What was Frodo's temptation

[Farael]

Originally Posted by PrinceOfTheHalflings

But ... is this connected with Frodo's desire to claim the Ring? Could it be that at that moment in the Sammath Naur the Ring appealed to Frodo's sense of pity and mercy towards ... Sauron?

I must beg to differ here. While you do bring up a very interesting idea, I think that any self-proclaimed Ring Lord knew that before his dominion was complete he would've had to challenge and defeat Sauron. Furthermore, anyone who knew a bit of Sauron's history (like Frodo did) would've recognized that there was simply no way that Sauron would give up his claim to the ring while he had any hope to regain it left.

I am with Boromir88 on this one. I the thought that Frodo was completely and utterly defeated and in a way overthrown mentally and physically appeals to me in ways that no other "excuse" for his behaviour might. He was the "perfect" Ring Bearer and yet even he couldn't make it in the end. The corruption the Ring had on Frodo was that of wakening him to the point where he could no longer oppose the Ring's will. In the end, up until Gollum bit his finger off, Frodo was a slave to the ring. Certainly not a slave to Sauron directly, but a slave to Sauron's will by proxy.