Meta-note on LoTR: Towards the Right Question about Frodo #1

[eykar]

Debates as to whether Frodo succeeded in the quest seem fruitless to me, because they cover the same set of facts from different perspectives without ever trying to define success or failure. People probably don't question the terms because they seem simple and straight-forward, but in LoTR nothing is as simple as it first seems. What does 'success' mean when the the desire of one's heart, which echoes the need of one's world, is to do something known from the outset to be impossible?

To define success or failure requires defining a clear goal. Given that, one undertakes to reach it, and succeeds or fails based on a combination of one's own merits and the difficulty of the task. LoTR is so structured that while the goal is clear, nobody, including Frodo, ever expects Frodo (or anyone else ever) to reach it.

Once a goal is defined, one generally creates a program to achieve it. But what program is there when the goal is by definition unreachable? In LoTR it seems to consist of pushing as far as one can in the right direction and then hoping or praying for a miracle - except that Frodo never had any hope, and hobbits don't have a religion. Hobbits' wishes are the equivalent of our prayers. The destruction of the Ring always depended ultimately on the Unnamed Actor. Does faithfulness to the wish then constitute success? Maybe.

The purpose of this file is collect my relevant observations on the subject. I hope to find a definition of 'success' that fits the nature of the quest. This means first of all discarding the assumption that success equals casting the Ring into the Fire. If a meaningful definition of success exists, then it will be possible to ask a meaningful question about whether Frodo succeeded.

The Shadow of the Past:
Gollum "could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter. . . A Ring of Power looks after itself. Its keeper never abandons it. . . he would never have forsaken it, or cast it aside." Thus Frodo knows from the beginning that throwing the Ring away is not within his power; however this is only one impossible aspect of a task impossible for many reasons, which he will take on anyway, without hope. Frodo promises to 'keep' and 'guard', not destroy It.

Frodo reacts to the news that the Ring can only be destroyed at the Cracks of Doom with the cry, 'I really do wish to destroy it!' But having found it impossible to give to Gandalf, and having thought about what is possible, he commits himself instead 'to keep the Ring and guard it, at least for the present, whatever it may do to me.' It is unusual for Frodo - for any hobbit in the safety of the Shire? - to express so strong and large a desire so clearly and spontaneously. The wish of his heart is greatly at odds with everything that he knows is possible. At Rivendell, when he commits himself to finish the quest, it is only to 'take the Ring' not to destroy it. If he retains the wish, which he surely does, it must intensify his feeling of hopelessness.

At the Sign of the Prancing Pony:
He clasped It in his hand ' to keep a hold on it and prevent it from escaping or doing any mischief.' This amplifies the meaning of keep and guard. It becomes his charcteristic gesture of reasserting control.

The Council of Elrond:
'We must send the Ring to the Fire.' - Frodo 'felt a dead darkness in his heart.' If this is not a misprint for 'dread darkness' it is very powerful image - and reflects the connection between madness (which for Frodo is connected with the Ring) and death.

"Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the council sat with downcast eyes, as if deep in thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken . . . At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.
"I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.'" There is an irony in 'might after all never be spoken' because the need, the wish, the essential impossible task, remain unspoken.

Neither Frodo nor anyone else dares require or expect Frodo to do what everyone needs and desperately wants done, because everyone knows that it is impossible. The quest has some of the quality of a koan - but without the safety of a zendo in which to contemplate it.

The Ring Goes South:
Elrond's charge: 'The Ring-bearer is setting out on the Quest of Mount Doom.' He does not talk about the quest to destroy the Ring, or even to find the Fire in which it was forged. Getting to Mount Doom is enough to hope for - and more than Frodo dares hope for. (At the beginning of the chapter, he called the quest 'this hopeless journey'.)
The charge laid on Frodo contains considerable irony: 'neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of the Enemy." Instead of charging Frodo to find the Fire and cast the Ring into it, Elrond forbids him to cast it away under any circumstances. No exception is made for its destruction. This stated charge includes an unstated prayer: That if the Ring-bearer should win through to the Fire, or even to the Mountain, the Unnamed Actor will arrange for the Ring to be destroyed there rather than delivered to the Enemy.

'I wish I was back there' Frodo says of Rivendell after the Company has been driven back from/by Caradhras, '[b]ut how can I return without shame - unless there is no other way, and we are already defeated?' There is no question here of defeat in the matter of destroying the Ring, only in continuing to go forward. However continuing to go forward may be the only definition of 'success' that is relevant to the quest.

The Mirror of Galadriel:
Galadriel introduces the term 'fail' for the first time, and also the implication that 'success' means the destruction of the Ring. Here she says, '[Y]our Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all.' Later she will define what 'ruin' would mean for Lorien: 'For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlorien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away.' Her introduction of these definitions is clear-cut, but as they are hers, not used by the omniscient narrator, they cannot be taken as definitive for the whole story. I do not know yet whether Frodo will adopt them.

He first saw the Eye as a star in the comparative safety of Rivendell; the second time he sees it is here, in the comparative safety of Lorien, and it is searching for him. 'So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or withdraw his gaze.' This is the same effect that the Nazgul had on him at Weathertop. 'But he also knew that it could not see him - not yet, not unless he willed it. The Ring . . .grew heavy. . .and his head was dragged downwards' towards the Mirror which Galadriel has cautioned them not to touch. (Can it also be a doorway?)
The Ring and the Eye are seeking each other, with only Frodo's will to keep them apart. At Weathertop, the urge to put on the Ring came with no reason, against all reason, and proved impossible to resist. Here it becomes clear that the urge comes from the desire of the Ring for union with the Eye. Now that the conflict is made clear, does Frodo accept Galadriel's definitions of 'success and failure' - after one more demonstration that the Ring has more power to coerce, even in Lorien, than Frodo does to resist it? Destroying it remains impossible. If he accepts her terms, he accepts failure as inevitable.
No wonder he tries to give her the Ring.

'Now we have chosen and the tides of fate are flowing,' she says, having rejected the Ring. She doesn't say 'I have chosen' because Sam has chosen to go with Frodo despite his fears for the Shire, and Frodo has chosen to go on with the quest now that he has seen his adversary and knows his own powerlessness against it. He also knows that another person (Galadriel in this case) can save him and the quest from disaster.

In accepting the inevitability that he will fail on Galadriel's terms, Frodo also has to accept her 'if you succeed.' She thinks that destroying the Ring is possible, even though It proves stronger than Frodo at every contest in which It is not alone. That must give him a lot to think about.

