Who in the fellowship would be the next to be corrupted?

[Sunken Valley]

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the One Ring not only has a corrupting effect on Frodo but on those surrounding him, like Boromir, who tried to take the ring from Frodo. The Fellowship get broken up soon afterwards, meaning only Frodo and Sam were in the ring's proximity. But what if they hadn't? What if the nine of them (assuming that Gandalf the White re-unites with them) had stayed together? Who would have been corrupted next? Who would have stuck with the quest for the whole thing with little negative effect?

Feel free also to discuss the other ramifications of the Fellowship staying together although the title is my main question.

[Tiki Snakes]

Frodo. His paranoia would only have gotten worse with more people to watch and that would given the ring a way in.

Next thing you know, he's living in a cave eating blind fish in the dark.

[Eldan]

Might be Frodo, might be one of the foolish hobbits (though they weren't as bad as in the movies). Just imagine if they were still close to the ring after taking up the Palantir. I can't see Gimli or Legolas going for it, and neither Aragorn nor Gandalf fit at all.

[Yora]

Interesting question. I assume Gandalf is still absent, as he would probably be a major factor in resisting it. He might even have been able to hold Boromir back for a bit longer.

Not sure how it's in the book, but Gandalf right out refuses to ever touch it and the movie has the scene in which Galadriel is tempted. Also, Frodo and especially Sam hold out for so long because the Ring does not have anything to offer them. In the end it's Frodos "burden" to save the world all by himself that the corruption can use as leverage.

Merry and Pippin are lacking the integrity of Sam, but there still isn't much the ring can offer, so I'd rule them out as well.

That leaves Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas.
Aragon is by far the easiest to target, but also the most strong willed.
Gimli would have much less power to resist it, but I don't know what the ring could use to latch on. He signed up for a suicide mission which he didn't really expect to succeed and it was mostly an opportunity to go down fighting. Maybe the Ring could plant the idea that Frodo is not reliable and a danger to the mission. I think this would be the most likely scenario.

[Chromascope3D]

I'd have to say Gimli. Dwarves are known to be greedy, and even though Gimli was an honorable dwarf, Boromir was an honorable man as well, and we all know how well that went.

[Traab]

I would say aragorn is a distinct possibility. He had some personal issues and such that would be easy for the ring to prey on. "I can make it so you live forever. You and arwen can be together for all time. " Things like that. Thats just the first one off the top of my head, because I know he has more issues than that one. The elf and dwarf would be the least likely to fall for it imo. Mainly because, racially speaking, i think they have already proven to be pretty resilient against rings that offer corruption to them. Merry or Pippin I could see. They probably wouldnt be that hard to trick into jealousy. 'Why does FRODO get to be the important one? What does HE have that I dont? I could carry the ring better than frodo does. Ill prove it!" So for me its a tossup between aragorn, merry, and pippin. Probably the hobbits would be more likely. Mainly because aragorn really KNOWS what the ring is, and what its capable of. Merry and pippin would be less wary and vigilant against its whispers.

[Yora]

I think the ring works by calling out to specific targets instead of having a general corrupting aura. Targeting Merry or Pippin would provide no real benefit over Frodo and only raise more suspicion.
Switching to Boromir would have been a major step up. Through him the Ring would not only have the body of a powerful warrior, but also direct access to the highest leadership of Gondor. Removing Denethor would have been no problem at all and then getting Boromir to Mordor while Gondors soldiers hunt Aragon would bring everything to a swift end.

[Eldan]

See, you could continue with that line on the Hobbits. "I am a Took/Brandybuck he's just a Baggins, we are the ones who protect all the shire from monsters/ we are the most valorous hobbits/we should be Lords of the shire..."

The Ring could find something.

[Gnoman]

You have to consider what levers the ring would put into play. Sam proved himself resistant to the ring's promises, but hes temptation, filling all the world with gardens, is illustrative both of the Ring's tactics, and the secret of Hobbit resistance to it. The ploy the ring made, while tempting, was surprisingly weak, and trying to link "lover of gardens" with "dominate the world" was indicative of how hard it was for the Ring to find some means of tempting him.

Now, how would the others be tempted?

Peregrin is driven by intense curiosity, which is a vulnerability. Unlike Gollum, however, Pippin never sought secrets for the sake of harming others, or for gain. He sought them for their own sake, for the need to know. This would make it much harder to tempt him. Meriadoc would be much easier, as he's by far the most likely of the hobbits to take an active hand in events. Fortunately, however, he is motivated by loyalty to his comrades rather than a thirst for power. The ring would have a difficult time linking that with it's own inherently selfish nature.

