bidden you not to understood better what was going on between Frodo slay him for that reason, and for others.” 8 and Gollum, things might have turned out differently in the end. For me perhaps the most tragic moment in the As regards pity and mercy, Gollum is the exact Tale comes . when Sam fails to note the complete opposite of Frodo.