[Fordim Hedgethistle]

The old Evill, evil, evil-doing, doing-evil debate rearing its knobbly head once more, eh. . .?

That's a very nice point about Frodo, Child, and one that I'd not considered. As with Denethor, though, I think that Frodo's relation to this discussion works best precisely as you have framed it -- the BEG grouping is a foil to Frodo in some way, insofar as they explore in a particularlised way the nature of despair and its consequences, which is -- as you eloquently point out -- what Frodo's journey up Mount Doom is all about (the inverse of Dante's Inferno, in which the poet went down to conquer his despair??? A new idea that must be contemplated).

I think the key thing that really separates out Gollum, Eowyn and Boromir from the rest of the characters, for me, is that they commit a very specific form of evil act: they are oath breakers. They each of them are bound by their duty and by their word to a particular person whom they concsciously disobey: Boromir owes his allegiance to Aragorn, and has no excuse after the Council of Elrond to deny that (again, I cite Faramir's reaction to Aragorn: instantly acknowleging the fealty he owes). Eowyn has been ordered by her king to remain at Dunharrow. Gollum has sworn to guide Frodo. There's no two ways about this in Middle-earth -- if you swear an oath, if you owe fealty, then to go against that is an evil act. Again, I would cite those fellows along the Paths of the Dead, and don't even get me started on examples from the Sil!

(This is where, incidentally, Child's point about Frodo is extremely interesting. When the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell, Elrond is very clear that on Frodo alone "is any charge laid: neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of the Enemy". Technically, when he does claim the Ring for his own he does not break this oath, but then he also is not really living up to the spirit of that oath either?)

The more I read through the other posts the more I begin to think that these three characters really are bound by a common journey through despair to hope, rather than by any abstract or metaphysical cogitations about good and evil (Good and Evil? doing-good and evil-doing?). Each of them gives in to their despair, and each of them is redeemed of that despair (I'm not talking about Redemption of their souls or whatever, for the same reason that I'm not talking about them in terms of good and evil. . .more below). With Boromir and Eowyn it's easy to see how this works, but with Gollum I suppose it's a bit murkier. I still stand by my argument that his journey is one from despair to hope insofar as (in the words of Gandalf), "his fate is bound up with that of the Ring's". While Gollum/Ring are alive, they are bound to one another by despair, to the despair of the world; when they are destroyed, the world's despair is converted to hope. In this sense, I think it is fair to talk about Gollum's despair (which is bound to the Ring) is redeemed by hope when the Ring is destroyed.

Where I'm going with all this is that with Gollum, Boromir and Eowyn we have the issues of good and evil dramatised for us on a very human scale. There is no real litmus test of good and evil that we can apply to concrete humans in the real world -- if there were, well, wouldn't that make things so much easier?! Just take a urine sample or something, and if the person comes up "Evil" throw 'em in the clink and be done with it! With these three characters, the full complexity of the issue is brought out in the specific terms of despair and hope, which is all about how we feel about our own natures and fates in the universe. They are not about being judged by others, but about judging themselves. This really does make them unique: Frodo is always being tested by the external force of the Ring (yes, sure, there's an internal struggle, but the Ring is what is operating on him, drawing him toward an evil act, or doing wrong). Even Aragorn is being operated on by external forces, insofar as the big question for him is not will he do/be good, but will other people accept him as the rightful King? For Gollum, Boromir and Eowyn, their struggles really are primarilly, if not wholly, internal as they give in to their own despair and are redeemed of that despair when they find hope again in themselves.