Seeing that the hobbits would prove a hard sell, we turn to the remaining three. Aragorn is an obvious choice, as he lusts for the regaining of his crown and the establishment of his kingdom. Equally threatening is his desire to cast down Mordor. The desire to throw down an enemy that you might rule is an easy lever for the Ring, so he's vulnerable there. However, Aragorn has proved to have an extremely strong will, being able not only to bend the palantir of Orthanc to his will, but to use it to face Sauron directly, a test that even Gandalf feared. This would armor him against the wiles of the Ring.

Moving to Gimli, there's a lot of potential. He was clearly in favor of the expedition to Moria, so the power to cleanse it of orcs (especially after the Balrog was cast down) would be powerfully tempting. The lust for gold is strong in all dwarves, notably in Gimli's own father, as evidenced in the Battle of Five Armies. Set against that is the fact that Rings of Power were always less effective against Dwarves than other races, as the Seven utterly failed to enslave them.

Legolas is something of an enigma, but there's some obvious vulnerabilities. If the Ring is destroyed, the power of the Elves will be broken, and his people will in time vanish from Middle Earth altogether. The beauties of Rivendell and Lothlorien will fade, and all the works of the Elves will fade away. If, however, he takes up the ring and masters it, he will have the power to restore the Elves to mastery of Middle Earth. Just such a temptation nearly proved too much for Galadriel, who is as Elf far greater in wisdom and power. There is no telling how well he would resist it, as he was not put to the test.

I think that Legolas would be most likely to fall, with Aragorn as a distant second.

[Eldan]

If Meriadoc is motivated by loyalty, one lever would be "Take me up, and your friends will not have to suffer on this pointless journey through Moria."
Of course, that can come later. First it can be the same as with Sam. "Poor Frodo is suffering, carry the ring for him, just for a while."

[Traab]

The interesting thing that I think I remember is, the ring didnt try to tempt sam until he was physically holding it. Perhaps there is some intrinsic resistance that hobbits have that requires physical contact to breech, otherwise the ring would have been whispering to sam the entire time they were separated from the rest of the fellowship, instead of just that one time. Even at the cracks of mount doom, sam wanted it tossed in, but frodo, who had been wearing it for so long, and gollum of course, were under its control at that point. That adds further credence to the thought that the ring is not able to influence hobbits without direct contact. The longer the stronger.

It may be that humans are just innately weak against the rings power, considering the history behind it. Isildur failed to have the strength to destroy it about an hour after taking hold of it. (seriously elrond, you should have just chucked the bastard into the lava with the ring) Boromir was seduced by it despite only even seeing the dang thing once back in rivendell, and I think even faramir felt the pull, though he resisted it. And of course the black riders, proud kings of men, all fell and were twisted, the only race to be overcome by saurons trickery.

[snoopy13a]

I think all of them could have escorted Frodo to Mount Doom without being corrupted. So I guess, I'd say Frodo would be the next.

[Goosefeather]

The interesting thing that I think I remember is, the ring didnt try to tempt sam until he was physically holding it. Perhaps there is some intrinsic resistance that hobbits have that requires physical contact to breech, otherwise the ring would have been whispering to sam the entire time they were separated from the rest of the fellowship, instead of just that one time. Even at the cracks of mount doom, sam wanted it tossed in, but frodo, who had been wearing it for so long, and gollum of course, were under its control at that point. That adds further credence to the thought that the ring is not able to influence hobbits without direct contact. The longer the stronger.

Smeagol might be a counterargument - didn't he attack Deagol for the ring before ever actually touching it himself?

It's been a while since I read the books, but if he's not pure hobbit himself, he's something very close to it - "Sméagol and Déagol were apparently either Hobbits of Stoorish descent or else close relatives of the breed", according to Wikipedia.

[Traab]

Smeagol might be a counterargument - didn't he attack Deagol for the ring before ever actually touching it himself?

It's been a while since I read the books, but if he's not pure hobbit himself, he's something very close to it - "Sméagol and Déagol were apparently either Hobbits of Stoorish descent or else close relatives of the breed", according to Wikipedia.

True, it may never be known then, why the ring didnt seem to target anyone but boromir. Its possible that the ring actually didnt target him, it was happy with going to mordor, it would do its subtle mind screwery of frodo so he wouldnt toss the ring into the lava, but other than that, it WANTS to go to mordor, thats where sauron is. In the case of smeagol and deagol, it may have been exerting itself to make sure SOMEONE kept ahold of it. Boromir may have just been a really weak willed guy. Unable to resist the ring when it wasnt even trying to turn him.

