. Alas, not me: Authorial high-jinks on the slopes of Mount Doom

01 May 2020

Authorial high-jinks on the slopes of Mount Doom



As we've seen before, Tolkien is hardly averse to slipping a bit of humor or even (gasp!) irony into his writing. We might not expect it on the slopes of Mount Doom, however.
And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dur was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung. 
(RK 6.iii.946, emphasis mine)

Sauron's discovery of what a fool he's been is apocalyptic both literally and metaphorically, and I would be hard-pressed to say which sense predominates. The Greek verb from which apocalypse and apocalyptic derive -- ἀποκαλύπτω -- means quite simply 'to reveal', as in 'the magnitude of his folly was revealed to him'. The New Testament book known in English as Revelation is called Ἀποκάλυψις (Apocalypsis) in the Greek original. Metaphorically, of course, it has been used for well over a century to mean: 

'Of, relating to, or characteristic of a disaster resulting in drastic, irreversible damage to human society or the environment, esp. on a global scale; cataclysmic.' 
(OED)
 That same sentence also recalls the moment thousands of years before, which Gandalf spoke of in The Council of Elrond:

For in the day that Sauron first put on the One, Celebrimbor, maker of the Three, was aware of him, and from afar he heard him speak these words, and so his evil purposes were revealed. 
(FR 2.ii.253)
and
Out of the Black Years come the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed: 
   One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
   One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.
(FR 2.ii.254)

The irony here is nothing short of precious.

Finally there's the 'blinding flash' which paradoxically allows Sauron to see, which it is tempting to see as an allusion to Amazing Grace, except that in Tolkien's time Roman Catholics and Protestants were rather less ecumenical with their hymns than they have since become. Then, too, Amazing Grace seems to have been far better known in the US than it was in the UK, where it only became popular in the 1950s and was first published in a hymnody in the 1960s. So, we had better regard this as unlikely to be an allusion, though not impossible.

6 comments:

  1. Kate Neville05 May, 2020 23:01

    Very interesting indeed. I was put in mind of my 2018 Mythmoot paper on metanoia in LOTR. I was focused on Eowyn, Gimli, and Theoden, but your take on the apocalyptic turn in the stories of Sauron and Celebrimbor might be a catastrophic mirror to the eucatastrophe of the metanoia I wrote about.

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  2. Thanks, Kate. I remember that paper well. Could you send me a copy?

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    1. I'm going to try sending a pdf via Facebook Messenger.
      And I just gave a quick read of your most recent post... my first thought was the contrast between what Gandalf thought while they were talking in Rivendell, that he would come to be filled with a light that some eyes could see (obviously paraphrasing), something that is echoed in Sam's thoughts in Ithilien. [Ha! Just found your email in an old FB Message]

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    2. The Rivendell passage and the one later with Sam in Ithilien were on my mind as I wrote this. It's interesting that Sam sees this transition here, and Gandalf was speculating on what would become of Frodo and recognizing that it would be a near run thing whether he came to evil or became like a clear glass.

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  3. Perhaps the blinding flash alludes not to Amazing Grace but its source in Saul's revelation on the road to Damascus?

    What do you think Sauron understands at this moment of self-awareness? The text seems to go beyond just the laying bare of his enemies' plans, to suggest Sauron's sudden apprehension of his own mortality, the sense of reversal where the mighty are brought low, and even a recognition of a "thread" of fate supervening his own plots and machinations. If God is speaking to Sauron at his last, how far can Sauron understand him? After all, no one would get the ironies you illuminate here better than Sauron himself. In a way, they exist specifically for him.

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  4. The Road to Damascus is a nice idea. Yes I think recognition by Sauron is important. I tend to think of this as a bit of a Daffy Duck moment, with Sauron saying 'not again.'

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPFQKpRnd0

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