: Ok...firstly, Tom CAN'T be some old man, as he'd have to
: be over 1,000 years old to remember Arnor and Angmar.
So? He could just be really really strange...
: Also, Tolkien makes it clear that no amtter how good
: you are, the Ring will ALWAYS eventually get a grip on
: you, simply because as men we are incarnate beings and
: therefore subject to material temptations, whether we
: like it or not...this was a key part to Saruman's
: downfall, as stated by Tolkien.
But, you see, the whole reason I said he was strange in the first place is because he had absolutely no desire to own the ring for himself. If you guys have ever read Eddings, its almost sorta like the old guy living in the mountains in the end of The Belgariad... It's conceivably possible, especially when you consider the kind of things Tolkien wrote about. I don't think that there are any absolute boundaries in his world, just a sort of gray area. There's no absolutes. You can't depend on somebody to be a friend (demonstrated by any number of people throughout the sad, sorry history of Middle-Earth, and elsewhere), there are no absolutely good people, no boundaries between what can and cannot be. So why would the desires of mortal beings be any different?
Anyway,
-Doom (c8
