Top Left: Bilbo snaps while trying to get the ring from Frodo in a moment of weakness at Rivendell in Lord of the Rings.
Top Right: The ghostly bodies under water in the Dead Marshes where Gollum is leading Frodo and Bilbo in The Two Towers.
Bottom Left: Galadriel refusing the ring from Frodo while freaking out and explaining how she’d become evil if she took it in LotR.
Bottom Right: Part way through Smeagol’s transformation into Gollum in The Return of the King.
All countries are a few steps away from this type of shit. Nation states may have been a good departure from monarchies but have very much proven to be trash; the “cultures” and “ethnicities”, etc. they proclaim to protect seem very much to be bullshit money-making schemes at best. A serious shift away from vertical economic and social hierarchies is the only solution. But deprogramming the world is not going to be easy.