From: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Barb Miller)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks
Subject: Re: Comments from 2nd viewing
Date: 14 Sep 92 02:30:47 GMT
	<rhaller-130992102212@rhaller.cc.uoregon.edu>
Reply-To: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu
Followup-To: alt.tv.twin-peaks
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Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
In-reply-to: rhaller@oregon.uoregon.edu's message of 13 Sep 92 17:31:27 GMT


In article <rhaller-130992102212@rhaller.cc.uoregon.edu> rhaller@oregon.uoregon.edu (Rich Haller) writes:
*   (S. A. Wilson) wrote:
*   > 
*   > Question about the various rings....
*   > 
*   > Now, since there are "good" and "evil" versions of Coop, Laura, etc.,
*   > could there not be also "good" and "evil" version of objects, such
*   > as the ring. Thereby, it would explain why Laura was told not to
*   > put on the ring, yet offered a ring. There are different rings floating
*   > about: on of these rings is some bond between the werarer and the
*   > Black Lodge, another is a gift of protection from the White Lodge?
*
*   Another explanation is that the ring was good and it was the 'bad' Cooper
*  in her dream telling her not to take it.  It might be argued that it has to
*   be the good Coop because that is the one in the lodge, but don't forget
*   that Leland/BOB enter the lodge at the end of FWWM, so Coop/BOB could also.
*    That said, I'm not as happy with this theory as I would like to be.

Well, one possibility is that it is not time for her to accept the
ring yet.  I don't remember the chronology well enough to know just
exactly what all happens to her after that warning not to take the
ring, but possibly she has to fall "faster and faster" than she's
doing now in order to acquire enough knowledge, or precipitate enough
events, or come into contact with enough people, so that everything
that needs to happen does happen before she is killed.

Another possibility to think about is that this ring could be like the
ring in Wagner's opera cycle, which confers both great power and great
loss upon its owner (in the opera, the owner of the ring becomes lord
of all the world, but this ring can only be forged by someone willing to
renounce all love [this person turns out to be a dwarf, BTW].  Because
the ring is stolen from its first owner, a curse is put upon it that
anyone who owns it will become so possessed emotionally by the riches
that the ring brings that it will bring no joy, only death).  It may
have been that Laura didn't yet need the ring's power (had the angel
disappeared yet?) and Cooper was trying to warn her against its
negative side.

The ring in Tolkien's _The Lord of the Rings_ is another example of a
very powerful ring that also has its very dark side.  In both Wagner
and Tolkien, the ring has the power to posses its possessor, taking
that person away from humanity and into a prison of one's own desire
for the ring, the soul trapped inside the boundaries of that golden
circle.  But rather than the ring, Laura's emblem was the broken-heart
necklace, with James holding the other half, so she was not closed off
from others in the way that she would be if she possessed the ring.
Presumably once she developed a concrete fear that her connection with
James would prove fatal to him, she felt that the power of his love to
save her would not stand up to Bob's power to destroy her, so she
decided to keep her rendezvous with darkness.

Both ring and necklace are left behind after their owners are killed,
although finding the ring seems to zap one into another realm, whereas
finding the necklace seems to correspond to discovering aspects of the
dark side of Laura that may be buried by grieving friends, dug up by a
probing psychiatrist, or simply sensed in a vision by Laura's mother.
Perhaps the "pure" half of her heart had been entrusted to James, and
the "dark" half was what was sacrificed by Bob in the train car.  Even
if she did accept the ring in the train car (and I only remember
seeing it thrown in at her, not whether she actually accepted it),
perhaps it could not encircle her entire heart, only the dark half.

Barb Miller
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks