what if Sam had kept the ring?!!!!!

[The Saucepan Man]

The point has been made many times on this and other threads, but it cannot be emphasised enough. NO ONE, standing on the edge of the Cracks of Doom with the Ring, could have resisted its Power. Not Sam. Not Merry or Pippin. Not Legolas or Gimli. Not Aragorn. Not even Galadriel or Gandalf. They would all have been driven to claim it, as Frodo did.

As I think is acknowledged somewhere in Tolkien's Letters, Frodo's Quest (to throw the Ring into the Fires of Mount Doom), was an impossible one. Gandalf's strategy, as I understand it, was to get the Ring to Mount Doom and trust in providence (Eru).

So Sam could never wilfully have destroyed the Ring, any more than Frodo was able to.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 8:22 PM December 13, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]