The Breaking of the Fellowship:
'And they tell us to throw it away!' Boromir cried - inaccurately, since Frodo's charge from Elrond was NOT to cast it away. 'I do not say destroy it,' he adds - and neither has anyone else as yet in relation to Frodo. Destruction has always been a background, abstract, framing topic - and the wish of Frodo's heart - but not a possiblity to be discussed.

Frodo recognizes Its voice speaking through Boromir. This enables him to accept necessity. 'I am . . .simply afraid. But I am glad to have hard you speak so fully. My mind is clearer now.'

Boromir said that Frodo was being send to 'walk blindly into Mordor.' Instead, when Boromir attacks, he goes 'leaping blindly up the path to the hilltop' - an intensification of his original aimless wandering. Because 'terror and grief shook him,' the Ring is free to determine his direction, making him as visible as possible to the Eye. (The grief is partly for Boromir.)

'He saw as through a mist' the same way he saw after being wounded by the Nazgul. 'The Ring was upon him' both literally (on his hand) and psychologically/spiritually/existentially - a force bearing down on and dislocating him from the world.

There is no record of the Ring offering Frodo power, but I suspect that it far intensifies what he can see from Amon Hen, in both distance and detail. His desire for knowledge - which the Ring dimly recognizes because it is a desire - keeps him looking, rather than thinking of his danger or attempting to reassert control of the Ring.

Frodo's vision - 'no sound, only bright living images' - includes his first sight of 'the green and silver sea, rippling in endless lines.' His first sights of the Eye were from places of safety; his first sight of the Sea is from a place of ultimate danger. No reaction to the sight is recorded - because the 'signs of war' intrude?

Periantari writes that, 'It was because he thought that Mordor would ultimately prevail that he really felt it necessary to continue on.' Looking all over the world he sees no one and nothing that will survive.

'Then turning south again he beheld Minas Tirith. Far away it seemed, and beautiful: white-walled, many-towered, proud and fair . . .bright with many banners. Hope leaped in his heart.' It is not clear what this hope is for. Success in destroying the Ring? Escape to Minas Tirith? Or is it something less defined, only a feeling, based on there being something good left in the world? I see - but cannot prove - a parallel with Gandalf's merry laughter at the unexpcted help from the Huorns at Helm's Deep: It has to do with not being alone in a desperate struggle.

'Then at last his gaze was held; wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong . . . Barad-dur, Fortress of Sauron. All hope left him.' Seeing Barad-dur is to some extent seeing Sauron; Elrond explained in The Council of Elrond that 'its foundations. . .were made with the Power of the Ring' which is a split-off part of Sauron's power. Whatever Frodo's hope was before, all its (possible) aspects leave him.

Then Sauron nearly sees him. 'A fierce eager will was there.' Both words, 'fierce' and 'eager', have recently been used of Boromir when he was under the influence of the Ring. 'It leaped towards him' as the Ring had sent him 'leaping up the path' when his only thought was to escape, careless of the direction.

Between fear (wish to escape) and desire (wish to know) - vulnerabilities that the Ring uses whenever it can - Frodo has forgotten everything he knows about the Ring and for the third time 'threw himself from the seat, crouching, covering his head with his grey hood' as if that could hide him. It is an instinctive, not a considered, reaction to the wrong danger.

'He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come , I come to you? He could not tell.' The second quote is the voice of the Ring. The first is not Frodo's willed voice, because he has no will at this moment, only instinctive reactions. If the words are his own, then some intact part of him exists, but where? If the words are from another outside source, this is a second instance of prophecy. I am not convinced by either explanation. The first quote isn't from Gandalf at any rate, because when he intrudes he addresses Frodo directly and sharply.
Perhaps 'Never, never!' is a spontaneous reaction to Sauron, that takes form too quickly for thought; an echo of his defiance of the Nazgul at the Ford. Because it was not willed speech, it was not strengthened to overcome the voice of the Ring. But neither was it the voice of terror and grief. Maybe this is the meaning of the second sign: Frodo has developed resources that function even when he doesn't.

Gandalf's intervention is a sign that unexpected help can reach him.

'The two powers strove in him.' Compare to Weathertop: The primary powers were Frodo's will against those of the Nazgul and the Ring, combined. The sword may have had a will that reinforced Frodo's, and may have provided the words 'O Elbereth Giltoniel.' Here, the two primary powers are Sauron and the Ring, combined, against Gandalf, with Frodo able to contribute no more than a word, and that without conscious intent. At Weathertop, Frodo's will was overcome; at Amon Hen, it was not even a factor.

It is only the balance of Gandalf's will against Sauron's that frees Frodo: 'For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again.' Compare to Weathertop: Frodo never ceased to be aware of himself, but he lost the power of movement when resisting the Nazgul. Here he remains able to move but not to resist the Ring, which uses his emotional disarray to make him an easy target. He can carry out a choice if he can make one: 'Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to chose, and with one remaining instant in which do to so. He took the Ring off his finger.'

Unlike previous instances, he doesn't clasp his hand around it. He does something much - awe-inspiringly - harder: Reasserting will and control, he puts it back on. Elderberry Wine points out that this is the only time Frodo puts the Ring on with the intention and purpose of protecting others. Previously It has taken advantage of his desire to escape which was motivated by fear; but his desire to escape the company is motivated only by concern for their safety. This focus on others allows him a relative freedom from Its effects, as will be true also of Sam in Cirith Ungol, when his thoughts and feelings are firmly fixed on Frodo.

'A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter.' This is a remarkably fast recovery - presaging his restoration after the destruction of the Ring. Even though Frodo doesn't know that Gandalf is alive, he must be reassured by the familiar tone of the Voice and the fact that it can reach him even in the most dire situation. (There are, as Aragorn says, 'other powers at work far stronger' than any member of the Fellowship.)

'He spoke aloud to himself.' Why aloud? Carrying on, unconsciously, the conversation begun with Gandalf many miles, months and chapters ago?

'Slowly he drew out the RIng and put it on once more.' This time his hand does not tremble; if he feels fear, it does not rule him. Despite the Ring completely over-running his will shortly before, he can maintain separation from It now. That must take a lot of concentration.

Frodo just accepted the necessity to continue 'whatever it may do to me'; despite all that he cannot control and his utter dependency on unknown and unknowable resources. He finds the courage to go forward in the combination of hopelessness in every course of action, unexpected inner resources independent of his conscious will, and unexpected inexplicable help from sources unknown.

'Off East. Not without Sam? Yes, without even his Sam. That's hard, cruel hard' for both of them to endure. Once more Sam chooses, this time against Frodo's will if not his wish, to go with him. Whatever Frodo has decided, he doesn't hesitate to abort his plan to save Sam (who he now calls 'lad' rather than 'old'.) Like Sam at the door to Moria, he has to choose.

