But Tolkien does say that at the end Frodo feels like a 'broken failure'. He has a sense of having failed - probably because he had by the end convinced himself that he could after all succeed - in destroying the ring, in saving gollum & in saving the Shire. This discussion, for me, is not about outer events, which were all unavoidable - Frodo simply could not have achieved any of the things he set out to do, But the fact that he set out to achieve them, & by the end had convinced himself that he could achieve them, is what broke him. He took on tasks which he could not succeed in fulfilling, & then blamed himself. He broke & ran, claiming the Ring for himself. He knows that if he had had his way at the end he would have brought the world to disaster & ruin. His mercy to Gollum is undeniable, but so is his ultimate sin - in William's sense is to claim the Ring, putting his own desires, at last, first. He cannot forgive himself & knows he failed & cannot accept that, or live with it. He feels like the central figure in The Sea Bell, alone rejected because of his overweening pride.
The reason this thread has gone on so long, I think, is that it is a central issue. Frodo is the central character, he is the carrier of Tolkien's central message. LotR is about death, as Tolkien said. But that is also to say its about life, & our response to it. the question of whether or not Frodo fails, succumbs to 'sin' in the end is a question for all of us. Or perhaps the question is 'why do we need Frodo not to have failed. What does Frodo's 'success' or 'failure' meean to us? Frodo is a character in a story. Why do we feel so strongly about him? Only because in some way we identify with him. Tolkien is holding up a mirror to us. He is asking us a question about ourselves, & I think our position on this issue, whether we see Frodo as failing or succeeding, says a lot about us as individuals. anyone who thinks that those of us who have posted most on this topic have only been talking about Frodo at Sammath Naur, in an objective way, simply as 'literary criticism' will have missed some very important insights into the individuals who are posting. We are asking questions about our own beliefs & judgements, of ourselves, others & The Authority.
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