Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our cross or we can crucify ourselves.
This week, I met a good friend of mine at a local restaurant, the first time we’d got together since before the onset of the pestilence. He is a Presbyterian pastor and a great lover of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. It was, in fact, Tolkien who had introduced us to each other, in the sense that we first met at a local Tolkien conference a few years ago.
During the course of our conversation, my friend wondered whether Tolkien had something deeper in mind when calling hobbits “halflings,” beyond the literal fact that they are about half the size of men. This set me thinking. Bilbo Baggins is not fully the hobbit he is meant to be at the beginning of The Hobbit. He is a creature of comfort addicted to the creature comforts. He needs a dose of healthy discomfort so that he can grow into a wiser and more virtuous hobbit. He needs an adventure and the suffering and self-sacrifice that an adventure demands. In truth, as we come to discover, Bilbo was suffering from the same dragon sickness as that which afflicted Smaug, only on a smaller scale (pun intended!). Smaug lives under a mountain, squatting on his treasure; Bilbo lives under a hill squatting on his own hobbit-sized treasure trove. They are both possessed by their possessions.
Something similar is happening in The Lord of the Rings, in which the power of the Ring represents something very similar to the dragon sickness. Those who possess the Ring become possessed by it. The Ring promises empowerment but delivers overpowerment, subduing the will of the wearer. The Ring can be seen to symbolize Pride, the one sin to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. If we succumb to its power and its promises, we begin to live the lie with which it overshadows us. We become slaves to our addiction to Pride and its narcissistic self-centredness. We become Pride’s prisoners, unable to escape from the confines of the ego. We cannot sacrifice ourselves for others, which means that we cannot love. In such a state of self-imposed self-isolation, we begin to shrivel into a pathetic shadow of who we are meant to be. We gollumize ourselves.
This is the deeper metaphorical meaning of the word “halfling.” Bilbo and Frodo—and Sam, Merry, and Pippin—all begin as half the hobbits they are meant to be and are called to be. In resisting the power of the Ring, the power of Pride, they grow into their full stature as wise and virtuous hobbits. They are not merely halflings but have attained the wholeness that holiness delivers. Gollum, on the other hand, is overpowered by the “empowerment” that the Ring of Pride promises, becoming a slave to his own possessiveness of the thing that is possessing him. He has also ceased to be the halfling that he once was by becoming less than a halfling. He has shrunk into a shriveled wreck of the hobbit that he once was and has become a demonic parody of the whole hobbit he had refused to become.
As Tolkien was at pains to remind us, there is more to his stories than meets the eye on the literal level. There is what he called the “applicability” of the story to the world beyond the story, including its applicability to the story in which we are all currently living, the story which we call history. Like the hobbits in Tolkien’s stories, we are also “halflings” in the metaphorical meaning of the word. We are only half the men we are meant to be and are called to be. Jesus Christ is the perfect Man. He is truly whole. The more we seek to become like Him, the more whole we will become and the less like halflings. We do this by doing what Christ commands of us. We take up our cross and follow Him, accepting the self-sacrifice that the perilous adventure of life demands, and resisting, through His grace, the power of Pride which seeks to enslave us.
And here’s the paradox. Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our cross or we can crucify ourselves.
As we watch our culture succumb to the power of Pride, we are witnessing the gollumizing of our brothers and sisters. Demanding the right to self-destructive addiction, they are shriveling into pathetic wrecks of the people they are meant to be, while simultaneously making a wreckage of the society in which they are living the wreckage of their lives. Paradoxically, their only hope is to be found in the enemies whom they refuse to love. It is those who are striving to become more than halflings who are the only hope for those who have become less than halflings. As the gollumized souls are killing themselves with Pride, humble souls must lay down their own lives for their gollumized friends. As Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam learned to love and pity Gollum, and as Christ laid down His life for his friends who were determined to be His enemies, so must we do likewise.
The only antidote to the poison of Pride is the healing power of humility. The only escape from the hell of hatred is heavenly love.