'Frodo took off the Ring and stepped ashore again.' While he was focussed on rescuing Sam from drowning, the Ring seems to have had no influence on him. Why take it off now? Cara thinks that he feels a need to be visible while trying to talk Sam out of coming with him; just running off again wouldn't work after all. (And his wish must be at odds with his will.)
Another possibility: The Ring makes anyone who wears it invisible in the world of living creatures and visible in the wraith-world, but perhaps the change is more profound than that. Perhaps it makes its wearer exist in the wraith-world more than in the living world. In that case, Frodo would want to rejoin Sam in the living world.
Frodo's attempts to get rid of Sam:
1) Pique;
2) When that wears off, the truth, that he could not bear being responsible for Sam's death;
3) In response to Sam's double assertion that being left behind would kill him more certainly (the most romantic line in LoTR), an appeal to put the quest ahead of all other considerations: 'It's the only way.'
When Sam insists that 'I'm coming too, or neither of us isn't going', Frodo gives in and 'actually laughed. A sudden warmth and gladness touched his heart.' This, as Tom Bombadil said, is part of the essential strength of hobbits: 'Keep up your merry hearts.'

The spiritual climax of FoTR: 'It is not good trying to escape you. But I'm glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is plain that we were meant to go together.' For the first time, Frodo adopts the language that Gandalf used back in the Shire: "I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In that case you were also meant to have it.' The fourth sign comes from the highest, unnamed level. The reason that Frodo can continue on his impossible suicide mission is that he can say something was meant to be and mean it. 'So Frodo and Sam set off on the last stage of the Quest together.'

The Palantir:
'The memory, or the horror of it, will probably fade quickly. Too quickly, perhaps' - as has happened before with experiences that Merry and Pippin should have learned from. They 'keep up [their] merry hearts' as Tom Bombadil counselled. Frodo's on-going sadness means that he has renounced normal hobbit merriment to learn what he must to deal with the Ring. (This is another reason that he needs Sam; someone has to keep up a merry heart, and Sam does his damnedest.)

The Taming of Smeagol:
When Sam attacks Gollum, Gollum nearly kills Sam and Frodo 'drew back Gollum's head by his thin lank hair' and threatens to 'cut your throat'. But as soon as Gollum lets go of Sam, Frodo must let him go, because Gollum 'lay grovelling on the stones whimpering' so Sam 'could not avenge himself.'
Why did Frodo let go of Gollum? Mercy? Frodo says, 'He has done us no harm', meaning that killing him would be 'to strike without need.' Pity? 'Now that I see him I do pity him.' Revulsion? 'Poor wretch!' Probably all three.
'"Oh, hasn't he!" said Sam, rubbing his shoulder. "Anyway, he meant to, and he means to, I'll warrant. Throttle us in our sleep, that's his plan."
"I daresay," said Frodo. "But what he means to do is another matter."' What other matter? This can be understood in a Rohirric way and in a Gandalfian way. No one in Rohan would kill someone simply because they don't trust him because doing so would violate their sense of honor. But Gandalf, and I think Frodo, understands that all intentions are based on partial knowledge, and the the Unnamed Actor may use even bad intentions to good ends. 'My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end,' Gandalf said in The Shadow of the Past, along with the lines that Frodo now remembers: 'Be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.' Part of wisdom is knowing that not all ends are seen; Frodo is becoming wise.

'Sam . . .seemed to sense that there was something odd about his master's mood' - not just that he was answering an absent Gandalf, but something that put 'the matter . . .beyond argument'. Is Sam aware of interference from the Ring? From the Unnamed Actor?

Frodo speaks 'quietly and sternly' and Sam is 'amazed' at his reply: 'We are going to Mordor, of course. And you know the way there, I believe . . . You're being drawn back there, aren't you?'
Gollum replies in the first person singular, speaking not to Frodo but to the Eye, which he feels as much as Frodo does: 'Leave me alone, gollum! You hurt me. Oh, my poor hands, gollum! I, we, I don't want to come back. I can't find it. I am tired. . . .I can't find it. . . We won't! Not for you.' He had been let loose from Mordor in hope that he will find the Ring and thus lead Sauron to it.

Frodo's first tactic: Giving Gollum a choice: Help him or help me; 'He will not go away or go to sleep at your command. . . But if you really wish to be free of him again, you must help me.' In response, Gollum goes into the third person, speaking of 'Poor, poor Smeagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious and he's lost now.'
Frodo's second tactic: Offering a chance for Gollum to regain his former self: 'Perhaps we'll find him again, if you come with us.'
When Gollum continues uncooperative - 'No, no, never! He's lost his Precious!' - Frodo tries giving orders: 'Get up! . . .Can you find a path easier by day or by night? . . . Then sit down. . .and don't move.' Gollum, used to being bullied, pretends to cooperate and looks for a chance to escape.

Neither Sam's unrelenting distrust of Gollum nor Frodo's attempt to redeem him is feigned; they are still hobbits. Frodo's changes of tactics all pursue the same goal. As far as protecting themselves, they are in total accord: "Frodo looked across at Sam. Their eyes met and they understood.'

The knot around Gollum's ankle was 'hardly tight enough. Sam was gentler than his words.' It is the presence of the Elvish rope that causes Gollum to scream and writhe, making him useless as a guide and an almost immovable burden. Letting him go means letting him free to try to kill them. Practicality dictates finding another way to control him.

Does the Ring urge Frodo to seek 'any promise you can make that I can trust?'
Gollum responds, 'suddenly and clearly, opening his eyes wide and staring at Frodo with a strange light, "Smeagol will swear on the Precious."' The change in a person's voice is always significant. Is the Ring using his thoughts, like It used Boromir's, to give Itself a chance to be put on? It slipped away from Gollum long ago because he kept It from going anywhere, but It might not recognize him. There is no sign that It recognizes individuals. This is not an especially auspicious time or place for It to get put on; It is outside of Mordor, in a place of no particular visibility or power, and no Nazgul are present. But Gollum's lust for It may have the an amplifying effect on Its ordinary attempt to manipulate whatever thoughts It can find.

Thinking of others is the best defense against the Ring. Frodo is thinking of Gollum, to whom he reacts with both pity and revulsion - not that revulsion constitutes any kind of defense, but pity might.

Frodo has expressed an interest in finding Smeagol again; Gollum responds by dangling Smeagol as bait.

