LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 3 - Mount Doom

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

My point is made in defence of the idea that Frodo is not necessarily to be taken as a passive victim. He could be, if one holds your views, but I personally don't see him as such, nor as the true hero.

I don't see him as a passive victim -- I see him as very actively resisting the Ring for longer than anyone thought possible: far beyond what mortal flesh is normally capable of. His suffering is not what makes him heroic (there's nothing ennobling about agony) his perseverance does.

Criminey! Frodo tamed Smeagol, got past Shelob, walked through Mordor and climbed Mount Doom, all while the Ring got stronger. He could never have done it without Sam to be sure -- but he did do it. It always drives me wild when people say, after all that, Frodo 'failed' in his quest. That his will was weak or that he was somehow not up to it.....

To them I say: let's see you get to Mount Doom, with the Ring, and not corrupted by it!

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

Criminey! Frodo tamed Smeagol, got past Shelob, walked through Mordor and climbed Mount Doom, all while the Ring got stronger. He could never have done it without Sam to be sure -- but he did do it. It always drives me wild when people say, after all that, Frodo 'failed' in his quest. That his will was weak or that he was somehow not up to it.....

To them I say: let's see you get to Mount Doom, with the Ring, and not corrupted by it!

Okay, point taken. I personally don't like it when people spit on Frodo and think him weak either, but the fact remains that Frodo DID fail, and I, personally, think the evidence points to complicity on his part at the end.

He may have done more than mortally possible, but in the end he failed, for whatever reasons.

[Firefoot]

I agree very much with what Fordim has just said. If Frodo failed, then failure was the only option there ever was. Because of the nature of the the Ring, it would have corrupted anyone who had borne it, some sooner than others. Frodo took the Ring as far as anyone possibly could take it. He stuck to it until the end, enduring "knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden." He had figured for a long time that there would be no going back, that he would die or worse at the end of the journey. But he kept going. He could have opted out. No one ordered him to take the Ring. Elrond specifically said that the burden was too great for one to lay on another. But he kept on, with or without hope. That's what makes Frodo a hero.

In fact, Frodo is never actually commanded to destroy the Ring. The charge that is laid on him is to "neither cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of thEnemy nor indeed to let any handle it, save members of the Company and the Council, and only then in gravest need." The Ring is to be destroyed, but no one ever actually commands Frodo to do it. It is understood that Frodo is best fitted for the task, but even then it is spoken of as him having about as much hope as anyone. Gandalf would have known that day back in the Shire when Frodo couldn't will himself to throw the Ring into his little fire that the task of willfully destroying the Ring would be impossible. The real aim of the Quest was to get the Ring to Mt. Doom, then trust in divine intervention, or fate, or whatever else you want to call it. In this, Frodo succeeded.

Frodo's "choice" at Mt. Doom was really no choice at all. He couldn't fight it any more. Not that he wouldn't. He couldn't. On the slopes of Mt. Doom, he tells Sam to hold his hands, that he couldn't stop them from going to the Ring. Couldn't. He might have known what he was doing, and he may have "willed" it, but he didn't want it. Frodo, right up to the point where he stood at the Cracks of Doom and the Ring overthrew his will, really did desire to destroy the Ring. He knew it had to be destroyed, and wanted it to be, but I think he had known, conciously or not, that he wouldn't actually be able to do it. But he still went as far as he could, got the Ring as close to destruction as anyone could.

Listen to what Frodo tells Sam:

"No taste of food, no feel of water, no solund of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades."

This is the Ring working on Frodo. It takes away all his defenses against its power. Think about it: if you are trying to find the will to do something hard, you're going to think about why you're doing it. Friends, family, your home, love - all these things might help you get through. But Frodo can't remember any of these things in a normal way anymore. All he's got left are himself and this ring of fire. It's all he can think about. You might say he has a choice not to think abuot the Ring, but he doesn't. He tries to remember these other things but can't - and not because he doesn't want to. He does. It's the same way with destroying the Ring. He doesn't want to claim it, but there isn't any other possible choice. There are theoretical choices, yes, but none that are possible.

Frodo is not perfect. If he had been perfect, he could have destroyed the Ring. Nor is he a Christ-figure. He did claim the Ring, and he of himself did not save Middle-earth. But he did not fail. He succeeded as far as anyone could succeed.

[The 1,000 Reader]

Exactly. Frodo willed his choice because the ring "destroyed" everything in his life and corrupted his will. He willed it, but in a way it wasn't Frodo himself standing there at the Cracks of Doom. It was more or less a twisted creation of the ring, with the only connections to what it once was being its name and race. Frodo truly did become what Gollum was in the end: a twisted shadow of what once was.

A little theory I cooked up was that Frodo may have been able to destroy the ring, but something else stopped him: the power of Morgoth. Morgoth had infused much of his power and will into Arda, making Morgoth's Ring. When Sauron made the One Ring he may have also used a great part of Arda's power, taking with it part of Morgoth's Ring. When Frodo was standing at the Cracks of Doom, the part of Morgoth's Ring, and thus a part of Morgoth, may have called out to Frodo, turning his will if not taking him over completely.