[Razanir]

I'll answer the other question: What if they hadn't split up? Note: I know the books a whole lot better than the movies. Bear with me on a few differences.

The change I will make to their characters to induce this is Frodo not wanting to split the party (Never split the party, man! ). So when they fought near Rauros, Boromir would still have died and Merry and Pippin would still have been carried off by orcs. This would lead to them taking the same path, but with Frodo and Sam still there. That is, they would go through Fangorn, meet Gandalf, go to Edoras, help fight at the Hornburg (Helm's Deep), go to Orthanc, and meet up with Merry, Pippin and the ents. Sorry about that text-dumpy sentence. IMHO, from there, Gandalf would rush Frodo to Minas Tirith instead of Pippin to get the Ring as far from that palantír as possible. Eventually, the company would be together again in Minas Tirith before the Black Days, IIRC. Notably, they haven't met Gollum by now. They don't know about the back entrance through Shelob's Lair and Cirith Ungol. The only way they know into Mordor is through the Black Gates. Unfortunately, that's in Sauron's front yard... where he can easily get the ring back. So long story short, the Breaking of the Fellowship actually was crucial to the Ring being destroyed

[Lord Tyger]

I don't think it's just a matter of the Ring's active corruption- that seems to be something that works mostly on people in possession of it. It's also that the Ring is an immensely powerful tool and weapon. In this reading, it wasn't so much the Ring exerting magical mind-control powers on Boromir, it was the fact that Boromir was A) desperate to find a means to protect Gondor from the forces of Mordor and B) reluctant from the beginning to accept the wisdom of Gandalf and the elves. He challenges Gandalf repeatedly, and not just about the ring.

With this in mind, I'm not sure anyone else would have been corrupted. Even setting aside Boromir trying to take it, after Galadriel's reaction to the ring, and given his own growing corruption, it's unlikely that Frodo would willingly let any of the others touch it, so long as he had a choice, and I don't think anyone else would have tried to take it by force. The rest of them were more ready to listen to Gandalf, who warned against trying to use it as a weapon, and, at the time they set out, none of their homelands was under as direct a threat as Gondor.

It would be interesting to see what would happen in the rest of the matters, though. Without Aragorn to command the Grey Host, and Gandalf to counter the Witch King, Minas Tirith would probably have fallen. Then, too, there wouldn't have been nearly the same force assembled for the Battle of the Morannon, even if a similar diversionary attack could be coordinated, meaning it's entirely possible that the full brunt of Sauron's forces would have fallen upon the company in Mordor.

[Coidzor]

Hmm, tough one. My knowledge of the power of the rings and dwarves is that, at least for the corrupted rings that sauron gave them, they mostly just resisted the influence of the ring or just became dwarfier rather than sauron's playthings. I assume that the corruptions are related, which would suggest that Gimli being a dwarf would give him some advantage relative to a human with dwarven personality traits.

Being pure-blood Numenorean didn't help Isildur with the ring, nor did being mostly pure Numenorean help Boromir, so race-wise, Aragorn is SOL.

Saruman had a personal vendetta against Sauron rather than being concerned with his duty and forming a love for and bond with the people of Middle Earth, but I don't know how much that would really benefit Gandalf. Certainly I don't see him being the first to be corrupted, though.

Merry and Pippin while mischievous and not as steadfast as Sam, basically don't seem to really want things beyond their curiosity, and I'm not sure how much of a hook that would be for the Ring.

Best guess would be Frodo then one of Aragorn/Gimli/Legolas then Merry/Pippin then Gandalf/Sam, but I can't really argue out a good reason for that feeling.

[Dienekes]

I'd have to say Gimli. Dwarves are known to be greedy, and even though Gimli was an honorable dwarf, Boromir was an honorable man as well, and we all know how well that went.

Actually Tolkien makes a point that though Dwarves are greedy they have a natural defense against mind control, which is part of why Sauron's rings just weakened the race of dwarves instead of gaining complete control of the wearers and why when Aragorn was planning on splitting the party he wanted Gimli to go with Frodo.

Anyway. I'm gonna say one of the hobbits, Frodo himself was supposed to be incredibly resistant to the ring (why he got it to Mount Doom in the first place), but the rest of them could have fallen (likely that Fool of a Took), even Samwise the Brave was may have wanted to take the ring for Frodo's own protection.

[Raimun]

Let's see. It seems that the humble ones, living a simple life, seem to have more resistance against the influence of the ring. It's because the ring doesn't have much to offer for people like hobbits. It is a tool for world domination and hobbits don't naturally seek to dominate even the nearby town. The ring and its potential go just way over their head. I'd say either of the two hobbits would hold the longest but I can't imagine either would last as long as Sam and Frodo.

