Firstly, Helen, thanks for the positive review. I didn't intend for it to be that long. I wonder how many people will read it through.
Charles williams wrote: 'Sin is the preference of an immediately satisfying experience to the declared pattern of the Universe'. So, Frodo 'sins'. He chooses an 'immediately satisfying experience' claiming the Ring & all it offers & symbolises to him, in preference to the 'declared pattern of the Universe', & while he may not know exactly what form & shape that declared pattern has, he at least knows it isn't Ring-shaped.
Frodo makes a choice, claims the ring. Will, consent, assent, must be involved, Hence Frodo is not free from 'sin'. The problem is that too many people want him to be, or need him to be. It seems to be a result of our 'good guys' versus 'bad guys' culture. I can't see that Tolkien would have had any problem with the statement that Frodo was a sinner - he considered us all to be sinners. Frodo's was a moral failure, a 'sin', but it was an inevitable sin. 'For sin is behovely' as Julian of Norwich put it. This idea of sin as behovely - useful, profitable, or at least, necessary is central to medieval thinking - if man hadn't sinned, Christ would never have come, & for the medieval Church at least, the 'redeemed' world was believed to be better than the unfallen world would have been.
Frodo sins, & is therefore like all of us. Imagine him not falling at the end, would we have believed in his 'reality'? Wouldn't he have been essentially uncnnvincing, a Hollywood Hero, who beats the bad guys with his .44 magnum & a sharp one liner? Frodo doesn't. He falls at the end, reminding us of who we are & what we're really like. That we're not the cool hero, always unflappable who will win out in the end. Sadly, the fact iis, we wont. We'll go through life failing, ''sinning' in William's sense. Tolkien says that's a fact of life. But that there is something 'more' going on, which we're a part of. Hope without guarantees, but still hope.
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