Exactly my point about Sam maybe being too good hearted to carry the Ring. Bombadil couldn’t carry the ring because it was so unimportant to him that he would lose it, right? The Ring doesn’t like being held by people it can’t manipulate at least somewhat. If the Ring could not have converted Frodo, it would have left him, just like it did Gollum.
Ah. I hadn’t thought about that being the reason Sam hesitated. That’s actually more consistent with his character. And I don’t think it’s a lack of ambition in hobbits, but that the ambition is so small that any manipulations can be easily dismissed, ala Sam.
The way I see it, then, is that, Frodo overcame more than Sam did, but Sam overcame completely, while Frodo failed at the very end. In other words, while Sam got a 7 out of 7, Frodo got a 7 out of 10. (Yeah, I know a C isn’t a failing grade, but it is considered “average”, which is what Frodo’s failure really was. At the end, he succumbed like an average inhabitant of Middle Earth.)