Gandalf knows exactly what he is dealing with and what the stakes are, so it's not impossible to imagine he would hold really long too, even though he would ultimately try to wield the ring and use its power.

Aragorn could perhaps come close to or even exceed Gandalf. He's still mortal but he has much more willpower than most mortals. As said above, he did resist Palantir. That means he could hold long but also that he could fool himself and think he has enough willpower to "tame" the ring.

That leaves Gimli and Legolas. They are both somewhat young members of an old and powerful race. Races that are seeing their last times. Like Boromir, one of these two proud warriors would probably try to take the ring next. They both lack the certain "down to earth"-humilty and the extraordinary willpower of a future king and a Maiar. They would try to claim the ring for their people (read: themselves) so that they could save them. The ring has much to offer for them but they aren't that special in the grand scheme of things. To sum it up, I suspect these two because they are more like Boromir than the others.

[McStabbington]

I'd say either Peregrin or Gimli.

The Ring works by taking your desires and twisting them to serve evil ends. Boromir fell first not because he wasn't a person of strong will and a good heart. The appendices show that Boromir had both to spare. Rather, his problem was that his desires were in a way closest to his heart. He'd been the field marshal for an army slowly losing the war for years. His father had drilled his duty to Gondor into him from his birth. And he'd left behind a brother that he dearly loved to take his place alone and unaided. It was quite obvious that the Ring would find his fears and stoke them into doing something that he never ordinarily would do.

So who falls next depends largely on who has the weakness that the Ring can most easily exploit. The most obvious is Pippin: for the first book, there isn't a boneheaded move that can be done that he doesn't do. Now it is true that his motives are relatively innocent; he mostly does things just to see what will happen. But Boromir's motives started out as noble and excellent, and look where the Ring got him by the end. On the other hand, while Pippin's weakness is nearer the surface, Gimli's is more exploitable. Gimli starts out with some serious reservations about the rest of the party. To be blunt, the dude has some latent racism towards elves but with no great trust or friendliness towards men for that matter. I don't imagine it would be too difficult for the Ring to start working on that and stroke his suspicions. Before too long, it's hardly inconceivable that the Dwarf would go ape out of paranoia that if he doesn't act, the elf or the human will.

[Tergon]

My vote would be for Legolas.

For all that the Elves are the "superior race" they are not above the corruption of the One Ring. And there's many different ways it could attack his mind - he, like Boromir, is the son of a powerful Lord that is under threat from the power of Mordor. Every reason that Boromir wanted the Ring for is one that could reasonably be applied to Legolas, save that he has been far better educated in the terrible dangers of using it. But whether he took it while intending to "give it back when he was done", or because he "had no choice", it could happen.
Far more likely, though, would be that once Boromir had fallen and Frodo was suffering under his burden, Legolas would fear that Frodo wouldn't be able to last the journey. He wouldn't trust another Man with the One Ring, he wouldn't trust a greedy Dwarf with the One Ring, and even if he trusted the Hobbits, he would doubt their ability to get it to Mount Doom. I think he'd take it because he'd honestly start to believe he was the only one with the Elven wisdom and the strength to carry it.

Gimli, I think, would be able to resist the Ring's power pretty well. He'd know the terrible danger of ever putting on the Ring, he's seen what happened to Balin when they came to Moria in search of one of the Dwarven Rings, and it's specifically stated that Dwarves are incredibly hard to influence aside from their desire for wealth. Of course, he might know all of that, which would be why he'd take the ring "To keep it safe" until it finally broke him, but I suspect he'd do pretty well. Still, I think he'd be my second choice.

As for the others... Aragorn and Gandalf specifically turned down chances to take the ring when it was all but offered to them on a silver platter. Samwise was the only member of the Party who had the ring and gave it up, despite terribly strong reasons not to, and that the ring was at the height of its power at the time. He's safe. And as for Merry and Pippin, I don't think they'd want it. They don't have enough of an ego to want the power the Ring could offer them, and they've seen what it's been doing to Frodo. At most they might carry it if only to spare Frodo his burden, but they'd be too scared to use it, especially after Pippin learned his mistake with the Palantir.

[Traab]

What I wonder is, if frodo had actually been killed by shelob, and sam had to carry out the mission, would he have managed to toss the ring? Unlike frodo, who had been holding the ring for a year or so, sam would have had it for about a week or two tops, even though that week or two would have taken place with the ring being its strongest. Would sam have pulled a frodo and gotten into a wrestling match with gollum over the ring and fallen to their deaths? Would he have gutted gollum like a fish and then claimed the ring for himself, only to get obliterated by sauron?

