Why save them?

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

I don't quite know how to say this, but are there others who sometimes wish they lived in a time or place where Elves or Hobbits were more than a figment of our imaginations? I've always had the feeling that there is something out there, something just beyond my fingertips. I catch a tiny glimpse, but then it whisks away.

I'm with you on that, I feel the same way.

[Kath]

Mithalwen I certainly don't think that keeping them alive was a weakness, I just wondered at the reasons.

Had Sam and Frodo not survived people would generally leave the book feeling a bit empty.

This makes some sense morm, but I think that people could have coped with Frodo dying. Not Sam perhaps, but Frodo yes. As Mith said, Frodo was pretty much 'dead' after the incident on Weathertop. He also becomes irrelevant in a way, as the rest of the book is more dedicated to the exploits of the other Hobbits, specifically Merry and Pippin. Frodo is part of the old world that is fading away, and while I agree that the Grey Havens is one of the most moving bits of writing I have ever read (i.e. I bawled my eyes out reading it) I'm not sure that the same effect couldn't have been accomplished by having Sam mourn for Frodo after he dies at Mount Doom, and then seeing the Elves and Gandalf leave.

As ringbearers, Sam and Frodo were an important piece of the world that was passing and needed to leave like the Elves and the Ents....gently fading rather than being violently wrenched away.

But Frodo has been gently fading since Weathertop. His left arm became almost transparent, and from then on he suffered hurt after hurt, all the while being affected by the Ring as well. As Boromir's quotations showed, Frodo was not even himself by the time he reached Mount Doom, there was nothing of the old Frodo left. He'd faded so much through the journey that if he died doing the task he had put heart, soul and life into doing it might have been fitting.

To me, the death of Frodo and Sam following the destruction of the Ring would have been unacceptably dire. But the fear that they might lose their lives combined with the joy when they are saved makes for an intensely moving experience.

It's almost too much of a happy ending though. Two Hobbits manage to get the whole way through Mordor, one carrying a weight only a Maia can bear, and then the land explodes around them and yet they both survive. Bittersweet moments were mentioned, here is the opportunity for a perfect one. Gandalf goes in to rescue them, but only finds one alive. There is joy in that one is saved, but sadness that one could not be. If you want a truly noble sacrifice, how about one life to save the world.

For me the fate of the characters is a reflection of the major themes of the book, renewal, the triumph of hope over despair, and fellowship over self aggrandisement.

And sacrifice for the betterment of others. The charge of the Rohirrim for example, they didn't expect to be able to defeat Sauron's army, but they intended to save as many lives as they could. Or the march against the Black Gate, which was pretty much a suicide mission, done solely to allow Frodo and Sam to reach Mount Doom. With the former of these examples we see personal sacrifice with Theoden dying, and in the latter we see the despair of those not allowed to lay their lives on the line to try and save that of others (Merry and Eowyn).

I don't quite know how to say this, but are there others who sometimes wish they lived in a time or place where Elves or Hobbits were more than a figment of our imaginations?

I absolutely agree, Child. Our relentless pushing forward means we don't see the magic behind things, always seeking to explain it. To live in such a world as Tolkien created would be amazing.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I definitely belong to those who thinks it was absolutely essential to have Frodo survive the destroyal of the Ring. There is a message in there, and I think it is (as was mentioned) due to Tolkien's wartime experiences.

How many men in our world have survived war physically, but not spiritually, psychologically, mentally? They come back to their normal lives and find that they no longer fit in, that their experiences have changed them too much for life to ever be normal again. Often, it also happens to men who have been prisoners of war, for example, that they come back and expect things to be as they were before, but life has moved on without them for too long, and they are no longer needed.

Remember how Lt. Dan wished he had not survived in "Forrest Gump"? He thought he should have died a noble, heroic death. Well, sometimes death is a convenient way out of coping with life. Frodo is the character who shows us all of this, with an ending more bittersweet than his death could have been.

[Mithalwen]

Very true Esty, when people have accepted their death as inevitable, coping with life can seem very hard, and that in itself can be alienating since everyone expects them to be jsut happy to be alive.

Kath, I didn't mean you personally regarding seeing the survival of major characters as a weakness ... it is a muchmore general phenomenon - but I would revise the comment that it is a modern one - I think it is more cyclical. I think current literary/ media critics are often very much of the gritty realism school and like their endings bleak. At the other point in the cycle you have such travesties as Nahum Tate rewriting the end of Lear so that Cordelia doesn't die because it was so contrary to the worldview of the time.

I also realise I forget to state why Eowyn's rebirth is important - simply because she chooses life and with it to be a healer, gardener and mother. All are important functions for the health of her new homeland. One of the reasons Gondor fell into decline was that its ruler became more concerned with their ancestors than their progeny. Minas Tirith is a stone city in the Stoningland, it needs gardens and life. Given that Denethor, for all his fine qualities, ultimately failed and in his own despair tried to kill Faramir which would have guaranteed the end of his line - which in the light of the importance that Tolkien puts on bloodlines is a final denial of hope - I think it is important that Faramir marries and although Eowyn wears his mother's mantle, unlike poor Finduilas she has not been crushed by the shadow. It is as much a reaffirmation of hope as the finding of the white tree.

