LOTR - Elrond's massive fail

[Peremensoe]

@Alka_Seltzer

I suspect Sam could have willingly destroyed the ring.

Yes, except that Tolkien could never have written such a thing. Sam was a hero, but not a Hero of the Great Stories, whose mighty deed (or terrible failure) could write history alone. Oy! noted this a little while back.

@Oy

Sam was, first and foremost, a servant. He would never have been given the Ring to carry, had Frodo fallen at Weathertop or Moria, because he was a servant, and in that culture, that meant he was a lesser order of being. It wouldn’t ever have occurred to him or to anyone else to give it to him. Only when he was the only one left with Frodo did it occur to him that he was the one left to carry on if Frodo fell; only then did he become a companion rather than just a servant in his own mind. And even then, he decided he wasn’t capable of doing it without Frodo and turned back to find him and die defending his body rather than carry on to Mount Doom.

I would add only that I think describing this as a matter of “culture” doesn’t go far enough. It’s deeper than that, a matter of fate.