[davem]

Ok, this is a bit of an awkward post, because as I still haven't got around to setting up my new ibook, I'm posting from work, & I'm being blocked from accessing the whole of p2 for some reason, so I can't see any posts from yesterday, but a few things have come to me that I want to throw in.

It seems that a lot of people 'blank' out Frodo's behaviour at the Sammath Naur, & jump mentally from him entering to the destruction of the Ring, or they decide he wasn't really aware of what he was doing, like some tacky SF movie where the hero seems to do something bad, but it turns out to have been his 'evil' twin, or a clone or a robot. To think Frodo wasn't really conscious, or aware of his actions: his 'betrayal' is like that, I think. But Tolkien doesn't allow that. It [i]was[i] Frodo, we can't escape it. The 'saintly', self sacrificing Frodo, who we have suffered with for so long, who we want so desperately to be the Hero. It is disturbing, horrific, but true. He did give in. But Tolkien doesn't blame him, or make him into a villain. Tolkien forgives him, & asks that we also forgive him, while still acknowledgeing that forgiveness is required, because there is something that needs to be forgiven.

Imagine the end of Return of the Jedi, if Lucas had done the same thing - had Luke turn to the Dark Side. Another Darth Vader. And we'd have left the cinema feeling, what? Depressed, cheated, angry? Its too easy to let the 'glamour' of Middle Earth get in the way, the Elves & Wizards, Rivendell & Lorien, to just jump to the Ring falling into the Fire, & forget what Frodo did. Its almost too distressing to contemplate the implications of his act, so too many don't, because they care too much about him, but that misses one of Tolkien's esential points, I think. Forgiveness is not only possible, but even sometimes essential, even for the greatest 'sins'.