LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 3 - Mount Doom

[Lalwendë]

But he's gone now beyond recall, gone forever.'

'Yes,' said Frodo. 'But do you remember Gandalf's words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.'

Frodo could not destroy the Ring, he admits it. In fact, nobody could have destroyed the Ring. That is the point of it, whether sentient or not, whether it has a will or not, nobody could destroy it. It's like the story of Pandora's Box - once that has been opened, once the knowledge is 'out there', it cannot be undone.

But the Ring is destroyed, whether through the hand of Eru, fate or just plain bad luck for Gollum and his big flapping feet, it does get destroyed. That to me is the whole point of this; it turns out that nobody can choose to destroy this thing, but nevertheless it is destroyed. Not only that, but unlike the knowledge that is released from Pandora's Box, the Ring is quite literally unmade, because with it, Sauron is destroyed and any inkling of how to make another one just like it. That's the joy at the end, knowing that unlike horrors of our own world that cannot be unmade, in Middle-earth this is possible.

And I would say that to unmake something to such a satisfying degree, it is far better that it is done so in a surprising fashion. Did anyone in Middle-earth expect that Sauron himself would be obliterated, or did they expect the destruction of the Ring would just 'mortally wound' him, annihilation to come at a later stage?

Then at the end, we are confronted not with heroes, but with ordinary people seeing pure chance take a hand in things. Frodo and Gollum both have suffered to get to this stage, that was the heroic part, not the destruction of the Ring. I find that perfectly, well, just perfect! There will be no crowing hero, no 'all-mighty destroyer of the Ring' who can brag that they did what nobody else managed to do. Gollum fell over his own feet and that was that.

At the end, which is the perfect end, Gollum who we cannot see existing without this Ring is dead, but his death was not meaningless. What's more, he was 'forgiven' by the one person from whom forgiveness would really count for something, and that was Frodo, who in the end was just like him.