[Child of the 7th Age]

You know, Lalwendë , I'm with you. In all the times I've read this chapter, I have never thought about this point before. Davem has shown me something new. Yet, with all respect to the latter, I can't think of this description as simply Sam's imagined wish as to what happened to his friend. I believe it is what happened to Frodo when he sailed West and saw what he had dreamt of in Bombadil's house so long before. After trusting the author for so many pages on such a long journey, I accept his authority to give the reader this information, however and wherever he found it out.

Can there really be a doubt that Frodo made it to Elvenhome when Tolkien discusses this so explicitly in his Letters? We do not know if Frodo found healing but we do know that he made it to the place he foresaw in that mysterious dream. However hurt and despairing Frodo may have been, I can't help feeling that it was inevitable that he leave the Shire and go West. While certainly his injuries and despair fed into this departure, I believe that Frodo's journey to the Blessed Land has roots that go much deeper than this. Why does that dream occur long before Frodo was injured? And who sends that dream? Is it simply a figment of Frodo's vivid imagination? (I can't accept that.) Is it something that Bombadil knows and understands? Perhaps but unlikely.... Or is it a beacon of hope from beyond the bounds of Arda?

And it isn't only the dream that makes me wonder. What is utterly fascinating to me are the notes in HoMe. Yes, I know we don't want to go deeply into the material outside the text. But I don't think we can ignore it here. It's just too important. On page 53 of Sauron Defeated, Christopher Tolkien mentions that years and years before, when Frodo was still Bingo, long before the plot was hatched out, his father wrote these words: Bingo would return to the Shire and make peace, then "settle down in a little hut on the high green ridge--until one day he goes with the Elves West beyond the towers."

This to me is mind boggling. Tolkien changed so much in the story and characters, but this aspect of the Ringbearer he did not change. Even from the beginning, before the author fully understood the nature of the Ring, JRRT had decided that Frodo must go to Elvenhome. This suggests Frodo's departure is inherent to who he was -- not merely a reflection of his brokenness. No one can deny that the brokenness is there, yet so too is the nobility of character. There were moments of anguish and utter despair for Frodo, but most of the time he was able to act with real grace. Certainly, his final words in the book are both poignant and gracious. They are the words of someone still struggling to hold things together. And the voyage to the West was just that -- not a giving up for Frodo but an attempt to regain his health in both a physical and spiritual sense. For me that underscores the bittersweet nature of that final chapter. Frodo must leave because he is broken, but he must also leave because he has grown beyond the Shire. Broken or whole, he would no longer fit in...

I have more ideas about some "smaller incidents" in the early part of this chapter, but will wait till later.