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Frodo's Temptation, Frodo's Failure

© Douglas Charles Rapier

By the time he came to the Vale of Gorgoroth, the Ring had robbed him of his memory of the Shire, his touchstone to hope, the reminder of the essential reason for his undertaking the quest. Despite his despair, Frodo resisted until the very end, stoically resigned to his imminent death or enslavement. Nevertheless, the deprecation persists: Frodo did not destroy the Ring. He failed as a hero. He did not willingly cast it into the Fires of its unholy making. Worse, he claimed the Ring and effectively ended his covenant with the Council of Elrond. At that moment, when he declared the Ring his own, he was mastered by the maleficent will of Sauron with which the Ring was imbued at its creation.

Simultaneously, Frodo revealed himself and his location to the Dark Lord thus endangering all of Middle-earth. The Deceiver, however, had not time enough to retrieve the Ring from destruction, distracted as he was by the hubristic ruse of the Armies of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth hopelessly assailing the Black Gates. Panic-struck, Sauron dispatched the Nazgul to Mount Doom on a desperate errand. That moment of Frodo's assumed, insubstantial mastery of the Ring was mercifully ended by the intervention of Gollum when he violently took the Ring from Frodo. The Ring was then inadvertently unmade when that tormented creature fell into the Fires.

Fittingly, on the Field of Cormallan, Frodo and Sam were feted as the saviors of Middle-earth for they were, at the very least, essential instruments in the destruction of Sauron's power. Frodo might not meet the definition of a Hero to the letter (capital 'h') but he performed an invaluable, selfless service to his community and his world - a service which cost him his health, his peace of mind and his ring-finger. It also cost him his place in Middle-earth and the Shire that he loved.