[davem]

But Firefoot, Frodo goes through all that, loses everything, & then says to Sam, that's how things are in the world - what does that mean? He can only be saying the world is like that. Sometimes life (or God) requires some of us to sacrifice ourselves - our entire selves, so that others can be saved. Some of us have to be lost so that others can be found, & that's what's happened with me. I've lost everything so that you can go on living. My life for yours, my happiness for yours, my peace for yours, my hope for yours.

Has he given those things willingly, or have they been taken from him. Was there a point in his journey where he made that sacrifice willingly? Or did 'the way things are in the world' simply conspire to take them from him, whether he would or not? And was it then down to him to find a way to live with that? Did the Universe or God or whatever, simply say, 'I need this doing & Frodo will have to do it, whatever becomes of him - the task is necessary, so he will have to perform it'? And even if in the end he does 'give them up', was that simply because he knew he would lose them anyway. His claiming of the Ring at the end calls into question his real willingness to give up those things.

We don't know - each reader will decide for themselves, according to their own feelings & beliefs. We don't know, because we don't know what happened to Frodo once the ship passed out into the West. As I said, Sam must have written the account of Frodo coming to the Undying Lands - because no-one could have told him what really happened.

If we believe in a loving God, then we can hope (but not prove) that he got back everything he lost - & possibly more. But the Story doesn't say that's what happened. It holds out only the hope that he did. No guarantees. Its down to trust, in the end, apparently the more accurate translation of 'estel'.

What does it really mean to say that things are that way in the world? Is it acceptance, resignation, or despair. Hope in things beyond the world is not the same as hope within the world. Perhaps Frodo had some hope (given to him, or maybe left to him, by Illuvatar) beyond the world, but I don't see that he had any hope within the world. The world is taken from him, or he gives it up,& without the world there can be no hope within the world, so no hope for himself. Estel is hope in cosmic things, not in woods, fields & little rivers, in a pipe & a pint in the Green Dragon.

'It' is lost, & 'it' is everything a mortal in the world can find peace & happiness in. We may be made for Heaven, but we're born into the world, & our real joys are little ones. Cosmic joy sounds very nice, but most of us think of Heaven as as a place where we can enjoy those little things that made us happy here, & be with those we love. Apart from the theologians & the mystics, most of us are not drawn to an eternity of Heavenly choirs & the beatific vision of God. Even our Heaven is a little place - Niggle's Parish. We can only hope that in the end Frodo found himself there.