I've thought of a title for this substack
...And the single best adaptational change Peter Jackson made to Lord of the Rings
You’re probably thinking right now, “Is this guy serious? Another Tolkien-centric post? When he referred to ‘art’ in his last post, did he just mean LotR? Is this all we’re going to see from him?”
The answers, respectively, are: “Yes, yes, no, no.”
In this post I aim not only to shed light on the worthiest change Peter Jackson made to J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material which—dare I say—improves upon the book-scene in question, which is also the best single moment across the entire 11-hour cinematic adaptation, but in so-doing I also mean to explain the inspiration behind the name of my Substack, “I’ve thought of an inciting incident for my book.” So you see? Not everything I talk about relates back to The Lord of the Rings!
…although now I’m wondering why that’s the case…
Near the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, immediately following his farewell speech at his eleventy-first birthday party, Bilbo speaks to the wizard Gandalf of his plans. He says he feels old and in need of a change, and that he means never to return to his home in the Shire.
Well I've made up my mind, anyway. I want to see mountains again, Gandalf – mountains; and then find somewhere where I can rest. In peace and quiet, without a lot of relatives prying around, and string of confounded visitors hanging on the bell. I might find somewhere where I can finish my book. I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days (p. 45).
Bilbo simultaneously expresses a yearning for the adventure of bygone years and a desire for spending his remaining days in peace and quiet, a plan where he will journey to Rivendell, the home of the elves he first visited in his travels with Thorin and co. in The Hobbit. I, and probably most people, relate to Bilbo’s dream of retirement being a perfect combination of both adventure and relaxation.
Yet there is one factor that might impinge Bilbo’s getaway at the Last Homely House—the Ring. Gandalf has begun to expect that item’s true nature and its effect on Bilbo, and in this scene Bilbo doubles back on a prior arrangement he had made with Gandalf: that he would leave the ring behind when he departs the Shire. As Bilbo recants this bargain he call the ring ‘precious,’ as its previous owner Gollum was wont to do, leading Gandalf to implore him: “You will be a fool if you do, Bilbo […]. You make that clearer with every word you say. It has got far too much hold on you. Let it go! And then you can be yourself, and be free” (p. 46). Gandalf senses the ring’s addictive influence on his old friend, even if his old friend cannot.
Luckily for Bilbo, he has mostly used the ring’s powers of invisibility in fairly benign ways: to disappear when the pesky Sackville-Bagginses come visiting, or, most famously, at his birthday party, when he vanishes immediately after delivering an incensing speech to his guests. It’s a great scene and fills Bilbo with self-satisfaction, and we can imagine other hijinks he’s gotten up to with his handy piece of jewelry. But comparing this prank to how he used the ring in The Hobbit to save his own skin from Gollum, goblins, and the dragon Smaug; and save his friends from Mirkwood’s giant spiders and imprisonment by hostile elves; we observe that Bilbo’s uses for the ring are becoming increasingly self-serving. And after Gandalf confronts him, Bilbo confesses:
I am always wanting to put it on and disappear, don’t you know; or wondering if it is safe, and pulling it out to make sure. I tried locking it up, but I found I couldn’t rest without it in my pocket. I don’t know why. And I don’t seem able to make up my mind (p. 47).
Perhaps unbeknownst to Bilbo, the ring has now driven his behavior far from being even a clever trickster, let alone the helpful burglar of his younger days. Its influence has made him a paranoid shirker of duties.
Perhaps our own vices start this way, with good intentions as the foot in the door to corruption. I might justify my penchant for putting off chores in favor of watching a movie that could inspire my writing, but such habitual excuse-making could eventually lead me to neglect not only my writing, but my duties as a husband and father. The brilliance of Tolkien’s One Ring lies in its perfect analogy for the temptation to succumb to evil in our own world. The ring bends the will of its bearer each according to his or her own capacities and desires. A corrupted hobbit becomes a shriveled, thieving, pathetic creature capable of mostly petty crimes (sorry, Deagol), whereas a corrupted wizard or elf-queen wielding the ring could rival the power of the Dark Lord himself and subject the free peoples of Middle-Earth to their will. Just like the evils we commit, the evil the ring drives its wearer to is personal, self-serving, and seems like the sensible thing to do at the time.