This essay first published August 3, 2020. The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.
The featured image is Gollum (2001) by Daniel Govar and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. It has been brightened slightly and appears here, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
I totally agree as I was reading your essay, I couldn’t help feeling that often to be a true Christian is about ‘stepping up to the plate.’ I thought about my own life, in the Royal Air Force and in the England and Wales Prison Service as an Officer in a very busy jail. Life is a journey it’s not about shrivelling, it’s not about giving offence but standing for what is right which may offend some. Gandalf is a great example of that, and each of the hobbits grow through each struggle that they have. No one ever said that this life would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.
Well said. Both the original column and your comment. I love Joseph Pearce and so appreciate his writing prowess and Christian witness.
My husband and I came in to the Catholic Church after seeing testimonies on The Journey Home. The parish that offered a parent-friendly RCIA (and a good one, at that time) also contained a lot of liberal Catholics who were/are very at home with Gollum-like affluence and accommodation to prevailing culture and moral erosion. It is such a susceptible thing. And what is put in the place of Real abiding in the Vine: social work without real evangelism thus never ending assistance work and washing our hands of real life changing Truth to whosoever will believe. Convenient, and wholly (holy?) unsatisfying to one with ears to hear.
This analysis says it all about the worlds problems today and throughout history.. Mankind can never seem to get over itself!
And no wonder pride goeth before the fall. This is such an important message for the younger generations.
Do not forget, the Hobbits had friends to support them. Sméagol killed his cousin, Déagol, so he (Sméagol) could possess the Ring of Power. Sméagol was banned from his home and had no friends to help him overcome the lure of the ring.
Sméagol had the mercy of Bilbo and later of the Elves and of Gandalf and especially of Frodo who reminded him that he was Sméagol and need not be Gollum – and of Faramir and his men. And Tolkien, writing to his son Christopher on 30 January 1945 while working on the book, speaks of “the tragedy of Gollum who […] came within a hair of repentance”. He was in fact (as Bilbo after him) liberated from any direct evil influence of the use of the Ring, though unlike Bilbo, not more thoroughly liberated by the free choice of surrendering it.
Mercy is of vital importance. Frodo’s decision to have mercy on Gollum is the final reason the ring fell into the fires of Mt. Doom. Had Frodo killed Gollum, he would have become Gollum himself. Christ never told us our job was to destroy evil. Why? Because evil destroys itself.
Could you please elaborate on your statement? Are you suggesting that evil can be destroyed without resistance from good men and women – sometimes resorting to violent conflict? Would Germany have been stopped had the British surrendered without a fight? Would the Ottomans not destroy Christendom had the miracle at Lepanto not engage? Should we refuge to engage a mass murderer from continuing their evil?
Yes, one might reply that we cannot say what the future might have held had we passively stood by. In similar logic, we cannot conclude that Frodo would have become Gollum.
This is a conundrum that we all struggle to resolve. I’m hoping you can shine some light.
Yet one more applicable metaphor from LOTR for my life now – that I can’t hate or “kill” the gollums, but must act in mercy as Gandalf and Frodo did.
I have a great appreciation for both Mr. Joseph Pearce and Mr. J. R. R.Tolkien, an admiration at the strength they had to go beyond themselves and share thoughts, beliefs, and inner-material.
Whenever I have had to grow it certainly wasn’t my decision, God has placed the duty on me. Like Bilbo I was already comfortable and content, I resisted the change that was creeping upon me. Like so many characters in Tolkien’s books, I wanted to shut the door and go back to my comfort zone. Like many of the characters I moved outward because of a force greater than I.
That doesn’t stop once you reach a given age, I just turned 61 and I have been booted out of my spot of comfort. It’s remarkable how men like Tolkien understood this and could put it in an incredible story so millions of people could benefit from his wisdom, wisdom put upon his shoulders by God.
YES, we’re halflings who must grow upward or shrink. And we are probably called to this task many times in life.