[Child of the 7th Age]

Birdland-- Thanks for the kudos. No, your post didn't touch on anyone falling in love, but it did say a lot about another kind of love--that between father and son. I've never thought of Frodo as a father figure for Sam, "the father he wished he had", but there may be a lot of truth in that. Frodo was, I believe, eleven years older than Sam. Moreover, it definitely sounds like Bilbo once played that role--teaching Sam about elves and such--and maybe Frodo "inherited" some of that same role after Bilbo left the Shire, and the Gollum situation was just one example of that. It would be interesting to look closely at the dialogue between the two and see if there are any other hints of that in the story. sharon