April 16, 2004

Regarding Frodo
Brett C.

Well, it has been a long time. Strangely I’ve found that now that I've seen ROTK [after only 4 times] my passion has cooled considerable for the movies. When all is said and done I still find FOTR the best watch, much as I find it's literary predecessor as the best read. Perhaps because it has the fewest alterations of the three films.

But for this post I would particularly like to focus on Frodo, even though checking back over the archives that discussion ended some weeks ago. The question I shall address however, is not whether Frodo is or isn't a hero, but why there is any speculation.

First, lets set aside the fact that he fails to destroy the Ring of his own will as a contributing factor. It is important to the story and to Frodo, but not I feel to this issue. People's division of opinion I think stems subliminally from two sources: the Professor's writing and PJ's alterations.

Regarding the Professor, one must remember that Tolkien wrote the LOTR as a sort of semi-documentary of Middle Earth history. As such we get only the perspectives that were available to the original writer [i.e. Frodo] at the time, namely those of the Fellowship. If you read the text, you almost never are given any of the internal feelings of characters like Theoden, Eomer, Faramir, or even Galadriel. Denethor's inner dialogue remains a blank slate. Our understanding of these persons comes from the external observations of others, rather than any glimpse at their true thoughts set forth by an omniscient author figure. Similarly, our understanding of the Enemy's thoughts and stratagems comes from such things as Gandalf’s exposition instead of cutting to the throne room of Barad-dur [or inside of Orthanc as in the movie].

That being the case, if you examine the second part of TTT novel, you will find many references to what Frodo is thinking or feeling at different stages of the story, but these dry up almost completely after he is captured by the Orcs, and are replaced by Sam's thoughts instead - how he perceives their situation, and what he observes of Frodo's deterioration. This is, I think, because im maintaining his pseudos-historical style Tolkien removes Frodo's commentary as he struggles with the ever-increasing influence of the Ring. To Frodo waking and sleeping blend into a kind of nightmare state as his burden eats away at his mind. As such in his writing he can only recall distorted and disturbing flashes of the final journey, no doubt intensely painful to recall afterwards, and so he relies heavily on Sam's observations to tell that part of the tale.

The chief effect on the reader of the approach is that immediately Frodo recedes in significance while Sam comes to the fore. This is not a criticism, but an observation. It would be tedious after all to read paragraph after paragraph of the description of Frodo's internal fever dream, but by transferring the narrative perspective almost wholly to Sam you cannot avoid making him the dominant character in the reader's mind. Even the fateful moments at the Cracks of Doom, Frodo's moment of ultimate temptation and conflict, are told only as Sam perceives them. So it is natural that at this point to those reading the book that Frodo seems 'less heroic' than in previous parts of the story.

This fact was I think unintentionally exacerbated by PJ in the cinema release with the writer's alterations to the story, for greater drama I am sure they would say. For example, I truly believe one of the chief reasons I only saw ROTK half as many times as FOTR was the scene where Frodo tells Sam to go home. That was wrong, just wrong. It wasn't even particularly good cinema, considering we had ended TTT with Frodo coming to realise how invaluable Sam is to him. "Samwise the Brave...Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam and then, go home Sam, I think I’d rather trust Gollum. In the books Frodo tells Sam he knows Gollum could betray them at any time, but what choice have they, but in the movie he comes across as a gullible fool [and no, I don’t feel the attempt by the filmmaker’s to lay the blame for this on the corruption of the Ring is successful]
Instead of advancing on the monstrous presence in Shelob’s lair to drive the demon back by the fire of his courage fuelling the starglass, in the movie Frodo runs through the tunnels like a headless chicken. The film seriously diminishes both Frodo’s courage and wisdom in the few places that Tolkien ‘s writing and the circumstances of the tale reveal them, and the effect on the audience’s perceptions of Frodo is predictable.

So in summation, don’t feel to confused if Frodo doesn’t seem a hero to you, and likewise understand why others might not hold in him in such high esteem as yourself. The reasons lie at least partly with forces external to the character, as well as internal, and so any estimation of his final heroism must be weighted with these factors in the balance.