Now we come to the movie counterpart of this scene. In Jackson’s movie as in the book, Gandalf confronts Bilbo after his birthday party farewell speech. However, there is a notable difference—in a previous scene, Bilbo had already revealed his plan to depart the Shire and his longing to see mountains, finish his book, etc. And now he goes on to refuse to part with the ring, Gandalf reluctantly makes a display of power to snap Bilbo out of it, and Bilbo breaks down crying and regretful.
Now we get to the good part. Bilbo finally agrees to leave the ring behind, but he still almost walks out the front door with it, not realizing it’s still in his pocket! He turns to relinquish it to Gandalf, but, unable or unwilling to hand it over, he slowly turns his hand and lets it fall—it appears that the ring clings to his palm before it drops with a resounding clang.
Then Bilbo steps outside several paces from his open front door, stops short to grimace and blink rapidly, takes a deep breath of the night air, and says with an air of realization: “I’ve thought of an ending for my book.” Turning to Gandalf, he utters, “‘And he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.’”
I can’t watch this scene without tearing up.
In Jackson’s version, with the ring in his possession—or, more accurately, in the possession of the ring—Bilbo does not—perhaps cannot—foresee a good end to his tale. After all, one of the ring’s powers is that it bestows unending life—but we have seen what kind of a life it is in Gollum’s case. And immediately upon surrendering it, not only can Bilbo envision his story coming to an end, but Bilbo can see himself happy. His mind has been consumed with the aforementioned tricks and in obsessively keeping the ring safe upon him. He can neither look ahead to the future nor even dwell properly in the present moment. And then, after owning the ring and being owned by it for 60 years, he lets it go. He lets it go, and immediately he undergoes a change.
The allegory of the ring for addiction is never more evident than at this moment. The addict can only think of his next fix, the instant gratification of scratching the itch of drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography—these little painkillers so entirely absorb a person that he loses himself and any thought of what it means to really live, to pursue true happiness.
Maybe it’s easy to miss this quiet moment in the sprawling epic trilogy, but in it we find the heart and soul of Middle-Earth. I believe Tolkien himself would have been pleased with Jackson’s changes to this scene for its revelation that we can cast aside evil at any moment—that no matter how powerful the darkness’ hold on us, we can at any moment decide to unfetter ourselves.
*
Hopefully by now you at least partially understand why I paraphrased Bilbo’s quote for the title of my substack. Its message is more than one of fairytale hopes for happily-ever-afters; indeed, it resonates with and is of the utmost importance to anyone with a vice to renounce.
I changed from “ending” to “inciting incident” because when I set out to write something because, unlike movie-Bilbo, I almost always have an idea of how it will end. The ending is one of the first sections of the story I visualize, even if piecemeal. By the time I reach the end of a story or novel, I’ve found that the ending practically writes itself.
Perhaps the hardest part of the story for me is how to get my characters moving—how to motivate them, push them into the fray, induce them to act without making it sound forced. They need to be free agents. That’s always where I struggle. It stands to reason, given that procrastination and passivity are my vices of choice. I put off writing, which is the activity I love best in all the world, in favor of lesser ones every day. I need to incite myself to action—and even writing this, only my second Substack post, a full week and a half before I aim to post it, I believe I’ve found a way to do that.
I petrify myself with the magnitude of my plans for my novels whenever I sit down to write, so that I usually either end up writing very little, going back and editing and reediting what I’ve already edited before, or not writing at all. But now, with the commitment of publishing something every other week, I can see a path through. Something I can turn to, aside from the ring, when facing my great adventure seems too daunting a task. I may not be ready to see the mountains again—mountains, Gandalf!—or to finish my book, but I can set out here.
The road goes ever on and on…