[Folwren]

Funny, but the thought for such a topic entered my head not two days ago.

It's interesting to think about. It would have been heart breaking if Frodo had really died, but p'raps not so heart breaking as it ended up being anyway.

The questions that I see are-
Could Sam have made it to Mount Doom alone and with Gollum's opposition and fighting?

Could Sam have dropped the Ring into the Cracks of Mount Doom, or would have ended up as Frodo did and been unable to do it?

The answers to these questions go both ways. Say Sam reaches Mount Doom by himself. Gollum jumps on top of him and fights for the Ring on the slopes of the mountain. Sam now is not only fighting for his own life, but also for possession of the Ring. More likely than not, he won't have the pity he had on him in the book and he'll just kill him with his sword.

If Sam has pity on him, he runs away. . .

If Sam can't throw the ring into the fire, Gollum jumps up on top of him and bites his finger off and then leaps into the fire and everything ends all happy like.

If Sam killed Gollum earlier then clearly Gollum isn’t going to be there to steal the Ring from him and Sauron gets the ring and everything ends sadly and the bad guys win.

All that is even assuming Sam could make it across Mordor and survive.

The chances of the book ending successfully without Frodo are slim. And, what’s more, there was still a whole lot of character development to do. If Tolkien had gone ahead and bumped Frodo off, it would have detracted from the story a great deal, I think. It would have been hard and boring to write about Sam traveling alone over Gorgoroth. Can you imagine? It was probably challenging enough to write two characters, but with only one...!!

Frodo’s poisoning and coming back to ‘life’ added an interesting twist to the story, especially because he was picked up by orcs and Sam had to go save him. (Not to mention the fact that his mithril coat and other belongings were taken out and shown to Gandalf, Aragorn, and the others in front of the Black Gate.) I think it was definitely a good thing that he survived it and it would have not been as good if he had actually died and not come back.

– Folwren