Nebulous "It" and Absolutes

[davem]

What we don't (or I don't) know is whether Frodo would have willingly made the sacrifice he did, if he had known the ultimate outcome. Journeying to the Undying Lands would not, at the beginning, have been enough to persuade Frodo to undertake the task. If Gandalf had told him 'you'll lose everything, including yourself, everything you love, & your possibly your sanity, but you'll save the Shire & get to go into the West & live with the Elves for a while before you die', I can't see Frodo thinking 'Whoo, yeah! I'll have some of that! Where do I sign up?'

But at some point before the end, had he decided the price was worth worth paying, & was the journey up the Mountain done in full concious awareness of what he was doing - before he broke & surrendered? If not, then what kind of God or fate could force him into that position of loss - not a loving one, or possibly one who 'loved the world', but not Frodo himself very much.

Or perhaps it was only afterward, when it was all over, that he could say, 'OK, I was forced into it, I have had everything that matters to me snatched away, & I'm left with this hole in me which is going to swallow me up, but I can now see it was worth it'

Or maybe, in the end, he just had to accept that that is just 'the way things are in the world' - which for a short line is a horrible summation of our position. Thinking about that, its one of the most devastating ideas I've ever come across - Frodo goes through Hell, is destroyed by it, & in the end he says - 'That's just the way life is'. This is either despair on an unimaginable level, or its a final, desperate attempt to impose meaning on horror. Frodo is asked to do too much, & he isn't told what he is being required to sacrifice. This says something about the world & our place in it that I find deeply disturbing.