Memories of a troubled dream

[Flammifer]

In the seventh paragraph of ‘The Council of Elrond’, the narrator (Frodo?) tells us, “To Frodo his dangerous flight, and the rumours of the darkness growing in the world outside, already seemed only the memories of a troubled dream”.

How do you all interpret this?

Some of my thoughts and questions are:

1. The healing in Rivendell, both physical, and also spiritual in the Hall of Fire, has been very powerful.
2. Was it just ‘his dangerous flight’ that seems like a dream? Or is it most of his whole life up until now?
3. To what extent has Frodo been almost ‘re-born’ after his near-wraithification?
4. In this moment, just before the Council, the past is a dream. Frodo is not thinking about the unplanned future. He is hearing ‘the noise of bubbling waters’, the singing of the birds. He is feeling that, ‘a wholesome peace lay on the land’. Why this image of Frodo at peace in the now in Rivendell?
5. This emphasizes, Frodo’s feeling just before he says, “I will take the Ring (to Mordor)”, when “An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo’s side in Rivendell filled all his heart”. It is interesting that his longing is to remain in Rivendell, rather than say return to the Shire. Does this illustrate how sacrificial the decision to bear the Ring onward was?
6. To what extent was it even a decision? Frodo felt, “as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken”. He also, “wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice”. When was this doom created? During the Song of the Ainur? When did Frodo first become dimly aware of this doom at some level? When hearing ‘Earendil the Mariner’?
7. Is Frodo’s longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo’s side in Rivendell a foreshadowing of his eventual fate, to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo’s side (though not in Rivendell)?

I think that the passage near the start of the chapter, where Frodo is at peace in Rivendell, and the past, future, and the rest of the world seem like a dream, and the passage near the end of the chapter, where Frodo longs to remain at peace in Rivendell, but finds himself saying that he will take the Ring to the Fire, are linked, and make one of the critical hinges of the story.

How do all of you read this?

 

[maswan]

Or are we seeing the influence of one of the three on the hand of one of the great among elves in his seat of power? It's a bit more explicit in Lothlórien, but you could describe a very similar effect with the first quoted sentence.

 

[Flammifer]

Hi maswan,

Good point! I am sure that we are seeing the influence of one of the three Elvish Rings (though we don't know that Elrond wields one yet).

The influence is probably seen in both the powerful healing Frodo gets in Rivendell, and in the powerful effect of Rivendell itself.

So, if we have thought at all about where are the Elvish Rings, and who possesses them, we might well start to list Elrond as chief suspect for holding one of them. (I don't think we have much of a clue yet as to where the other two might be, or who might hold them. Our only suspects so far would be Glorfindel and Gildor, but we have little evidence. We might wonder about the king of the Elves of Mirkwood (I guess we know Thranduil's name early in the 'Council of Elrond' chapter for the first time. He is referred to only as 'The Elvenking' throughout 'The Hobbit'.), as a possible candidate.)

So, yes, I think we are seeing some of the impact of an Elvish Ring. But, I also think we are seeing more than just that in terms of what is going on within Frodo.