Aurora 2022-Final

Braden Kelsey

Braden Kelsey

or chance of returning to the Shire—tells Sam to go home. This is partly because Gollum convinces Frodo that Sam has eaten the remainder of the food, but to a greater degree because of Frodo’s growing addiction to the ring. He’s not willing to risk Sam taking it. Months of carrying the ring weigh on Frodo, and for a long time he masks his pain, before finally succumbing to its will and abandoning those he loves. * Initially, it was thought that people prone to being bored had different resting brain activity than those who weren’t, but that’s not true—they’re the same until the boredom hits. People who are more prone to boredom see greater activity in the right frontal lobe, which is activated during times of stress. That left frontal lobe becomes more active when somebody is looking for stimulation—a distraction, a hit, a puff, a sip. I had quit smoking, and for a couple months I got through my days without it. But the energy seeped out of me, bringing my reserves lower each day. Without my extra-strength, on-command dopamine hits, life slowed down. Days became tedious and were slogged by routine. Minutes crawled together haggardly to form an hour, and hours moved like trees to form a day. Boredom turned to watching mind-numbing internet content and switching through video games because none of them were fun anymore. And sleeping. Mr. Front Right Lobe came crashing in like the battery ram on Helm’s Deep’s gate, and through the splintered wood came flying arrows tipped with hopelessness—a run for the Ents was imminent. I receded, curled into tighter circles until it was just me in the bed, alone with my vices once more. * If I knew how many times I said I was going to quit smoking, I probably wouldn’t bother saying it anymore. Each time I run out, I stand next to Frodo in the heart of Mount Doom, my hand outreached over the lava. Each time, we turn back to Sam’s begging to destroy it, and we say “no.” Unfortunately, I don’t have Gollum to bite my finger off and pry it from my grip, so I waltz out of the entrance and get in my car. I drive down the sparsely lit streets, over the bridge, and to my favorite (the closest) gas station. The owner’s name is Jack, and I only know that because one of his day-shift workers told me—I previously knew him

pain. Frodo feels the weight of the ring, and Gollum felt it for a long time. He takes Gollum on as a guide, and he’s painfully aware that Gollum’s curse is slowly becoming his own. The Return of the King was my support group during the time of my reading it—my Nicotine & Office-Joints Anonymous (NOJA). I had Tolkien’s words for addictive behavior scattered in front of me, a beast in the light. I saw the shape of my behaviors—the roots of their patterns and origins—and my response shifted from dopamine to adrenaline; my body didn’t know whether to fight orcs or run for the Ents. Frodo wanting to keep the ring made sense to me, yet I cheered for him to destroy it while mine pushed me towards rot. I stopped smoking—broke the habit of reaching for it at all points of the day, and I even stopped demolishing toothpicks in my jaws. But demons don’t die; they only shrink under the pressure you subject them to. Take away the pressure and, suddenly, they’re even bigger than you remembered. As Gollum told Frodo in the Dead Marshes, “Once it takes ahold of us, it never lets go.” Frodo carries the ring well for months, but each day it grows heavier on him. Like all addictions, the ring brings side effects—a red indention begins to form around Frodo’s neck as it digs into his skin and breaches his psyche. He can’t sleep, has hardly any appetite, and is often suspicious of those around him. While Frodo can’t stand to part with the ring, an effect of his addiction is that he grows weaker against the ring’s will to return to its master, Sauron. Frodo increasingly loses ground in his battle against the ring’s desires each passing day, until he is eventually captured by the Rangers of Ithilian and taken to the war-torn city of Osgiliath. It is during Osgiliath’s raid that one of the Nozgul flies overhead with his fell beast, and Frodo collapses beneath the will of the ring, walking into the open and offering it and himself to the black rider. Frodo begins to put the ring on and closes his eyes, like an intoxicated man about to leap from a building, but only after one last drink. He’s pulled from his surrender by his most trusted friend and safety net, Samwise Gamgee. They barely escape capture alongside Gollum, and flee the city enroute of Minas Morgul, a desolate trek of gray dust and stone. After six months together living on lembas bread and scarcely any water—constantly dodging ring wraiths, orcs, goblins, Easterlings, treacherous terrain and the dead—the ring convinces Frodo that his companion Sam is the enemy. While on the Morgul Pass heading towards Shelob’s lair, Frodo takes Gollum’s side and laughably—given Sam has no food, water,

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