'Frodo drew himself up, and again Sam was startled by his words and his stern voice. "On the Precious? How dare you?"' These words are out of character. 'On the Precious' might be simply repeating Gollum's terms, but 'How dare you' implies affront and indignation while Frodo's expected reaction would be more of fear and wonder, e.g. 'How can you dare?' I think that there is a mixture of voices in this speech, starting off with a conflation of Gollum's and the Ring's, but those are quickly subdued; with 'Think!' Frodo's own voice takes over: 'Would you commit yourself to that, Smeagol? It will hold you. But it is more treacherous than you are. It may twist your words. Beware!' (It has probably just twisted his own 'How can you dare?' into 'How dare you?') He is horrified that Gollum would trust his oath to that which Frodo knows above all never to trust. I think that Frodo here beats off an assault of the Ring, separating Its desire (to manipulate any mind it can reach) from his (to reach Mordor.)

"'And what would you swear?" asked Frodo" - somewhat defeated by Gollum's ignoring his warning, yet still in need of his help.

'Smeagol will swear never, never to let Him have it. Never. Smeagol will save it.' With these words, Gollum authors his own doom; he will 'never . . . let Him have it', although that means falling alive into the Fires of Doom and dying with It. He does not make this exact oath when he calls the Ring to witness, but it is the wish of his heart, as much as is Frodo's 'I do really wish to destroy it!' (from The Shadow of the Past). Gollum's wish comes from hate and fear, Frodo's from love and fear, and the Unnamed Actor is always witness to wishes, even impossible ones - the hobbits' equivalent of prayer.

Gollum speaks of Smeagol in the third person, but Frodo addresses him directly, as 'you'.

'Frodo, looking down at him with stern pity,' speaks calmly, perhaps slowly, with emphasis, and even sadly:
'All you wish is to see it and touch it, if you can, though you know it would drive you mad.' Frodo does not define 'drive you mad'. I think that, in context, it has resonances both of self-destruction and of breaking what few moral standards Gollum has left - for he will both break his oath and destroy himself.
'Not on it. Swear by it, if you will. For you know where it is. Yes, you know Smeagol. It is before you.'
Lalaith writes that Frodo's binding Gollum by letting him swear on the Ring was a sin (or, in Galadriel's terms, 'straying but a little') because in relying on the Ring's power rather than that of the gifts of the Elves, Frodo gave the Ring more power over himself. Since the term 'sin' is not used in LoTR I will disregard it.
I do not agree with this, both as the practical issues are ovewhelming, and as Frodo has separated his will from Its, and sadly recognized that Gollum can't. Nevertheless, I find Lalaith's textual analysis useful: 'Frodo, after first being aghast at the thought, accepted the offer: "Not on it. Swear by it, if you will", and then demanded with a tale-telling change of mood: "For you know where it is. Yes, you know, Smeagol. It is before you." It is at this moment that Sam sees Frodo as "a tall stern shadow, a mighty lord who hid his brightness in grey cloud" (compare this with how Frodo himself perceives the Nazgul in the wraith-world). It is this moment that he sees the Ring working through Frodo, the moment when the Ring for the first time masters Frodo's mind.' (So wrote Lalaith, not me or JRR.)
But does it?
I don't find the Nazgul parallel adequate as an explanation of what Sam sees. I think that Gandalf is more significant.
In A Knife in the Dark, Frodo sees the Nazgul thus: 'In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of steel. Their eyes fell on him and pierced him. . . The third was taller than the others: His hair was long and gleaming and on his helm was a crown. . . both [his] knife and the hand that held it glowed with a pale light.' There is a lot of grey and some pale light. However there is no sternness and no cloud. Nor is a pale light exactly identical with brightness!
Lisa points out that the 'grey cloud' in this scene is similar to the cloaking effect that the Ring will exert over Sam at Cirith Ungol: 'His will was too weak and slow to restrain his hand. It dragged on the chain and clutched the Ring. But Sam did not put it on; for even as he clasped it to his breast, an orc came clattering down. Leaping out of a dark opening at the right, it ran towards him. . .[W]hat it saw was not a small frightened hobbit trying to hold a steady sword; it saw a great silent shape, cloaked in a grey shadow, looming against the wavering light behind; in one hand it held a sword, the very light of which was a bitter pain, the other was clutched at its breast, but held concealed some nameless menace of power and doom.' There are both similarities and differences; the 'grey shadow' makes Sam look bigger, but the orc does not perceive it as cloaking the only brightness present, that of Sting (this could be a peculiarity of orcs confronted with Elvish weapons). This description seems transitional between Frodo here and Frodo at Sammath Naur, holding 'a wheel of fire' at his breast.
I anticipate Lalaith's opinion: Sam's will was too weak and slow to withstand the Ring, and perhaps that is the reason It cloaked him in grey. In that case, Frodo's being hidden in a grey cloud in the scene under consideration here would also indicate that he is under Its influence. However since there are no other references to the Ring making anyone seem bigger than they are, there is not sufficient data to establish causality. When I get to the scene at Cirith Ungol, I will have lots of questions about why the orc sees what he sees.
Despite his 'weak and slow' will, the Ring's cloaking effect on Sam is not corrupting; that would suggest the same about the cloud that it casts around Frodo's brightness in this scene. Sam is protected by his complete focus on Frodo, not on himself, because unselfish impulses are beyond the Ring's influence. If it all depends on intention, the question is whether there is anything selfish in Frodo's use of the Ring to control Gollum. His primary motive, to get to Mordor, is completely unselfish, although not being eaten (on the way to certain death) is an instinctively selfish secondary motive; the selfishness of not being eaten is undercut by unselfishness of his expected death in pursuit of the quest. In the past, when there are Nazgul around, the Ring used Frodo's desire to stay alive to try to get Itself put on, responding to the felt desire of the Nazgul, the third party/parties involved. My (latest) guess is that the Ring's visible presence here shows Its response to Gollum more than anything else.

