[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

Frodo 'fails' because he must, because he cannot succeed. Maybe Tolkien is pointing up the inevitability of human failure, that Frodo is not the 'Christ' figure that too many casual readers (& some not so casual, like Humphrey Carpenter) interpret him as. Perhaps it is Tolkien's faith that requires Frodo's ultimate failure at that point. If anything truly 'foreshadows' Frodo's failure at the end perhaps that's it. LotR is the work of a Christian - how could Frodo succeed?

I think we are saying the same thing only coming at it from two different angles. I totally agree with the quote above.

This is one of the reasons I probably have little patience with discussions that raise the hypothetical question: "Would "X" have succeeded as Ringbearer? Usually, we insert "Samwise" in the "X" spot, but other names have been suggested as well. The basic point is this: given the nature of Man (and Elves and Hobbits), and the nature of good and evil in Tolkien's world (and implicitly in our own), no one can have "success" as a Ringbearer without outside intervention of some kind. The question is simply artificial, since the job requires more than any carnate being can possibly give.