Lest terror keep you from your journey

[Milthaliel]

It occurred to me while listening to this part of last week's class that Gildor might have been exactly right about keeping details of the ringwraiths a secret. I remember feeling like Frodo every time I read this passage - Gildor's hints and warnings are worse than any knowledge! But when Frodo is attacked at the camp near Weathertop, and survives for 17 days with the knife point working its way in, we find out that maybe Gildor was right to hold back.

If Frodo knew from the beginning, "Oh yeah, the Black Riders are the most powerful of Sauron's servants, they have the power to enslave you and bring you directly to him, if they stab you with their magic knives you're pretty much done for, etc. etc" Frodo might never have stood up to them at Weathertop, or at the Ford. And Frodo says himself, if he'd known about the knife, he would have been too terrified to move, and they might not have been able to get him to Rivendell in time.

It seemed so frustrating at first, but maybe Gildor (by chance, if chance you call it) told Frodo exactly what he needed to know.

 

[Lincoln Alpern]

Yeah, when I read that part, my first reaction was that it came across like a cheap authorial trick to hold back information from the reader for a while. It seems so counter-intuitive: we have all these aphorisms that "knowledge is power," "forewarned is forearmed," etc, and they make a lot of sense. Logically, you would think knowledge of what's hunting you would give you a chance to exploit its weaknesses and modus operandi (such as when Aragorn uses fire against them - or a mounted company might try to take out their horses and thus slow them down). It's also generally true that no matter how bad the reality, what one comes up with in their own imagination is even worse (that's why so much of the horror genre revolves around deliberately not showing you the monster, or only showing you part, and letting your imagination fill in the rest).

But, of course, I don't associate that kind of sloppiness with Tolkien. Then I remembered the discussion of Merry and Pippin's participation in the Fellowship which takes place several chapters after this (and which was alluded to in the next to last episode). If they'd known what they were going to go through in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, they probably would be too terrified to participate in the Fellowship - but if they didn't go, both Rohan and Gondor would have been left in ruins, Saruman would still be at large, and might even have successfully taken the Ring at Parth Galen or soon thereafter.

So then I thought, "actually, yes, fair play, Tolkien, perhaps knowledge of the Ring Wraiths' true nature would be too horrifying for Frodo to deal with at this point." Even before Weathertop, I could see him panicking and making some disastrous move just from the knowledge of exactly what was chasing him.

As you point out, it seems Frodo's (and the other Hobbits') very lack of knowledge of the Riders' nature emboldens them to take stands and make gambits they would never expect to work against the Dark Lord's most powerful servants, but which allow them to scrape by just barely all the way to Rivendell.

And, as I mentioned in the second most recent class recording, this passage also adds to the Riders' mystique for the readers, "No, seriously, these guys are so bad, whatever you're imagining, Frodo, the reality is even worse."