Frodo at Sammath Naur

[Lyta_Underhill]

Y'all move too fast for me! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
davem:

I can't shake the feeling that on some level Frodo knew what he was doing when he claimed the Ring, knew what the Ring was - as far as anyone could, & that on some level he assented to it

from Helen's quote of Letter 246:

I do not myself see that the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of his body would have been-- say, by being strangled by Gollum, or being crushed by a rock.

Perhaps there are two degrees of the same thing being considered here. One asserts that Frodo knew what he was doing when he claimed the Ring, the other that it was the natural result of his being utterly spent and not so much a conscious decision. The part of Letter 246 that I had previously quoted does seem to point to the immediate aftermath of Frodo's claiming the Ring, the "what do I do now?" moment, rather than the "what will I do?" moment where he initially claims the Ring. I'm pretty sure he isn't thinking just as Sam does, of Mordor as a flowering paradise, etc., but undergoing an internal battle. As Tolkien says, the test is too much for any incarnate being. All are broken under this test. But the breaking takes different routes depending on the one broken.

I would not classify Frodo as someone who was in “normal command of the will” at Sammath Naur. Certainly not. But I believe he had a consciousness that could see what was happening to him, even if he could not remember it entirely, nor control it in the end. I would liken the state of mind to a hopeless addict, who is given the final choice of throwing away his last dose of drug so that he can be healed. By himself, that would probably not happen. The addict knows what is the best choice, but he cannot make it, being weakened by extreme physical and mental need. I can’t say this is a perfect analogy—it certainly isn’t. But I think there is an element here that echoes of the inner voice that knows the action is wrong but cannot help taking the action anyway, a human failing. Without the awareness, the person becomes an automaton, a cocaine lever-pressing rat. With the awareness, there is humanity, sentience, the ability to discern.

I would never suggest that Frodo’s failure would make him undeserving of forgiveness. I do agree that he is no more culpable than if he had been crushed by a rock, as noted above. The idea I get at the point of greatest struggle is that of an inability to let go, to trust to the higher power. Rather, as I believe was said earlier in this thread (I can’t remember where at the moment), the Ring was everything. For Frodo, it was either embrace the Ring in its entirety, with all that entails, or embrace nothingness, the realm of Morgoth, the opposite of Light. I would be afraid to take that plunge too! I cannot really speak to the theological aspects and I’d probably sound like an idiot if I tried, and you all seem to have read 100% more critical/analytical works than I. I would agree with Helen that there is no real sin in Frodo’s claiming of the Ring, but I don’t think that he necessarily is unaware of what he is doing. I hope that made sense!

Cheers!
Lyta