I first read LOTR when I was very young and though it was at the height of it’s popularity my jaw dropped in shock when Frodo couldn’t complete the quest and destroy the ring. Now, having reread the book many times, it makes perfect sense. (In fact, I’ve read that Tolkien himself didn’t see it as a failure; that Frodo struggled and did the very best any mortal could, and by grace the world was still saved. But it’s still quite a twist.) What did you guys think of this plot development, whether in book or movie? Were you surprised?
I was not suprised. The Ring would have been too much for anyone. Besides, Frodo would have failed even sooner if it weren’t for Sam. Frodo is not the hero of the story, Samwise is. Mostly, becaus he was the one person that the Ring had nothing to offer.
I thought it was awesome. Of course, I didn’t have any exposure to the books/story until my 40s, so by then I was used to the good guy winning and resolving all internal and external challenges 99.9999995% of the time. When he couldn’t do it, I was like “Go, reality, go!”
Sherri Tepper has characters who do the same. I remember in Grass the protagonist had a chance to resolve everything at the end of the book… and couldn’t pull the trigger, though everything you read up to that point indicated that she should and (likely) would.
Agreed, Sir.
It made sense to me at the time. From all the info about the ring’s power, I was not at all surprised that it took a ‘lucky accident’ or perhaps more of a eucatastrophe to achieve the ring’s destruction.
I think this is a common misconception. Sam was certainly a hero, but he wasn’t THE hero. He never would have gotten as far as Frodo. He’d likely have killed Gollum at some point, likely before learning of the secret back entrance to Mordor. Frodo would have made it much further alone* than Sam ever could have. And given time, you cannot say that the Ring wouldn’t have tempted Sam.
*well, except for Gollum
Frodo had already carried the ring a ways and been stabbed. Why would Frodo have made it further alone than Sam after the Fellowship broke up?
I think a theme of the work as a whole is that heroism is a collective phenomenon. If an individual is a hero, it’s to a large part due to the group(s) he or she belongs to.
I remember being shocked and horrified the first time I got to that part of the book when I was about 14, but could also see that it had been coming on for awhile and wasn’t entirely unexpected. Then when Gollum showed up, everything fell into place.
I believe Sam is the Hero of the books. Not perhaps of the quest. It is about Sam in the sense that he is the middle class British guy who fought WWI and WWII and behaved heroically when the need arose.
The last line is his, “Well, I’m back.”
I wasn’t at all surprised. I had seen it coming for a while, and figured out pretty much exactly how the Ring would be destroyed when Frodo used it to pronounce a doom upon Gollum on the slope. I took it as a further fulfillment of Gandalf’s earlier line, “Oft evil will shall evil mar.” I didn’t think of it as miraculous, so much as concluding an established theme on the inherent self-destructiveness of evil. As such, I found it quite satisfying.
He’s certainly easiest to identify with I suppose.
I was a little bit surprised by the way it happened, but I appreciated it immediately. Having Frodo walk up to the lava and destroy the Ring would have cheapened its power.
I also liked the fact that it’s a sort of redemption for Gollum. I found Gollum to be a very sympathetic character even on my first readings. Admittedly, it’s an accidental redemption, but it still shows that someone as warped as Gollum can be used in the plan for good. Also, it gives Gollum an ending with real peace - he’d have had a very miserable life post-Ring.
I’m going to disagree about Sam being “the hero” - the story doesn’t have just one hero and I don’t think Sam could have filled Frodo’s shoes. Frodo needed Sam just as much as Sam needed Frodo.
I didn’t like it at all the first time I read it, but I was 11 at the time. Straightforward hero stories were more my speed.
Now, I think it’s as perfect a climax as any epic adventure story could have or want.
Didn’t I address that in my post?
Falling from Mount Doom, thinking about the lava that awaited him?
I didn’t like it when I first read it and I also didn’t like that Frodo effectively fades away as the book ended.
Now that I’m older and I’ve re-read the work over and over, Frodo is a much more impressive character and his failure makes much more sense.
I saw what you did there.
And I was just racing through the story at that point. I was surprised that Frodo did that, but only for about a quarter of a second. I never stopped reading, through Gollum’s sucker punch, Gollum’s Steve Martin dance at the edge of the Sammath Naur, the de-digitization of Frodo, Gollum’s self-immolating limbo into the lava, and Frodo giving what he thought was going to be his final monologue.
I didn’t have time to reflect on the implication that Frodo’s quest had failed, until Frodo himself said that, but for Smeagol, it would have.
Even Bilbo is described as suffering from a longing for the Ring and Bilbo had it for, what, a tenth of the time that Gollum did and with much less use of the ring?
Any quick death is probably better than crawling around Middle Earth longing for something that doesn’t even exist anymore. Besides which, I doubt he was thinking about the lava - he’d finally got his Ring back. I suspect Gollum was dead before he had a chance to notice anything else.
I think you mean: Frodo would made it father alone compared to how far Sam would have made it alone, not Frodo would have made it farther alone (ie farther without Sam than with him). Am I reading that right?