April 17, 2003

Frodo, Boromir, and Osgiliath
Lilly

First off, I agree that Boromir's intentions were good, but his actions were not so much. It's admirable for one to care about his home and his father, but Boromir took this to an almost unhealthy degree. It was like an obsession for him (anyhow, that's how I took it). The Ring has a real knack for taking the bad things about a person and magnifying them. It was more than happy to take Boromir's excessive loyalty and turn it into something dangerous. True, he just wanted strength to protect his people, but he ought to have known by then that the Ring was not going to help, and he definitely shouldn't have tried to assult Frodo for it. If he had succeeded all would have come to ruin. And about Frodo: he wasn't trying to become the Dark Lord. He resisted the Ring better than anyone could have (except maybe Sam, but no one wants to see poor Samwise with any more of a burden than he's got). When he claimed the Ring as his own that was all he was doing. The Ring had become his obsession as it had become Gollum's. Gollum didn't want to rule anybody: he just wanted his Presssiousss. Frodo wasn't trying to be evil, he was giving in to the power of the Ring. In the depths of Mordor, in the place it was forged, perhaps the Ring became more powerful; more desperate to be discovered before it was destroyed. Niether Frodo nor Boromir is evil; they're just victims.