[Dienekes]

Ehh, according to Word of God, Frodo's inability to toss the ring in was supposed to be an example that at the center of it's power, no one could have resisted the ring. So, that would make it seem that Sam would have not been able to toss the ring either.

[Gnoman]

Perhaps a better question is whether Sam actually could have given the Ring away willingly, or if the Ring didn't fight him because it wanted to go back to Frodo, who was nearly under it's sway.

[endoperez]

Gimli starts out with some serious reservations about the rest of the party. To be blunt, the dude has some latent racism towards elves but with no great trust or friendliness towards men for that matter. I don't imagine it would be too difficult for the Ring to start working on that and stroke his suspicions. Before too long, it's hardly inconceivable that the Dwarf would go ape out of paranoia that if he doesn't act, the elf or the human will.

Gimli, the rare dwarf who is best friends with an elf, falls head-over-heels for a pretty elven lady (Galadriel), and whose heart's desire is to encase some of Galadriel's hairs in a crystal, sure shows a lot of latent racism.

I recently re-read parts of the books. Those are what Gimli is singled out on.

I also read the explanation of what the Seven Rings did do dwarves - they didn't affect them as they did others. Dwarves were only corrupted in a roundabout way - their greed towards gold was greatly enhanced. That's it. You could try arguing it from that angle (the ring is too precious to be destroyed!), but the racism angle doesn't work IMHO...

[Gnoman]

Movie!Gimli did show a lot of speciesism, but that wasn't really present in the actual book.

[Traab]

Movie!Gimli did show a lot of speciesism, but that wasn't really present in the actual book.

Yeah, they really kinda twisted gimli around in the films. He became a freaking joke character, when in reality, he and boromir where probably the two most pure warrior types in the group. Legolas is more of a scout and archer, and aragorn had a vast assortment of skills, those two were warriors, not punchlines to short jokes. Did they ever even TRY to establish that gimli and legolas became friends by the end of the story?I honestly dont recall hearing anything to that effect. Lets list the jokes at gimlis expense.

1) The chain mail pooling around his feet at helms deep
2) Not being able to see over the battlements
3) "Shall I fetch you a box to stand on?"
4) "Toss me!"
5) All the running jokes when they were trying to recuse pippin and merry
6) The drunken dwarf that cant hold his booze
7) dwarven women
8) "I have eyes like a hawk and ears like a fox" he then walks face first into an arrow being pointed at him, and is the one singled out for "breathing too loudly"
9) "I would cut off your head, dwarf, if it stood but a little farther from the ground"


They just kept heaping on the ridicule to gimli and dwarves in general and half the time he laughed about it. Hell, often he was the one doing the insulting!

[oblivion6]

they did establish gimli and legolas were friends at the end. i believe it went something like...

gimli: i never thought i would die fighting alongside an elf.

legolas: what about dying side by side a friend.

gimli: aye, i could do that...

[Eldan]

Yes. I think that was by far the most annoying thing in the movies. More annoying than Faramir (who, I must admit, I barely remembered before re-reading the books for the sixth or so time). Gimli was utterly destroyed in those movies, especially the second. I liked Gimli. He was my favourite of the Fellowship when I was a kid. Probably still is.

[Razanir]

Yeah, they really kinda twisted gimli around in the films. He became a freaking joke character, when in reality, he and boromir where probably the two most pure warrior types in the group. Legolas is more of a scout and archer, and aragorn had a vast assortment of skills, those two were warriors, not punchlines to short jokes. Did they ever even TRY to establish that gimli and legolas became friends by the end of the story?I honestly dont recall hearing anything to that effect. Lets list the jokes at gimlis expense.

1) The chain mail pooling around his feet at helms deep
2) Not being able to see over the battlements
3) "Shall I fetch you a box to stand on?"
4) "Toss me!"
5) All the running jokes when they were trying to recuse pippin and merry
6) The drunken dwarf that cant hold his booze
7) dwarven women
8) "I have eyes like a hawk and ears like a fox" he then walks face first into an arrow being pointed at him, and is the one singled out for "breathing too loudly"
9) "I would cut off your head, dwarf, if it stood but a little farther from the ground"


They just kept heaping on the ridicule to gimli and dwarves in general and half the time he laughed about it. Hell, often he was the one doing the insulting!

Although #7 is kinda funny... That aside in the books they went so far as to visit each other's homelands. Not just an elf visiting Erebor(?), not just a dwarf visiting Mirkwood, them visiting EACH OTHER