More considerations: Pity, Brightness and Gandalf
It is Gandalf who first tells Gollum's story, and rebukes Frodo's lack of pity for him with 'You have not seen him.' Unfinished Tales notes that during the Fell Winter of 1311, when hobbits were dying of cold and starvation, they survived due to their 'pity for one another' as much as their 'tough uncomplaining courage.' Gandalf also indicates that pity can open one up to the influence of the Ring: 'Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity.'
Pity - which can be dangerous - for a fellow hobbit applies when Frodo and Sam capture Gollum. 'Now that I see him, I do pity him,' he answers Gandalf, long after the initial conversation. Later, Frodo pities the pain that Gollum feels at being tied up with the Elven rope, which makes him writhe and scream. ('Writhe' is related etymologically to 'wraith'.) Even Sam, 'gentler than his words', didn't want to see Gollum suffer, only to control him. Thus allowing Gollum to swear by the Ring was an act of both practicality and pity.
If one accepts Lalaith's analysis, pity, which is one of the strengths of hobbits, leads Frodo to trust the power of the Ring over that of the Elves. If there is any merit in this analysis, Frodo should show later effects. I will watch for any, although I do not especially expect to find them.
However Frodo has been forewarned by Gandalf, who is much on his mind, that pity can be a danger, and it will later be established that despite Sam's fear, Frodo's 'kindness' is not 'blindness'. If Frodo can keep going unswayed by hope or despair, can't he also resist being ruled by pity even when he feels it? Pity alone might have moved him to let Gollum swear 'on the Precious' - his Ring-stirred desire.
The brightness that Sam perceives is not characteristic of the Ring; in The Shadow of the Past, 'the gold looked very fair and pure, and Frodo thought how rich and beautiful was its colour, how perfect was its roundness.' Tom Bombadil calls it only 'your golden ring.' At the Coundil of Elrond It 'gleamed and flickered'. This is as close as it comes to being bright. Brightness will, epecially in The White Rider, be extensively associated with Gandalf.
Gandalf - who is Olorin the Maia, appearing as a 'grey pilgrim' - is literally 'a mighty lord who hid his brightness' under grey. Clouds are never associated with the Nazgul, however Galadriel says (in The Mirror of Galadriel) that she 'cannot see [Gandalf] from afar . . .a grey mist is about him, and the ways of his feet and of his mind are hidden from me.' A mist is a cloud descended to earth. (There are further cloud references in The White Rider.)
She also associates clouds and mist wiht the Valar: '[F]or now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars . . has lifted up her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever.' Clouds and mist are the wrath of the Valar. (This passage may also shed some light on what it means that Gandalf is the Grey.)
While the 'shadow' in Sam's vision might be a reference to the Nazgul, 'stern' is not. It is too disciplined; they are 'keen and merciless' having been devoured by the dark power. In LoTR, 'stern' is most often used to describe Men of Numenorian descent.
No resemblance between Frodo and Gandalf can at this point be a direct influence. Gandalf said in The White Rider that 'The Ring now has passed beyond my help.' Yet it was barely over Anduin. This means that any future apparent contact between Frodo and Gandalf can not be through intervention such as was possible at Amon Hen.
I think that Frodo is relying consciously on Gandalf's remembered guidance. He remembers Gandalf the Grey, but Sam sees a glimmer of Gandalf the White. (Sam is often ahead in these matters.)
Text, psychology and symbolism all point to Lalaith having it backwards. This was not a defeat but a triumph.

Sam sees Frodo and Gollum 'in some way akin and not alien'. This reflects Gandalf's stating that Gollum's people were 'of hobbit-kind' and his easily falling into the riddle-game with Bilbo. I think that many readers seize on this solely as a statement that both are influenced by the Ring, ignoring the pre-existing connection.
'[T]hey could reach one another's minds.' Again, this can be taken as a statement that both have experienced the effects of the Ring, however opposite their reactions (one becoming 'a mighty lord' and the other 'a little whining dog' in response to It). However it also refers to their demonstrated ability to negotiate a contract, and to their common nature as hobbits. Boromir, having experienced the effects of the Ring, could not be negotiated with but only fled from.

When Gollum 'began pawing at Frodo, fawning at his knees' Frodo is overcome with revulsion: '"Down! Down!" said Frodo. "Now speak your promise!"'
Gollum responds as a unified being: 'We promises, yes, I promise!. . .I will serve the master of the Precious.' This does not mean only that Frodo is possessor of the Ring; the use of 'I' indicates a focus that previously only the Ring itself and Sauron (its original master) can inspire. I think that Gollum has recognized the difference between himself (reduced to a 'little whining dog') and Frodo, who has indeed (at this moment) mastered the Ring, overcoming Its attempt to use him.

From The White Rider:
Gandalf is now a vessel of light:
'As he steppd up onto the shelf there was a gleam, too brief for certainty, a quick glint of white, as if some garment shrouded by the gey rags had been for an instant revealed.' This parallels Sam's vision of Frodo in The Taming of Smeagol.
'His hair was white as snow in the sunshine; and gleaming white was his robe; the eyes under his deep brows were bright, piercing as they rays of the sun.'
'He stepped down from the rock, and picking up his grey cloak wrapped it about him; it seemed as if the sun had been shining but was now hid in cloud again.' This even more strongly parallels Sam's vision of Frodo in The Taming of Smeagol.
'A gleam of sunlight through the fleeting clouds fell on his hands, which lay now upturned o his lap: they seemed to be filled with light as a cup is with water. At last he looked up and gazed straight at the sun' with no attempt to shield his eyes nor apparent damage from it.
'Before him stooped the old figure, whtie, shining now as if with some light kindled within, bent, laden with years, but holding a power beyond the strength of kings.'
Gwaihir says: 'A burden you have been. . .but not so now. Light as a swan's feather in my claw you are. The Sun shines through you. Indeed I do not think you need me anymore: were I to let you fall, you would float upon the wind.' This parallel's Frodo's lightness when Sam has to carry him in Mount Doom. The pun of the two meanings of 'light' may work only in English but there seems to be a physical/spritual connection between being a vessel of light and being borne up against the pull of gravity. (This somewhat parallels how I imagine lembas working, sustaining the body by strengthening the spirit.)

I think that this resemblance to Gandalf is a parallel development rather than a direct influence. In support of this, Gandalf said in The White Rider that 'The Ring now has passed beyond my help.' Yet it was barely over Anduin. This means that any future apparent contact between Frodo and Gandalf can not be through intervention such as was possible at Amon Hen.

In both cases, Frodo is relying, consciously in the first instance, on Gandalf's guidance. In the Taming of Smeagol, he remembers Gandalf the Grey, but Sam sees a glimmer of Gandalf the White. (Sam is often ahead in these matters.) At Sammath Naur, Frodo has seen deeper and learned something from Gandalf the White - even though he knows of no such person. (This is a measure of how he has become more suitable for Valinor than for Middle-earth.)
The fact that pity, one of the strengths of the hobbits, can be a danger leads me understand why Gandalf speaks, in 'The Shadow of the Past' of 'Pity, and Mercy; not to strike without need.' Pity is not defined but Mercy is. Pity is an emotion, intuitively understood by Frodo, but Mercy is a principle. I have seen no discussion as to how the difference is played out in the text, but it is surely relevant to Frodo's pitying Gollum and later becoming immune to pity.

The Passage of the Marshes:
Frodo speaks of the goal of the quest in Galadriel's and Elrond's terms: 'To do the job as you put it - what hope is there that we ever shall? And if we do, who knows what will come of that? If the One goes into the Fire . . . If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to Mount Doom, that is all we can do. More than I can, I begin to feel.' The original wish of his heart ('I do really wish to destroy it!') remains silent. Frodo has adopted a definition of success which includes his getting to Mount Doom and the Ring's going into the Fire, but not his personally causing that to happen - unless he has an unstated intention not of casting It away but of casting himself away with It .

