[Child of the 7th Age]

I think it's fun to find analogies like these, and it sometimes helps us think of the characters in a different light. However, I think the thing that's even more interesting to do is to look at each of Tolkien's characters, one at a time, and identify the good and the bad that commingle in their soul. Whoever said Tolkien's characters were one-dimensional, either good or evil, just wasn't looking very hard!

Take Frodo for example. First, I agree with Littlemanpoet that Hobbits are not "pure", although their society tends to be uncorrupted. There was another thread that discussed this question, and many posters pointed to the "little sins" of their society like gossip, stealing spoons from relatives, etc. At the same time, their society discouraged them from more serious corruption like killing each other or striving for power.

I think Frodo himself clearly illustrates this duality of good and bad. Tolkien says in his Letters that only a perfect creature could have succeeded in the quest to voluntarily throw away the Ring. Because Frodo, like all of us, is flawed, he was bound to fail in his task. That's why he needed Gollum, his alter ego to whom he had shown pity, to help bring things to a successful conclusion.

However, even though Frodo had flaws, his nature was basically uncorrupted. For this reason, he was able to bond himself to both Sam and Gollum in the last stages of the journey. It's not surpising that he would be able to show love and affection to Sam, but the fact that he could be caring to Gollum in this situation was nothing short of amazing. And it's obvious Gollum sensed this caring. Just look at the scene where Gollum reached out to caress the knee of the sleeping Frodo (and then Sam woke up and that was the end of that!) This bonding was critical since it prevented Frodo from identifying so closely with the Ring and literally, I believe, saved his soul. (I'd hate to think what would have happened if Frodo had gone totally on his own as he initially planned to do.)

Yet, after the quest was over, we can again see the other side of Frodo, that which had been corrupted by the Ring and still needed healing. On one anniversary date, Frodo lamented that the Ring was gone, and therefore all was lost. In his Letters, Tolkien wrote that Frodo felt guilt and regret because he had "failed" on Mount Doom to voluntarily discard the Ring. And this regret,Tolkien said, represented a moral failure in itself. Frodo was not content merely to be an instrument of Eru as he actually was, but parts of him were sad that he had failed to return to the Shire as the successful "hero". This shadow still in his own soul was one of the factors that drove him to sail West for healing. But along side this shadow were the other positive and good traits which also impelled him to reach out for the Blessed Lands: his own longing for the Sea and a distant green land which he spoke of and dreamed about on several occasions, his desire to be near Bilbo, and his love of Elves which had even predated the beginning of the Quest. So the good and bad are mixed up even in a character like this who had so grown and matured. I think you could show the same duality in many of Tolkien's characters. sharon, the 7th age hobbit