Didn’t Gandalf comment on the significance of Bilbo having willingly given up the ring? And if I’m recalling correctly,that makes at least one more person who disagrees with you: Tolkein, the guy who wrote the book. But perhaps I misremember.
My thought was point was every one could be hero of sorts. The hobbits all had their heroic moments. Éowyn played her part. Each gave in their own ways to help move things towards the greater good, from the mighty to the less so.
[QUOTE=Quartz;15347541Well yes, but I’m talking about Frodo, who handed over the Ring at the Council of Elrond. [/QUOTE]
Well he doesn’t actually hand it over to anyone else - he just pulls it out and displays it to the others, and the Ring apparently isn’t too happy about THAT:
I imagine the Council would have seen a different hobbit had anyone tried to take it from Frodo.
In the film he does: he puts it in the middle of the table.
I’m not so sure. I think the scene in the book is showing the Ring’s growing influence but not yet mastery - compare it with Frodo’s behaviour after Samwise rescues him from the orcs and gives him back the Ring.
“Fly, you fools! (pause) to the theater to watch episode 1…”
No, given that we’re going to end up with 3 ‘The Hobbit’ movies with additional material, this serves the purpose of the Prequel Trilogy.
I can’t see Sam as a hero. The parts that stick out the most to me are where Sam is beating or abusing the mentally ill addict.
oh sweet jesus. That again. :rolleyes:
Tom Bombadill is completely immune to the power of the ring - so much so that he can’t even be trusted to guard it since he’d just forget about it entirely.
The relevant passage:
“A ring of power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but it’s keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else’s care - and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo only in history has ever gone beyond playing and really done it. He needed all my help, too.”
That’s Gandalf speaking. He helped, but ultimately the act was Bilbo’s. Sam does get credit for doing it unassisted, though.
What you’re missing is that it’s not about Frodo’s growth it’s about his destruction;’ how he sacrificed everything to the cause and is left with nothing. As the book opens Frodo’s an average, somewhat wealthy hobbit with no particular problems; by the end he just wants to die and end his mental and physical suffering. Yes, there is a change, a huge change - it’s a tragedy though. Lucky for Frodo he can go west instead of just killing himself.
Faramir (of the books) claims to have no interest in the ring and says he wouldn’t pick up the ring if he saw it lying in the road. It’s true (book) Faramir makes no effort to seize it from Frodo, but what I can’t recall is if he ever actually gets a look at it. Is he actually immune to its temptation?
You remember correctly… Gandalf speaking to Frodo: *
‘He felt better at once,’ said Gandalf. 'But there is only one Power in this world that knows all about the Rings and their effects; and as far as I know there is no Power in the world that knows all about hobbits. Among the Wise I am the only one that goes in for hobbit-lore: an obscure branch of knowledge, but full of surprises. Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots. I think it likely that some would resist the Rings far longer than most of the Wise would believe. I don’t think you need worry about Bilbo.
'Of course, he possessed the ring for many years, and used it, so it might take a long while for the influence to wear off - before it was safe for him to see it again, for instance. Otherwise, he might live on for years, quite happily: just stop as he was when he parted with it. **For he gave it up in the end of his own accord: an important point. *No, I was not troubled about dear Bilbo any more, once he had let the thing go. It is for you that I feel responsible.
I think that it’s true that Bilbo hesitated at the crucial moment, and that Gandalf used pressure and persuaion. I think it’s also true that Bilbo feared disappointing his dear friend Gandalf, more than he wanted the ring, and that was part & parcel of his essential Hobbitishness and the quasi-immunity to the Ring’s lure that most Hobbits have because they do not desire what the ring provides, ie, Power and Influence. if the ring produced ham and mead and ripe peaches, Hobbits would be on it like white on rice.
I agree that Sam carries Frodo and inspires Frodo on numerous occasions when Frodo could not have gone on. But Sam would not have done it if not for his caring for Frodo. Would not have left Hobbiton if not for Frodo.
The movies also downplay Merry’s knowing what what going on and making plans prior to leaving the Shire.
Tolkein totally bought into the class system of his era. Sam couldn’t be the hero, regardless of what he did, because he wasn’t the right class to be a hero.
Frodo could have stayed in the Shire, tossed the Ring to Sam and told him, “I say there, Sam old boy, I need you to run this Ring over to Mordor and toss it in the volcano. And try to be back by harvest time. That’s a good fellow.” and Frodo would still have been the hero of the story because he was the one who sent Sam to destroy the Ring. Tolkein would have just filled the trilogy with chapter after chapter of Frodo sitting in his study reading books about Middle Earth history and linguistics (all of which would have been reproduced in full) with an occasional paragraph about how Sam was making out on his assignment.
Frodo does change a great deal over the course of the story, but he doesn’t grow, he diminishes. The mental torment caused by carrying the ring, and the physical injuries from the Witch King and from Shelob destroy the cheerful, if somewhat intense, Hobbit we see at the start of the book, and at the end we have a distant loner, who is unable to take part in the celebrations that happen because he, basically, saved the world.
I posted a much longer and more researched post earlier today in another LOTR thread which touches on Tolkien’s description of Frodo’s melancholy and the necessity of his sailing to the West for some measure of healing.
To answer the question in the OP, in the traditional sense, Aragorn is the Hero, at least of what would normally be the main story. However, without the efforts of Sam and Frodo, his efforts would be in vain. Frodo does fail at the last, and in the view of Tolkien, in the letter cited in the post I linked to, the guilt for that failure is one reason for his distress. Sam, of course, could not have carried the ring for the whole of the journey, but never fails in his duty to support Frodo. Ignore the terrible scene in the films where Gollum convinces him to leave for a while, it didn’t happen.
You don’t even know enough about Tolkien to spell his name, let alone to make sweeping and utterly false statements like this.
Gimli really didn’t. I always felt like he got shafted in the books, not contributing in any meaningful way, but I may well be misremembering.
I always thought so. Sam is the one out there getting the job done, without the navel-gazing that Frodo indulges in. Yes, he’s hard on Gollum, but somebody has to be.
Sam’s always the one carrying everything, figuring out logistics, pushing Frodo when he needs a push, and doing the heavy lifting.
As to Sam’s supposed stronger constitution, I always figured that Tolkein was a product of his culture, and couldn’t see the laboring classes as complex enough to suffer from the temptations that plagued Bilbo and Frodo and Boromir and Sauron and all the rest. Kind of unfair to Sam.
I would say so. He, more than anyone, contributes to ending the old feud between Dwarves and Elves. And of course, he did his fair share of fighting along the way.
My post is vindicated by your apparent inability to rebut it.