Sam takes on the job of keeping up a merry heart: 'Then he turned away, drew his sleeve over his nose, and got up, and stamped about, trying to whistle, and saying between the efforts: "Where's that dratted creature?"' Louise and I once discussed this as normal hobbit behavior - turning away from darkness (even if means missing great light) - which is now beyond Frodo because he is so damaged. However now I think that 'damaged' isn't quite the right description. Changing this way was Frodo's choice: To do what he has to do, he cannot turn away from the darkness but has to learn from each encounter with it. He acts like a normal hobbit whenever he can but has fewer opportunities as he approaches his goal. Neither is Sam missing out on the light, and the way it can be embedded in darkness, like at Mirrormere; his greatest knowledge of light will come in Cirith Ungol and at Ephel Duath.

The Black Gate is Closed:
While Sam considers what Gollum might be up to, Frodo considers their surroundings, and their allies - none close enough to help: 'The hope that had for one wild moment stirred in his heart was vain. The trumpets had rung not in challenge but in greeting. This was no asssault upon the Dark Lord by the men of Gondor'. This leads to the conclusion: '[I]t is my fate to receive help from you, where I least looked for it, and your fate to help me whom you long pursued with evil purpose.'
It also leads to the warning: 'You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing.' Gollum swore to 'serve the master of the Precious' - which in the event he does by dying, and taking the Ring to its doom when Frodo cannot - which was surely never due to Its twisting!

'Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Smeagol, you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back.' This would be simply a warning from Frodo to Gollum except for the line 'You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly' which is the voice of an enemy coming through that of a friend. Revealing oneself foolishly is a mistake that one makes in a battle, opening oneself to attack. Gollum's desire to have It back opens him to attack not from Frodo, but from It. Therefore Frodo's voice becomes conflated with the Ring's - saying something to Gollum that the Ring would never say because there is no reason for It to either warn or even recognize Gollum.
Frodo warns Gollum partly because he pities him, although also because the quest requires that he be encouraged to be reliable; this could be another instance of pity giving the Ring an opening. (With Gollum, there are never any good choices.)
'But the desire of it* may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Smeagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command.' Cara wrote that at this moment, Frodo imagines himself using the Ring and controlling its power, and quite likely the Ring has a part in this speech, too. It may be using Frodo's desire to be rid of Gollum - which will be expressed more clearly in The Forbidden Pool - to get into his thoughts. It is used to using thoughts about getting rid of enemies.
(*Not 'for it' but 'of it' - the desire that is part of Its very being.)
'Sam looked at his master with approval', apparently not recognizing the Ring's interference, 'but also with surprise: there was a look in [Frodo's] face and a tone in his voice that he had not known before'. Since Sam has heard the voice of the Ring coming through Frodo before, albeit briefly, this unfamiliarity must have another explanation. Either the Ring's voice is stronger and more distinct than before, or there is another change as well, quite likely the result of that undescribed dream.
While Sam approves and Gollum grovels, Frodo regains control of his voice, waits 'patiently for a while, then he spoke again less sternly'. The fact that the previous voice was 'stern' - an adjective not used about the servants of Mordor - indicates that it was not simply the voice of the Ring, but another (unidentified) voice influencing his.
Sternness will entirely displace pity outside Sammath Naur. Here Frodo's threat against Gollum is stern and notably lacking in pity; Sammath Naur will be 'the last need'.

The Window on the West:
'It does not belong to me. It doesn't belong to any mortal.' 'It is not mine to reveal.' There is a subtle ambiguity here, in that while It does not 'belong' to Frodo, it is 'mine' for some other limited purpose. Established purposes include: to take, to keep and to guard. Another established use is as a threat to control Gollum. Lalaith considers this last use to have a corrupting effect on Frodo. I am still looking for any sign of such an effect. I wonder whether Lalaith would consider 'mine' in this sentence as evidence; the unconditional, unlimited 'The Ring is mine' will be part of the climax at Sammath Naur. This 'mine' foreshadows that one; but is there any corruption going on in between?

'I am weary, and full of grief, and afraid. But I have a deed to do, or to attempt, before I too am slain. . . Let me go where my doom takes me.' This is Frodo's first (though indirect and ambiguous) reference to the possiblity of his personally destroying the Ring. His strengthened/purified light/will allows this reference. (Would Lalaith consider this a sign of corruption? If so, does Lalaith consider a strong will - without which Frodo could never undertake the quest - inherently corrupt?)

In one of his few later references to destroying the Ring, Frodo will not speak in terms of desire, but of duty, telling Faramir, 'I must find the Mountain of Fire and cast the thing into the gulf of Doom. Gandalf said so. I do not think I shall ever get there.' Gandalf did not strictly speaking say so, but he explained the situation which made such a duty inevitable, although never explicitly undertaken, and although impossible.
'I must find the Mountain of Fire and cast the thing into the gulf of Doom. Gandalf said so. I do not think I shall ever get there.' The mission - the wish of his heart since The Shadow of the Past - is finally stated - stark and impossible but speakable at last, as It gets stronger, and Frodo, in response and resistance, gets stripped to bare will. Having said it, he 'swayed' and 'fell into a deep sleep'. Saying this took all he had, which is a lot more than when there seemed to be more of him.