If I'm not mistaken, the great dark cloud that rose from the reek of Mordor came from Mount Doom. Taking the form of an enormous cloud crowned with thunder doesn't seem like something Sauron could be capable of doing. Morgoth, however, was said to have taken such a form once before and the sheer might that seemed to come from the cloud, a dying form, seemed much more akin to Morgoth than Sauron.

My theory is probably nothing but bollocks, but feel free to comment on it.

[Alphaelin]

Firefoot wrote:

If Frodo failed, then failure was the only option there ever was. Because of the nature of the the Ring, it would have corrupted anyone who had borne it, some sooner than others.

Well, it is likely that failure *was* the only option there ever was for anyone trying to destroy the Ring who didn't happen to be Eru or a Vala. My own thought is that 'the power of Evil over Middle Earth' is an underlying theme of Tolkien's, so yes, Frodo is fated ('doomed'?) to give in to the Ring in the end. Consider how evil the ring was. It held much of Sauron's power, and Sauron was a Maia to begin with. Under Morgoth, it sounds like his power and strength increased as he learned more of the ways of Evil from his master. The example of Saruman shows that Sauron could overpower another Maia, even without his Ring. Hence Gandalf's fear of both Sauron and the Ring.

And recall Galadriel's little demonstration of what she would be like wielding the Ring in 'The Mirror of Galadriel'! She is also fully aware of the Ring's danger -- and so she should be, having with Celeborn "fought the long defeat" (i.e. the defeat of Elves and Men by Evil) through three Ages of Middle Earth. Even armed with her knowledge, the Ring's power tempts her, and it is with relief that she discovers she can resist it's call.

Of mortals, poor Boromir never had a chance against the Ring's power -- it 'ate his brain' pretty quickly. Aragorn and the members of the Fellowship who ended up in Rohan and Gondor were probably saved by their separation from Frodo and the Ring. Hobbits seem to have some innate ability to remain unscathed by the power the Ring exerted for longer than Men did: Gollum's brain got eaten, but he didn't fade into a wraith; Frodo did resist the Ring's power for as long as he could hold out; and Sam was affected the least. Whether because he was stubborn or naive, or because of his 'common sense' (which is actually pretty uncommon, lol), or because *his* Quest was to take care of Frodo, the Ring had relatively little attraction for him.

Frodo was able to resist the Ring for an unprecedented long time, but in the end, he was going to give in to its power, especially if the Ring was trying to resist its imminent destruction and Frodo was weak from physical and mental torture. I argue that he still conciously made the choice to give in. Frodo's later words and actions indicate that he was aware of what he was doing at the moment he claimed the Ring. "I failed", not "I couldn't take any more pain" or "I couldn't stop myself". The choice may have been prompted by deciding that he couldn't take whatever last-minute pain or pressure the Ring was exerting on him on Mount Doom, or it may have been that he finally snapped and thought 'Why shouldn't it be mine?? I brought it here!', but it was his decision to try to do the right thing and take the Ring (at the Coucil of Elrond) and it was his decision to claim the Ring for himself at the end. As luck (or Eru, depending on your opinion) would have it, Frodo's past choices in bringing Sam to Mordor and sparing Gollum's life now came to his aid, and thanks to Gollum's attack on him, he was spared the following consequences of claiming the Ring:

Total victory of Sauron, years of torture in Barad Dur, and the destruction of everyone and everything he once held dear.
OR

Being pushed by Eru (or maybe even Sam) into the Cracks of Doom himself in order to save Middle Earth from Sauron's dominion. Although I think Sam would have been so broken-hearted that he would have thrown himself in, too.

[Firefoot]

Alphaelin - I agree with everything you said right up to your fourth paragraph. Claiming the Ring was the only option. Our difference of opinion is in that where you think Frodo fully wanted to claim the Ring, made that choice, I think that it was more like his will gave out. You can only build a tower of blocks up so high before it collapses.

[davem]

So, Frodo is not allowed to be human, to 'sin'? He must be a saint, & if he does anything we don't like, well, he wasn't really there.

Of course he was broken by what he had been through, but he gave in - probably long before he got to the Fire - look at the times he threatened Gollum with destruction - first in the Emyn Muil, second on the slopes of Mount Doom. On some level, at some time he said 'Yes' to the Ring. That was his 'sin'. And that one 'Yes' overrides all the 'No's' he ever uttered. But because he had forgiven others he himself was forgiven.

Reasons are not justifications.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Fordim

His suffering is not what makes him heroic (there's nothing ennobling about agony) his perseverance does.

Criminey! Frodo tamed Smeagol, got past Shelob, walked through Mordor and climbed Mount Doom, all while the Ring got stronger. He could never have done it without Sam to be sure -- but he did do it. It always drives me wild when people say, after all that, Frodo 'failed' in his quest. That his will was weak or that he was somehow not up to it.....

I agree that it is his perseverance that makes him heroic. Destroying the Ring is not his greatest feat because he did not do it; it was the getting to the Sammath Naur that was his greatest feat and it is this that almost breaks him. I would say that what finally does break him is the realisation that he could not carry out the final act. It is like suddenly facing his own mortality and it leaves him shattered.

To acknowledge that Frodo 'failed' in the final step is not to say that he was weak as I think that nobody could have done this. Whether anyone else apart from Frodo could have managed to get the Ring to the Sammath Naur is another matter.