True Hero: Frodo or Samwise?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Galendor

I see Sam more as the "everyman" character - a type of character that the reader can more relate to, in terms of motivations and reactions.

Really? I won't generalize this one. Personally, when reading, I always could easier relate myself to Frodo than to Sam. So I would say this depends.

[Galendor]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I always could easier relate myself to Frodo than to Sam. So I would say this depends.

Yes, I agree, I may have over-generalized. I think I also felt more connected to Frodo than to Sam. But it seems like some people find Sam more relatable, and some here even think Sam is the true hero of LOTR. I disagree.

In clearer response to the primary thread question: it is clear to me that, if one must choose, Frodo is the main hero in the classical sense, not Sam. Frodo did not have to be the Ring-bearer. If Frodo had not volunteered to personally bear the Ring to Mordor, it is doubtful that Sam would have stepped forward and offered to do it. I think Sam would have been more than happy to forget the whole thing, turn around, and head back to the Shire. Then none of the hobbits would have been in the story beyond Rivendell. And I think it is clear that Frodo ultimately suffered more than Sam. Frodo's choice to undertake a suicide mission, and his greater suffering for that choice, make him the classical hero of the story. But that is not to say Sam was not also heroic.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Well, conservative Catholics like Tolkien, fortified by professional Medieval studies, would I think tend to have a rather pre-Renaissance, pre-humanist view of things: a belief that life in this world, with all its suffering, is only a preparation for the next; and that random death is 'cruel' perhaps from a human perspective, but from the divine is merely a transition into another phase of existence.

I think Tolkien would naturally endorse the view held from Aquinas (or before) on down: world without evil would be a world without free will, a deterministic dictatorship. If Men are to be free, they must be free to do evil.

Nor can the Creator make a personal appearance (except in disguise) without effectively destroying free will, at least the freedom to reject Belief. As Pratchett says of the Discworld: witches and wizards don't believe in the Gods, because it would be rather like believing in the postman.





(He does however point out that the DW Gods love atheists- they make great target practice).

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

Well, conservative Catholics like Tolkien, fortified by professional Medieval studies, would I think tend to have a rather pre-Renaissance, pre-humanist view of things: a belief that life in this world, with all its suffering, is only a preparation for the next; and that random death is 'cruel' perhaps from a human perspective, but from the divine is merely a transition into another phase of existence.

I think your point receives tacit confirmation in the very ambiguous nature of the mortality of Men in Tolkien: the mystery of the fate of Men after death has always seemed to me a means of reconciling Middle-earth with our Earth, and with Tolkien's own idea of what would happen to him--where he would go--when he died.