Reply to Elderberry Wine in CaraJLoup's LJ (written at this point in reading):
This discussion was only just called to my attention. It's quite interesting. I think I see what you are getting at in this post, but 'altruisic motives' isn't quite the way to put it. Gandalf says in The Shadow of the Past that the Ring can make use of altruistic motives: 'Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.' Also it attempts with varying success to use both Boromir's and Faramir's desire to defend their homeland; it succeeds with Boromir because he also desires power for himself, and leaves Faramir telling Frodo, 'I marvel at you: to keep it hid and not use it.' So I think is is pretty clear that noble motives are no protection.
The protection has to come from something deeper, which Frodo, Sam and Faramir all show: the ability to know one's own will from It's. Frodo's learning process is best documented.
Of course, Frodo and Sam both, being hobbits, don't give it a lot to work with. Neither desires power or revenge. The desires that it tries to use in Frodo are (#1) desire to escape and (#2) desire for knowledge. Even early in the learning curve, before Frodo has left the Shire, It can't get Itself put on even with a Nazgul present. Fate intervenes, but also Frodo's understanding of Its manipulations grows each time, making him stronger on the next encounter.
At Tom Bombadil's house, the safest possible place, It takes advantage of Frodo's uncertainty whether Tom has disappeared It and replaced It with a look-alike. What is so curious here is that Frodo can't yet tell - or can't tell here - that It is It simply by looking at or holding It. So his putting It on is motivated by desire for knowledge, which the Ring can use because it recognizes desire. The other motive, which I think is quite beyond It, is fear for the quest. It cannot understand this because the quest is a suicide mission and it cannot recognize the underlying willingness to let go of all personal desire.
At Bree, he doesn't put It on at all. It draws his hand to his pocket - an old trick that worked for years on Bilbo - and jumps onto his finger. Earlier in the scene, It tries use his desire to escape, but he recognizes and resists the interference. (This is hardly surprising after the Barrow Mound!) I think that It is still working on the same desire enough to get his hand into his pocket, when he is too involved in his song to pay attention. 'Your quest stands on the edge of a knife' can refer to the knife-edge of constant attentiveness. By the time Galadriel says this, it is not news to Frodo. He never lets the Ring get away with that again after Bree.
At Weathertop his will is overpowered by the assembled Nazgul. He has neither motive for putting It on nor any connected thought: 'he simply felt that he must take the Ring and put it on his finger.' Afterwards he reproaches himself not for being fooled into putting It on, but for weakness of will. He is separate from It but unable to withstands Its will reinforced with those of the assembled wraiths.
Thus in the first chapters he learns to recognize Its intrusions into his thoughts, resist them, stay constantly alert for them, and seek ways to strengthen his will against It - all long before Rivendell. Before the struggle against the Witch-king's wound which begins his transformation. Before MIrrormere where stars forever dwell. Before Lorien. Before Galadriel's mirror. Before lembas. Before Sam's struggle with the dark cloud that enters his mind in the Dead Marshes. Before every transformative experience that will strengthen Sam's mind and spirit before he ever puts It on.
Sam's putting on the Ring does not illustrate not simply a naive Shire hobbit saved by his native goodness, but a person who has accepted a heroic mission of his own ('Leave him! I said. I never mean to!') and grown into it through fear of dark, discomfort and death; through confrontations with and judgements both of and by people with far more power; and through seeing both the stars and his own heart in entirely new ways and to entirely new depths. There is no comparison between Sam after all these experiences and the naive but determined Frodo who left the Shire.
At Amon Hen, Frodo is much stronger than before all the events between his wounding and his leaving the fellowship, but he is also, as is often remarked in the text and by Sam, terrified and has been for some time, of what he has to do next. Boromir's attack is on both him and the quest. The Ring can never understand his fear for the quest, but It always tries to use his desire to escape danger, so for once Its desire and his coincide. He is in a no-win situation - and at Amon Hen, desperate for guidance, he is also easily vulnerable to his desire for knowledge being used. Once the Ring is on, it steers him right to the place where Sauron is most likely to find him. The amazing thing is not that the Ring can control Frodo once he is unable to avoid putting It on, but that, given his one instant of choice, he recognized his situation and took It off. By now, his will is strengthened, trained, focussed, and needs only an instant of freedom to be reasserted. (The speed with which he acted also shows that once again fear for his person and fear for the quest indicated the same course of action.)
His vision on Amon Hen encompasses the extreme fluctuations of hope and despair; to go forward, he must separate himself from those feelings as well as from fear, and return his focus of attention and will to the quest.
Once 'his will was firm and his heart lighter' he was determined not only to protect the Company but to keep trying to protect the Shire and the world, intentions that he never lost. The Ring could use those intentions the same as it used Boromir's protective intentions, if they took a form it could recognize. But because the quest is hopeless and impossible, those intentions take the form of willingness to die, which it cannot recognize. Frodo has had proof that unexpected help might save him, and accepts (at the end of the chapter) that some things are 'meant'. This acceptance of uncertainty and this faith in the unknowable enable him to go forward, but still without giving the Ring any recognizable motives to manipulate.
I find his second use of the Ring on this occasion awe-inspiring, not because his motives have changed but because he so quickly regains his focus on the quest.
I don't know whether this is what Cara means by giving in to the Ring in order to resist It or not, and if it is similar it is probably a much cruder notion, but this is what I see happening:
The ordinary hobbit reaction to the incomprehensible is much like Merry's, to simply put it out of one's mind. He never thinks again about Old Man Willow, the Barrow Mound, the Nazgul at Bree - all the brushes with overpowering outside forces that could have enabled him to recognize the Palantir's influence on Pippin.
Frodo, in taking on the quest, loses that option. He cannot afford to ignore intrusions of incomprehensible and overpowering forces; he must learn to comprehend them. He has to learn about the Ring and about himself through each confrontation with It, victory or defeat; to hold his own feet to the fire. He has to learn what It can use against him and do what he must to keep from being used, which becomes more drastic as It grows stronger. Examples: In Mordor he keeps going against hopelessness because he has learned not to be controlled by emotion, hope or despair. As far back as Weathertop, It and the Nazgul together could control Frodo's body; on Mount Doom, he will eventually need Sam to keep It from drawing his hands to It.
In the Passage of the Marshes, after Frodo tells Sam that he doesn't expect them to return, Sam takes on the job of trying to whistle, to restore a normal hobbit disposition. Frodo doesn't. He does not turn away from the darkness. Changing this way was Frodo's choice: To do what he has to do, he cannot turn away from the darkness but has to learn from each encounter with it. He acts like a normal hobbit whenever he can but has fewer opportunities as he approaches his goal.
The Ring's best weapon is Frodo's desire to escape the quest, to go home, thus as It grows stronger he has to lose his memories of home. Ultimately, he becomes immune to pity, which is one of the strengths of hobbits. I think that it is because he can no longer afford to pity the little hobbit of the peaceful countryside who was not made for heroic quests but took this one on anyway, 'whatever it may do to me'. Immunity to pity is not about Gollum; Frodo can no longer afford to fear his own death (or even Sam's) because it is 'the end at last.'
It is this heroic, hopeless, incomprehensible willingness that protects him from the Ring all along.
This reply has not been very much about Sam, has it? I think that he must have wished he could spare Frodo by carrying the Ring for him, but that doesn't mean that he fetl guilty for returning it. I think he would feel a terrible tearing regret that he couldn't.
I don't think that it is his motive in taking the Ring that protects him, so much as something deeper. His only desire is to be with Frodo in life or death. The Ring could make use of desire to be with Frodo but the life-or-death part stymies It. The abandonment of self-preservation is beyond Its influence. I think that this is what you mean by 'a purely selfless manner' and it motivates both Sam and Frodo all along. Because Sam's use of the Ring coincides with his realization that dying with Frodo is more important to him than living or even saving the world without Frodo, he is right then at his most focussed, the same way Frodo is at his most focussed when he puts on the Ring to leave the Company. The Ring's 'knocking itself out' is laughable because it can find so very little in Sam to appeal to; It gets his love of gardens all wrong.
At any rate, I think that this is what you are getting at.

