Kate Neville
Well-Known Member
I sometimes think that we read Boromir’s reactions in the light of Sam’s later comment to Faramir, that Boromir wanted the Ring from the moment he first saw it. But Sam also says that Boromir didn’t or couldn’t acknowledge that desire in himself until Lorien. I think we also need to take into account the seductive beauty of the Ring itself. After all, Smeagol wanted the Ring that Deagol found before he knew anything about it, just ”because the gold looked so bright and beautiful.” Frodo is similarly drawn to its beauty when Gandalf dares him to destroy it: “Frodo thought how rich and beautiful was its colour, how perfect was its roundness.” We will soon hear that Isildur called it “of all the works of Sauron the only fair.” It may be that Boromir (who knew nothing of these three reactions) found it hard to believe that anything so beautiful could be evil. He had apparently thought Sauron’s Great Ring had perished in his defeat; I am willing to believe that, until he heard Gandalf’s story, Boromir was resisting the idea that such a beautiful thing in the hands of a half-sized non-warrior could be a thing of such import. [And that it was Saruman’s arguments to Gandalf that sowed the seed of corruption. But that’s for some weeks from now... ]