The Great Tolkien Reread: The Council of Elrond, Part 2

"The Council of Elrond" by Cor Blok, 1960

'Then,' said Erestor, 'there are but two courses, as Glorfindel has already declared: to hide the Ring for ever; or to unmake it. But both are beyond our power. Who will read this riddle for us?'

'None here can do so,' said Elrond gravely. 'At least none can foretell what will come to pass, if we take this road or that. But it seems to me now clear which is the road that we must take. The westward road seems easiest. Therefore it must be shunned. It will be watched. Too often the Elves have fled that way. Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril—to Mordor. We must send the Ring to the Fire.'

In the first part of "The Council of Elrond", we learned about the Ring's history and Sauron's efforts to recover it (and also, that science is bad). Now comes the time to decide what to do about it—to reach the conclusion, so heavily hinted at already, that the Ring must be taken to Mordor to be destroyed in the fire in which it was forged, and that Frodo must be the one to carry it there.

The process of reaching this conclusion is couched as much in terms of logistics as morality or likeliness of success. Some of the alternatives raised, such as giving the Ring to Tom Bombadil for safekeeping, or taking it to the Grey Havens to be cast into the sea, are dismissed not just because Gandalf and Elrond sense they would be temporary solutions ("it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one"). But because taking the Ring west of Rivendell, where Sauron's spies are already active and on the lookout for hobbits and the name Baggins, is no longer feasible.

We've spoken already about the way this novel uses landscape as an obstacle; of characters who are hemmed in by the open wilderness around them. To that difficulty we now add the complication of how the landscape will frame Frodo, who is both uniquely recognizable and actively being sought. In a few chapters, Boromir will cavalierly insist that the best path to Mordor is to retrace his steps through the Gap of Rohan, not realizing that a journey safely undertaken by a single man will prove very different for a halfling, accompanied by a motley crew of companions, traveling right under Saruman's front porch. Frodo's only possible way forward is to go where he is not anticipated, which is to say by the most dangerous path.

(While we're on the subject of logistics, allow me this brief rant. If you take only one thing away from this series, let it be this: "why can't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor" is a dumb meme, designed to make people feel clever even as they ignore what the book is plainly saying. The reason this is not a viable option, of course, is that up until the very moment of the Ring's destruction Sauron has an air force, and that flying into Mordor is an attention-grabbing act at a point where, as we keep being told, courting a direct confrontation with Sauron's forces would be suicide. If there's one reason to be glad that Tolkien did not have the relationship with his fandom that modern authors do, it is that—unlike James Cameron with the equally misguided "there was room on the door" meme—he could not be bullied and gaslighted into agreeing with something that the text itself clearly explains is wrong.)

The conclusion that the only logistically possible path forward is the one that seems hopeless allows this chapter to bring into conversation one of the key ideas of The Lord of the Rings, the struggle between hope and despair. Both of these terms have appeared several times in the narratives presented earlier in this chapter, each time with somewhat different meanings. Saruman insists that "there is no hope" in elves or men, and that the only hope is to be found in surrendering to Sauron. Erestor the elf nervously suggests that taking the Ring to Mordor is "the path of despair. Or folly I would say, if the long wisdom of Elrond did not forbid me." Boromir sees hope in the Ring, and is clearly fighting off the fear that there is no hope for Gondor without it ("The Men of Gondor are valiant, and they will never submit; but they may be beaten down. Valor needs first strength, and then a weapon"). It is only Gandalf who is able to say that all their ideas of what is hopeless, and what may lead to salvation, are entirely backwards.

'Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.'

One of the criticisms that is often leveled at Tolkien is that his characters are not forced to make realistic compromises. That they are never placed in a position where there is no moral, correct choice on offer. We can debate whether that's true overall, but I think the point being made in this chapter is that often, people who claim to be in such positions are actually taking the path of least resistance. "Despair is only for those who see the end without all doubt," Gandalf says, and implicit in that pronouncement (and in the fact that the person who seems most certain in his view of the end is Saruman) is that anyone who claims such an ability is more likely to be arrogant than correct.

The question of Tolkien's moral realism, it seems to me, comes down to conflicting views of how a fantasy story should work. In one corner—one that is often ascribed to George R.R. Martin, though he's certainly not the only writer working in this mode—we have a story whose characters can make a realistic and mostly accurate assessments of their options and the likely consequences of each of the choices on offer. In the other corner, we have Tolkien, who insists that there is hope in making a dangerous, seemingly doomed choice that is also the right one, and trusting that things will work out. Which is, to be clear, a religious claim, because The Lord of the Rings is a religious novel (specifically a Catholic one). What Gandalf is urging the other members of the council to have hope in—the force that has brought the Ring to Frodo, the force that will reward Bilbo's choice of mercy towards Gollum by ensuring that he plays his part in the story, the force that will step up if the members of the council make a leap of faith, and choose the course that seems hopeless but is the only right one—that force is providence.

I am not a Catholic and I've seen very little evidence of providence in my life, so it's hard for me to say that Tolkien makes a successful moral argument in this chapter—or rather, it is successful within the cosmology that he has created for his world, which is not our world. But still, when I see people crow about making "hard choices" that are clearly the ones they wanted to make in the first place, when I see cruelty and isolationism lauded as virtues—and especially, when the people who say these things wave The Lord of the Rings around as proof of their claims, I think that there is merit in what he's saying in this chapter that goes beyond its religious subtext. In a world that valorizes strength—which was Tolkien's world, as much as it is ours—there's something to be said for a hero who is weak, but willing to do the right thing.

No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.

'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.'

Next time: A Middle Earth travelogue on June 16th, in which we discuss "The Ring Goes South"

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