LogFAQs > #961739751

saspa posted...

In the books he just slips and falls by happenstance?

The fires below awoke in anger, the red light blazed, and all the cavern was filled with a great glare and heat. Suddenly Sam saw Gollum's long hands draw upwards to his mouth; his white fangs gleamed, and then snapped as they bit. Frodo gave a cry, and there he was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.

'Precious, precious, precious!' Gollum cried. 'My Precious! O my Precious!' And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone.

In either version the moral remains the same: the greed and mania with which the Ring corrupted its bearers ultimately turned out to be its undoing. I just slightly prefer the version where it's Gollum alone who ultimately - if inadvertently - destroys it. But it's one of those cases where the cliffhanger of Frodo literally hanging off a cliff while the Ring took its time melting made for more dramatic storytelling.

Also, while it's not really relevant to the topic at hand, I thought I'd share my favorite bit of prose from the trilogy which happens a few paragraphs earlier (since it was such a pain to google the actual book excerpt rather than a dozen critical analyses / cliffnotes of said excerpt, thought I'd make it worth my while). This is the from the moment when Frodo puts on the Ring at Mount Doom, and Sauron suddenly realizes just how fucked he is; you couldn't really adapt something like this into the movie, though it's alluded to when Sauron's eye gets that 'oh shit!' look and instantly turns his gaze to the doors at Mount Doom.

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-dr 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.

From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgl the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.