Inspired by a re-read of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, I’ve been riffing on an idea I got from @ayjay: namely, that one of the biggest problems to be worked out in these stories is the temptation to take a healthy appreciation for an inherited good and then seek to possess that good singularly, and finally to twist that good into a device to serve one’s own vainglory. Inspired by Jacobs' coining of a “Fëanor temptation,” we can see several examples of this descent into error in The Silmarillion, as I outlined last time.

In LotR, the theme continues, as several figures who come in and out of the orbit of the One Ring become similarly tempted. Sauron, being Morgoth’s chief lieutenant, of course imbues the ring with his own libido dominandi, and in every case of a person being tempted to use the ring, this overwhelming force is present, but only as the method by which the temptation would be gratified. It is interesting for our purposes to note exactly what each person is tempted to do with the power the ring promises to provide.

Two examples will suffice. Boromir, captain of Gondor and heir to the Stewardship of the realm, has spent his life preparing for and prosecuting the war against Sauron. So when Boromir succumbs to temptation at the end of Book II, the process naturally begins with him merely seeking to better serve as protector of his people. As he explains to Frodo, “[Gondor] does not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause.” But as the discussion spirals further into disagreement and quarreling, Boromir moves quickly to the final stage of his temptation, which is to drop the pretense of representing the interests of Gondor and to seek his own aggrandizement:

…why not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!'

Boromir strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly: Almost he seemed to have forgotten Frodo, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious victories to be; and he cast down Mordor, and became himself a mighty king, benevolent and wise.

And so does Boromir go from the entirely virtuous position of seeking to preserve the thing he loves (his country), and from this point find himself quickly envisioning his own usurpation of lordship, not only in Gondor but in other lands as well. Just as Melkor, in the earliest moments of creation, desired his song to be heard at the exclusion of all others, so does Boromir come to desire his vision to be carried out over and above all other wills.

Much later, Samwise the gardener, forced by circumstances to briefly bear the ring, also finds himself tempted by its power. The promise of force at work in the temptation bears a striking similarity to Boromir’s vision: “Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur”–clearly, the evil knows only one way of accomplishing its tasks. But the personal subtlety of the temptation comes in its denouement: “and then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit.” Sam might do it all, not for glory as a Boromir would, but for a garden, one that might stretch and grow to cover all of Middle Earth.

In both cases, however, the end result would be a kind of cancer, a magnification of something that is good and noble in its due time and place (Boromir’s Gondor, Sam’s humble garden) until it engulfed all other lands and choked out all other elements of the good. A virtue metastasized becomes a vice.

Samwise, of course, passes the test, and sees right through the wiles of Sauron. Not for Sam is the job of arborist of Middle Earth, but he would be content with but “one small garden of a free gardener…his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.” So it would seem that the key is to cultivate a humble satisfaction with one’s place in the world and the status quo.

That theory might hold water, were it not for the case of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, who seems to make just such an appeal to stability as his mind turns to madness under Sauron’s influence. What to make of that development, and how again our noble hobbits might offer a better way, are thoughts for another time.