I admit that I have come to this thread late, and while I have done my best to catch up on the full debate, the overwhelming volume and complexity of the posts has defeated me (somewhat) – so if I am about to replicate points that have already been made, please do let me know!
At any event, the first thing that has spurred me to post here is the idea of Frodo and repentence.
Davem, you ask (and then answer):
Quote:
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Has Frodo anything to repent of? If he claimed the Ring in full knowledge of the implications, then, yes.
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The moment at which Frodo claims the Ring has always struck me as being wonderfully ambivalent on just this point:
“‘I have come,’ he said. ‘But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!”
At first glance it does indeed appear as though Frodo is making his own choice, albeit under huge (perhaps, as Tolkien argued, irresistible pressure) from the Ring. But the language is so loaded. Syntactically the sentences as Frodo utters them are clumsy, but they do allow the following two phrases:
“I do not choose now” and “I will not.” This would seem to open the door to the idea that Frodo’s will has been overmastered by the Ring, and that he is
not in control anymore. He is “not choosing” for his “will [is] not” his own anymore.
Also, the pattern of this little scene is suggestive that Frodo is not making his own choice here. It begins with the acknowledgement of his heroic act (“I have come” ), then moves into the above ambiguous expressions of intent (that is, he has lost the ability to choose and will to the Ring), and
then he claims the Ring as his own. It is only after he has reached the point where he can “not choose” and “will not” that the he claims the Ring.
So, in answer to your question
Davem: no, Frodo has nothing to repent of for he did not claim the Ring, the Ring claimed him!
The other thing that I have had flitting through my mind as I read over the posts is Frodo’s parting words to Sam:
“‘I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.’”
Now, before I started ploughing through this thread, I had always thought that this referred to the sacrifices people made in war to preserve or save the homeland. But now I think about it differently: it seems to me that with the end of the War of the Ring, much that is good and beautiful is passing from Middle-Earth: Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf are all on the same boat with Frodo. These beings are the repository of memory: the memory of Westernesse, and the First Age and of all that is now gone. For them to leave and Frodo to remain means that in Middle-Earth there will no longer be beings who remember the light, but at least one being who remembers the darkness. It’s not that Frodo will remain in Middle-Earth like the blot of ‘sin’ but as a reminder and commemoration of Sauron’s works -- that is, he knows the full nature of the One Ring.
I’m still not entirely happy with this last thought, but it seems intriguing enough (to me at least) to throw out there.