O legally-minded one, I'd say part of the "[adumbration] from far back" is the
Taming of Sméagol. So we need not disagree there. "Not unambiguous"
is a highly ambiguous phrase! It could mean "very clearly" if you take it
as litotes (i.e. "not bad" for intended "very good"). But, never mind, I
won't press that one...
As to your interpretation of the two parallel scenes (in the
Taming and at Mt. Doom), I can't see how the Ring uses Frodo in the first
unless we assume that any use of the Ring is really the Ring using the seeming
user -- i.e. by positing what I'm trying to prove! So, again, no
disagreement between us necessarily; only I think the two scenes demonstrate
that point instead of the point's underlying the first scene by nature as it
were.
I'm using the Wagnerian tag merely as an aphoristic
summation of an idea developed by Tolkien himself: I don't know any neater
apophthegem. It were no insuperable obstacle in any case to rephrase the
entire argument so that the same point emerged without reference to Wagner's
Ring cycle.
Now I really have to get to
work!
__________________________________
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
