March 26, 2004

Re:frodo's Credit, and Did Others Know
Danny

While I agree that Sam is very heroic, I also have noticed tons of posts that say he is a bigger hero than Sam. In my opinion, Sam gets lots of credit from all the people I read or hear talking. He is very heroic so I don't mind that though. However like I said, I think that too many people unfairly diminish what Frodo did.

It was an interesting question about if others who praised Frodo so highly knew how the ring was actually destroyed. Even if Frodo would have tried to hide the fact that the ring overpowered him (which he most certainly didn't), I think that even the slowest witted Bracegirdle from Hardbottle could have put two and two together when they see his missing RING finger. Also, if I recall, the song sung afterwards sings of Frodo and the nine fingers. So it seems that it was common knowledge to me. Certainly Gandalf and Aragorn were fully aware of the final events, and they still felt Frodo was worthy of the hero status he was given.

Lets do a hypothetical situation. Suppose Frodo were magically transported from the Shire to the entrance to the Cracks of Doom. Even had that been the case, having the courage and fortitude to enter the very heart of Sauron's power was heroic. At the Cracks of Doom, not even the light of Earendil could give off power. Sauron's power suffered no rival there. The Ring would have overpowered Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond, or any other who had it there. It already had claimed one of the Numenorean's greatest heroes. To fault Frodo because the Ring overpowered him there is unfair. It would be like faulting someone who jumped into a den filled with ravenous and starving lions to save a child who saves the child by some miraculous accident but gets eaten by the lions in the process.

I also firmly beleive that Frodo's self sacrifice which he made at the very begining when he left the Shire, and then again in Rivendell is so quickly overlooked. It is so obvious that Frodo knew that he was giving up any hope of a peaceful life if he was lucky enough to survive at all. He knew that when he was in the Shire. He fought through more than any other in the quest from day one, and knew that he essentially had no personal benefit to get out of it. His entire quest from day one was one of absolutely selfeless toil and sacrifice.

Sam is a tremendous hero in the story, but there are many others as well. Without Aragorn at Weathertop, the quest would have failed, Without Gandalf at Moria and many other times, the quest would have failed. Without Glorfindle the quest would have failed. One could even go through some pretty complicated conjectures, which I won't go into, to say that without Merry and Pippin the quest would have failed. All those who played a part in the fellowship are deserving of hero status. Sam deserves more than many others, but he is not the only one who bouyed Frodo up and kept the quest alive in times of crisis. Granted his acts in the End of TTT(book) and the begining of ROTK(again talking of the book) were the most daunting and brave of any of the fellowship excluding Frodo in my mind.

However it is vital to recognize that all of Sam's, Aragorn's, Gandalfs, Merry and Pippin's etc actions were direct results of Frodo's bravery and courage to take the ring on himself. I don't have a problem with showering praises on Sam for what he did. I do however get frustrated because it is all to frequently implied that the Ring overpowering Frodo was Frodo's fault. The ring's power was basically an irresistable force in the heart of Sauron's realm. If someone jumps into the raging rapids to save a life, only an unjust fool faults that person for being crushed on the rocks. "Oh what a weakling. He couldn't swim strong enough to prevent the rapids from smashing him into that rock." Call me crazy, but that just doesn't make sense to me. Nor does it make sense to hear people fault Frodo because the full strenght of Sauron, which was mighty enough that it threatened to overwhelm an entire world(including Rivendel, Lothlorien and Minas Tirith) overwhelmed him.