Would he have forsaken them?

[Gurthang]

In one of the movies, I believe TTT, Sam questions why Frodo is being nice to Gollum. Frodo replies with:

Because I have to believe he can come back.

Now, it doesn't take a lot to deduce that he wants Gollum to be able to come back because that would give him hope. Yet this quote is very interesting, to me at least, because he specifically says that he has to believe. Why does he have to believe? It seems like he is almost saying he would give up without that hope.

If he knew that there was no hope for him to return to a normal life after the Ring was gone, would he have continued the Quest?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I'm not sure which film it was in, but I remember talking about it before on the Downs.

Some people were quite disappointed by this line because it is selfish of Frodo to say that. In the book Frodo grew to empathise with Gollum. In the film this empathy is shown; it's just that the effect is almost negated by the selfish line which you point out.

I do like the line and think that it is well-delivered. In another film with different characters I would have enjoyed it. However, it was inappropriate to make Frodo say it. But then movie-Frodo was pulled this way and that throughout the trilogy.

[Arwen Imladris]

I don't think that Frodo is being selfish. He is carrying an incredible burden. To complete the task, he has to have hope that he will be able to perform it. He knows that the ring is overcoming him. He needs to know that once the ring is gone, he still has a chance at being alright. He sees Gollum as himself in the near future.

Although I'll admit, 'need' is a very strong word, I think that Frodo honestly believes that he needs to have hope. Who doesn't need to have some hope? Very few people are content with the way things are at the moment, but the happiest people are those who have hope for a better future. So, perhaps Frodo could have continued to breath if he had no hope, I don't think that he would have been capable of completing his task.

After Gollum died, he lost that sense of hope. He felt that he was doomed. And indeed, he did not ever really 'come back'. He stayed in Middle Earth just long enough to set his affairs in order and to say goodbye to his beloved land.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

But the real Frodo is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of Middle-earth. Elijah-Frodo seems more preoccupied with hoping that he himself will be alright.

I wouldn't normally call that behaviour selfish (in such an extreme situation as Frodo found himself in) but he came across as more self-interested than he should have.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Unfortunately, in ROtK PJ and Andy Serkis got too cute for themselves.
The movie Gollum of TTT was accurate, and was worthy of Frod's hoping to save him (for several reasons) but PJ decided to change Gollum in ROtK and essentially
make his intentions malevolent from the start, not the conflicted Gollum of the book and movie TTT, a character worthy of Frodo hoping Gollum could be redeemed- that hope being an essential aspect of Frodo's moral growth in
the tale.

[Elianna]

My friend and I were talking about this just minutes ago, and he had a thought. Maybe one reason why Frodo was so dependent on Gollum being able to come back was because he saw how much Sam hated Gollum. Frodo was scared at how vehement Sam's hatred was to this creature who was only this way because of the Ring, a creature which Frodo could easily become if he didn't go through with the Quest. Perhaps Frodo feared that if Gollum couldn't overcome the cancer of the Ring, then he won't be able to either, and then Sam would hate him too. In this light, it isn't that Frodo is being selfish that he didn't want to live the rest of his life as Gollum, but that he didn't want to loose Sam by becoming what Gollum was.

[Folwren]

Considering all that's been said...and what the topic of the thread is...

I say that Frodo said it not because he needed the hope, but because he knew what Gollum had been through and new a fragment of what he was still going through. He'd born the ring for some time by then and wasn't completely ignorant.

He didn't have hope. He may have needed hope, but the hope that Gollum would come back certainly wasn't exactly what he needed.

And, speaking more from the book than from the movie because the book showed it better, I think that Frodo wasn't doing it for himself, but for everyone and everything else. He didn't believe that he was going to be making it back.

He saw in Gollum a trapped mind and soul, like a slave, in fetters that can't be unlocked with a mere key. His character, being a hobbit, and having been happy at one time, and free, too, but now being under the same sort of bondage (though not exactly the same, or not to the same extent), he just hated to see Gollum like that. He wasn't afraid that Sam would stop loving him. I don't even believe that he was afraid that he was going to turn into something like Gollum. He just hated to see the bondage and he wanted him free.