Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » Frodo's Temptation and The Wound That Wouldn't Heal

Frodo's Temptation and The Wound That Wouldn't Heal

© Douglas Charles Rapier

Speculation aside, it is undeniable that the great and wise as well as the small and simple could be and had been duped and deceived by the will of Sauron incarnate in the Ring. Frodo was an exception only in that no other mortal, save Gollum/Smeagol, was more deeply affected by the pernicious power of the Ring then he.

On Weathertop, the Ringwraiths, former Kings of Men who had relinquished their souls to the power of the Ring, had meant to kill Frodo and seize the Ring for their master. The Ring, in turn, sought to be revealed to the Wraiths and restored to the hand of Sauron. Frodo, in his panic to escape from his assailants and, at that time, fully appreciating neither the extent of his danger nor the dreadful nature of the Wraiths, succumbed to the will of the Ring, slipped it on his finger and entered the spectral world of the Wraiths. Though invisible to mortal eyes, Frodo was clearly and starkly seen by the Nazgul. When Frodo resisted them, the Nazgul Lord stabbed him with a morgul-blade, a knife evilly enchanted. This horrific experience - his being gravely wounded with a morgul blade and very nearly turned into a wraith himself - bestowed upon Frodo a boon and a bane. The boon was a dearly-earned wisdom of a damnable, odious world which he had never known. The bane was a toxigenic wound that would never heal and the deeply ingrained malefic presence of the Ring and Sauron, conjointly, in his soul, his body and his mind.

Indeed, one might wonder if, even as early as at the Council of Elrond, the Ring had used Frodo's love of the Shire and his deeply-felt need to be a hero (i.e. the have adventures akin to Bilbo's) to induce him or encourage him to volunteer to take the Ring to Mount Doom. What tact could have been better suited or more advantageous to Sauron than for the Ring's current steward to under-take the task of delivering it the land of its making? Frodo's choice would have remained - at least in his mind - his own, sincerely made with a pure and noble heart for the good of his community and his world. The corrupting unrelenting influence of the Ring would have ultimately perverted those high-born intentions in order to serve its own ends. The scene at the Sammath Naur when Frodo demurred and claimed ownership of the Ring might be put forth to substantiate this premise. One can only speculate on this possibility but the idea would be supported by insidious nature of the Ring.