So while I think these characters survive for a reason, and to get back closer to the topic, I think that the whole end of the story would have had to be changed if Frodo and Sam had died - imagine the return to the Shire without them . And like others, I think that the ending as it stands is much more poignant - for Frodo to be saved from certain death to be returned to a home he so loves but can no longer live in would be too cruel were it not for the opprotunity for a kind of healing in West. However that boon is not itself without its cost. Tolkien gives few straightforward happy endings ....

[davem]

I can't help feeling that Tolkien wished to explore the effect of war on a survivor, someone who goes through the worst trauma imaginable & survives it. Sam, for all his suffering, does not go through the worst experience - Frodo does. Frodo is broken by what he goes through, but survives. The final chapter would not have been as powerful if Sam alone had survived. Frodo had to be taken to the lowest point a human could reach & still go on. Tolkien stated that Frodo expected to die in achieving the Quest. The fact that he didn't, but survived, broken & without hope, is the point.

My feeling is that Frodo had to survive - Tolkien owed a debt to those who survived the war he had fought in, not to those who died. The ones who died had found peace & could be allowed to rest. Those who survived were the ones who mattered, because they were the forgotten ones (as Esty points out). Having Frodo survive forces the reader to deal with what survivors of horror have to live with. Its too easy for us to mourn the dead, wear our poppies in November, lay a wreath & think of them as stories that have come to an end & move on. Through Frodo Tolkien forces us to confront the reality of the survivors of horror who have to live on with their experiences. They are living instances of the fact that wars don't end when the ceasefire is announced & the peace treaties signed. Wars go on as long as the survivors live. Frodo was still fighting the War of the Ring till he left Middle-earth, still trudging through Mordor, still struggling up the Mountain, still claiming the Ring. Over & over & over. His wounds never healed, he never was able to find rest.

The fact is, all the others were able to move on & find a new life - which most of the survivors of WWI did. Some weren't - & Frodo personifies them - the ones who needed to find peace but could not.

Now, this is not to treat LotR as an allegory in any way. Frodo is a broken survivor of the War of the Ring, but there are always broken survivors of Wars - in the Primary (& occasionally in Secondary) world(s); & not just broken survivors of wars, but of violence, rape, abuse - those who have to continue on without hope. The ignored & forgotten ones who we wish would go away because their very existence denies us the chance to pretend that we can all live happily ever after, whatever happens to us.

It would have been so much easier for us if Frodo had died on the Mountain, because then we wouldn't have been stuck with him moping around & making us miserable. Or if he didn't have the decency to die then at least he could have snapped out of it for our sakes so we could enjoy Aragorn's & Sam's weddings & had the 'And they all lived happily ever after.' that we deserved after our long journey through Middle-earth. But no, that bloody Frodo has to hang around, getting under our feet, making us feel guiilty, when all we really wanted was to enjoy Sam's healing of the Shire & a quiet pint in the Green Dragon.

There's always one who has to spoil the fun...

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

You've said this so very well. I do agree with what both you and Esty have said.
It makes me wonder what harsh dreams and distortions of reality Tolkien himself suffered after his return from the war. There must have been a lot that was never publicly expressed: both his own personal response and the suffering that he could see other veterans going through.

Do his diary contains any entries for the immediate post-war period, or was that writing done at a later date? I don't have Garth handy right now, but I suspect that even he could only dig out so much. Certainly the letters exchanged after the deaths of Tolkien's friends were suggestive. Still, there is so much in any individual's life that we don't know: things that are kept private and only hinted at in rare personal conversations. I have a feeling we are seeing only the tip of an iceberg here.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Folwren

Not happy endings, Lommy, the LotR doesn't have a happy ending.

That was actually partly sarcastic comment. But LotR does have a happy ending - in a way - for Frodo and Sam. And I'd still call LotR's ending more happy than sad, though that does not mean it ha a happy one. (Hey, we could start a new poll: "Does LotR have a happy or a sad ending?" )

Originally Posted by Kath

Bittersweet moments were mentioned, here is the opportunity for a perfect one. Gandalf goes in to rescue them, but only finds one alive. There is joy in that one is saved, but sadness that one could not be. If you want a truly noble sacrifice, how about one life to save the world.

I see your point, but I disagree.

Who of them you'd condemn to death, Frodo or Sam, and not break the story?

Frodo's fate of losing the Shire after saving it is one of the most sorrowful events in the LotR and very important for the plot. It adds the famous bittersweetness and takes the ending further away from a clear happy ending. Frodo's going to west emphasises and adds to the fading of the Elves. Thereby, in my opinion, he couldn't die on Mount Doom.

In fairytales and in Christian faith's main doctrines, which were both important to Tolkien, good is rewarded (and evil punished). Such a good and loyal person who never failed as Sam couldn't be rewarded with death in a hope-forsaken place, though he craves to see his home, sweetheart and old father again. Also, Sam is very important for the healing of the Shire. No other character could easily take his place in it. So, in my opinion, he couldn't die on Orodruin either.

So, in my opinion, there would have been no point in killing neither Frodo nor Sam only to make a more sorrowful and bitter ending, (because they're both essential for the later story).