The Stairs of Cirith Ungol:
'As soon as the Cross-roads had been passed, the weight of [the Ring], almost forgotten in Ithilien, had begun to grow once more' - with the turn towards Minas Morgul. Proximity to Mordor (Sauron) in general is reinforced, and will be contradicted, by proximity to the Witch King. It will not want to turn away from Minas Morgul towards Modor itself.

Minas Morgul 'was lit with light. Not the imprisoned moonlight welling through the marble walls of Minas Ithil long ago' - This is the first reference to either Minas Ithil or Minas Anor containing the light of Moon or Sun, nor will there be any such reference to Minas Anor/Tirith. The reference to putting the moonlight in prison is at best ambiguous; why was it done? Was it wisdom or pride? Is it similar to Galadriel's having 'caught the light of Earendil's star' and 'set [it] amid the waters of [her[ fountain' within the star-glass, her gift to Frodo? The light welling through the walls prefigures its light shining through his fingers.
This reminds me a little of the shattering of light into colors in Saruman's robe (by the power of his ring?), which recalls an image that JRR once used in an earlier description of what he called Sub-creation, the process by which he wrote LoTR. But Saruman himself creates lies. The same act can have radically different meanings when carried out for radically different reasons. Perhaps JRR himself didn't know how to evaluate the imprisoning of moonlight.
'Paler indeed than the moon ailing in some slow eclipse was the light of it now, wavering and blowing like a noisome exhalation of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing.' If the moonlight had not been caught in the tower by the Men of Gondor when it was Minas Ithil, it could not decay now. In the Dead Marshes, the illusory corpses did not decay; in Minas Morgul the real light does, due to either Shelob*, or the un-dead Nazgul, or Sauron (the Dark Lord) or all of them.
*It is on the edge of Shelob's domain, in which darkness is an independent force, not merely the absence of light.
Its 'windows showed like countless black holes looking inward into emptiness. For a moment the three companions stood there, shrinking, staring up with unwilling eyes. Gollum was the first to recover.' Minas Morgul continues to have an effect on their eyes throughout. There is some connection here with the power of seeing of Galadriel's Mirror and of Amon Hen. Galadriel's Mirror is supposed to grant visions, but Sauron is able to use it the same as he does the Palantiri, which are supposed to work both ways. Amon Hen, likewise, is a place of seeing, not of being seen, but the once the Ring gets Frodo to see the Eye, again it can wrest control of the power of the place and very nearly sees Frodo. Minas Morgul has a power of being seen but not of seeing; was this built in by the Men of Gondor? The Nazgul are good at neither seeing nor being seen: When they searched for the Ring in FoTR they sniffed rather than looking, and could see Frodo only when he put on the Ring or after he was wounded by and could see them. The Eye needs to see the Ring but isn't very good at it; the Ring needs to be seen, but being seen by the Nazgul does not constitute being seen by Sauron; he needs them to bring it to him.
Perhaps the limitations on the Nazgul's and Sauron's ability to see exist because light is essential to seeing; in Arda, light and darkness are independent and antagonistic forces, although this must not have been necessary. Tom Bombadil remembers 'the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside' as he said in In The House of Tom Bombadil. He must mean the period that Morgoth was imprisoned in the Void; when the Elves woke in Middle-earth, Morgoth had driven the other Valar from it, to Aman, and they took all the light with them except for the stars, which is why the Elves worship Varda/Elbereth/Gilthoniel, who made the stars for their benefit.
The area around the bridge to Minas Morgul is paradoxical, oxymoronic, with 'deadly flowers' and cold steam.
'Time seemed to slow its pace, so that the between the raising of a foot and the setting of it down minutes of loathing passed.' If only Frodo experienced this, it could be due to the Ring's trying to drag him to Minas Morgul, but Sam also needs to be 'amost . . . dragged . . . forward.' The effects of the Ring and Nazgul combined affect only Frodo, who 'felt his senses reeling and his mind darkening' at the bridge. This is probably very similar to what he felt when he was almost drawn into the Dead Marshes. Cara says that his resistance to the Ring, which works on the desire for power, depends on a sense of his own weakness - a sense inaccessible to the Ring's manipulations, but which leaves him open to all kinds of influences. (He cannot afford to think of himself as Master of the Precious, no matter what Gollum says, because imagining that one can master it, as Boromir's story hints, makes one an easy victim.)
'Then suddenly, as if some force were at work other than his own will, he began to hurry, tottering forwards, his groping hands held out, his head lolling from side to side.' Because this describes what is seen rather than what is felt, I think that it is a shift to Sam's point of view; Frodo has ceased to be conscious of his own actions. The opposing will, emanating from Minas Morgul, shows no sign of being focussed on Frodo, or even aware of him; the Ring however responds to it.
When Sam catches and arouses him, he 'passed his hand over his brow and wrenched his eyes away from the city on the hill. The luminous tower fascinated him and he fought the desire that was on him to run up the gleaming road towards its gate.' (The gate may foreshadow the 'gate of parting' edited out of an earlier draft of Shelob's Lair.) I think that he was aware only of the tower's power of being seen, reinforced by the Ring's desire ('that was on him' - imposed from the outside); when he turns deliberately away from it, 'he felt the Ring resisting him. . . and his eyes too, as he looked away, seemed for the moment to have been blinded. The darkness before him was impenetrable.' This is hauntingly similar to his blindness in Emun Muil, when the Nazgul passes over, which is broken by Sam's lowering the Elven rope; however the Nazgul themselves have no general power of being seen, and their control over his eyes is part of their general control over his body. Control over seeing, as opposed to moving, began in The Taming of Smeagol, at the east end of the Emyn Muil. Does ths indicate the boundary of Minas Morgul's influence? Or a sort of inverse-square influence of Shelob?

'"I wonder how far I can carry it?" . . . Weariness and more than weariness oppressed him; it seemed as if a heavy spell was laid on his mind and body.' Is the Ring still trying to turn around and get to Minas Morgul? Is Frodo more affected than the others by Shelob's darkness?
'Eyes can see us. When they come to the bridge they will see us.' Is this because of the angle, or because the bridge has a power of causing to see? But it is on the bridge that Frodo cannot see when he turns away from the Ring's chosen direction. It has some kind of power over sight, distinct but complementary to the tower's power of being seen. Gollum also means that in their own domain, close to the Eye, the Nazgul can see - fortunately, not any better than the Eye can.