Frodo at Sammath Naur

[Finwe]

Bravo, mark12_30! That was a truly admirable post!


I think that what is happening is that many of us are being carried away by the grandiose scheme of Lord of the Rings. True, there are some infinitely complex characters, with some infinitely comlex motives, but Frodo was not one of them. We have to differentiate his simpler motives from the more complex ones. Especially in this case, all he wanted to do was destroy the Ring. Naturally, the Ring would want to prevent that. Perhaps it was Frodo's intentions that caused him to "fail" when he did. Think about it. If saving the Shire had been his primary objective, the Ring would have shown him visions of "Frodo the Brave, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword, and armies flocking to his banner," all to save the Shire. Naturally, that would have made him fail more quickly, since he would want to give in to that temptation so that he could save the Shire. Sam had to withstand that temptation too. It was by the virtue of Frodo's desire to destroy the Ring, NOT use it in any form or manner, that enabled him to get as far as he did.