Did Frodo REALLY volunteer to Bear the Ring?

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Pervinca Took

P.S. Come back, Ivriniel! Your devil's advocacy stirred my sluggish posting fingers. (It helps that talking about Frodo is one of my absolute favourite things to do).

Absolutely seconding that. As a hypothesis for the community to consider, discuss and confirm or disprove your subjective reading is engaging and stimulating. Got to admit though that your rhapsodic and associative style of posting can make your arguments hard to follow at times.

Originally Posted by Firefoot

Seeing as Frodo literally does as well as it was possible to do and gets as far as anyone can get, I hardly think that you can say covetousness for the Ring is his motivation.

I think what Ivriniel is driving at is a distinction between Frodo's conscious motives, which I have no doubt were noble and honourable, and the Ring working on him on an unconscious level, eroding and subverting him. When Boromir demanded the Ring I'm sure he wouldn't have thought of himself as covetous, he was convinced he was doing what was best for Gondor and the Free Peoples at large. Only after he stumbled and came to his senses he realized the madness that had come over him.

(I absolutely agree, by the way, about Frodolijah being way more creepy than the genuine article.)

One thing I've got to object to, Ivriniel, is your use of the word "foot-stomping" in describing the moment at the Council of Elrond when Frodo volunteers to take the Ring (at least I suppose that's what you're referring to); I can see nothing at all in the text that would warrant this. Rather, Frodo seems like a mouthpiece for "some other will" there - and this could be the Ring's, but it also makes me think of Sam with his tongue being loosed and praying to Elbereth "in a language which he did not know" (LotR Book IV, The Choices of Master Samwise).