Frodo at Sammath Naur

[doug*platypus]

According to Tolkien, he had no will left; he had spent every scrap of it in getting there.

An important distinction between will and resistance needs to be made at this point. To imply that Frodo had no more will left in the matter gives the situation over entirely to the Ring (an inanimate object?). As davem so eloquently notes (in what I incidentally believe is the finest post of an already fine posting career), this is to take the Manichaen view of a good external power versus an evil external power. This is the overly simplistic belief that many light readers find in The Lord of the Rings, and which has been used frequently in popular fantasy ever since the book was published.

As T.E. Shippey points out in his fantastic book, The Road to Middle-Earth, Tolkien shows us a world delicately balanced between the Boethian and Manichaen views, both of which are too simplified or polarised to provide a comprehensive answer to reality (not that we'll ever know all the answers, hopefully).

Anyway, while it may be true that Frodo loses all resistance to the temptation of the Ring through his arduous physical and emotional journey, this doesn't necessarily mean he has lost his will. That is, if by 'will' you mean "the ability to make your own decision", or the meanings given by Merriam-Webster as:

3: the act, process or experience of willing
or
5: the power or control over one's own actions or emotions

If Frodo no longer had any will in the matter, then you must believe that the voice he was speaking with in the Sammath Naur was not his own, and that he personally did not make the decision to claim the Ring.

I believe that he did make the decision himself (see my earlier post), and that the voice was his own. While he may have had no resistance left, he certainly had the will to make the decision. And thus, as davem says, he did 'fall' and commit that particular sin of claiming It for himself.