[davem]

(Ideas sparked by some pm's to Fordim)

Its interesting to speculate on the 'peril' involved in entering Lorien - Why is it perilous to enter?

Perhaps because entering the otherworld forces a choice on the traveller - a choice between worlds, between perceptions, different existences. Frodo does make a choice, in the end - he chooses to 'trade' his 'reality' for that of the Elves - so in that sense we can see the 'peril' played out in his own life - he makes a choice from which 'there is no real going back - this is not simply a case of loss of innocence - its not simply the horrors he has seen or the suffering he has been through which prevents him going back, its his choice of the Elven world over the mundane. Whether he realised it or not, he cut himself off from returning to the Shire, his old life, by the choice he made.

He will forever walk on Cerin Amroth - but the deeper question is, did he always walk there - even before he left the Shire? Elven 'reality', elven 'time', is Dreamtime. After the destruction of the One it will fade from the world we know, & Frodo, by his choice will fade with it. The rest of the world will pass into history, into our reality, but Frodo won't - he will forever wander in 'Lorien' - & 'Lorien' in this sense is as much 'Valinor' as a place in Middle earth. He will wander there 'forever' psychologically, spiritually, wherever he may be physically, in 'our' world. He will never leave that other reality.

Of course, at the end, the Elven world will fade, its links with this reality of ours finally severed forever - so he is increasingly 'torn in two', but unlike Sam, who has chosen our reality, & whose choice will require him to let the elven world pass away, Frodo must go whither the Elves go. One can almost imagine Frodo & Sam standing on ships, anchored side by side, holding hands, but their ships are facing in different directions, & when the anchors are raised, they will slowly lose their grip & pass away in different directions.

We see in them different choices, freely made. Their love holding them together, but their choices pulling them apart.

There is 'peril' in Lorien, & the traveller brings it with him, because he brings himself. He is who he is, & his choice is a spiritual one, reflecting, ultimately, his essential nature. Frodo must leave the world - its as inevitable a fate as that of the Elves themselves. Frodo is as 'half-Elven' as a mortal can be, & his choice is the choice faced by all the half-Elven - to remain mortal, within the world, or to choose the West.

In this sense, it doesn't matter that Frodo remains mortal, & will eventually die & pass beyond the circles of the world - because in the context of LotR alone, we don't know that Frodo will die - it isn't stated - & all the hippy buttons proclaiming 'Frodo Lives' shows that readers who only had LotR believed that Frodo's passing into the West meant he would not die.

In Frodo & Sam we can see an echo of Elrond & Elros, & specifically, of Arwen - In Frodo & Sam we can see the consequences of the choice, the alternatives facing all the pereldar. Arwen's choice is Sam's choice - both choose the sweet & the bitter - mortality. Frodo, the dreamer, chooses rather the dreamworld - & those dreams are both real & unreal, eternal & transitory, here forever & always having just slipped from our grasp. Sam's sorrow is based in the realisation that Frodo's choice could never be his, & Frodo's that his choice could never have been Sam's.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time - it is, & vice versa. Sam & Frodo - the great tragic love story - tragic in the greatest sense, because the tragedy has been chosen by both parties - yet, being who they are, they could 'choose' nothing else.

'Choice'? Is it really? Perilous, certainly to enter the Golden Wood, Heart of Elvendom on Earth, not simply because the traveller brings evil with him, but because he brings who he is, his essential nature, & that will force him to make a 'choice' which ultimately is no-choice.