{"id":334,"date":"2004-01-13T10:10:22","date_gmt":"2004-01-13T15:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=334"},"modified":"2015-05-13T14:21:26","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T18:21:26","slug":"the-failure-of-frodo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=334","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Failure of Frodo\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0618056998&#038;asins=0618056998&#038;linkId=BEKUL4CFXIE5X26Z&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nTolkien responds to many letters from fans and reviewers about the failure of Frodo, in the end, to complete the Quest. I have a lot more to say on this &#8211; Tolkien&#8217;s discussion of Pity, and Mercy &#8211; and how salvation can only come through those things &#8211; not through Power, Might, or even Success.  But I&#8217;ll get back to that.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a couple excerpts on what Tolkien calls &#8220;the failure of Frodo&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<i>26 July 1956  Draft of letter to Miss J. Burn<\/i><br \/>\nIf you re-read all the passages dealing with Frodo and the Ring, I think you will see that not only was it <i>quite impossible<\/i> for him to surrender the Ring, in act or will, especially at its point of maximum power, but that this failure was adumbrated from far back.  He was honoured because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and then had done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do.  He (and the Cause) were saved &#8211; by mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of Pity and forgiveness of injury.<\/p>\n<p>Corinthians I x. 12-13 may not at first sight seem to fit (&#8220;Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.  There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.&#8221;) &#8211; unless &#8220;bearing temptation&#8221; is taken to mean resisting it while still a free agent in normal command of the will.  I think rather of the mysterious last petitions of the Lord&#8217;s Prayer: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  A petition against something that cannot happen is unmeaning.  There exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one&#8217;s power.  In which case (as I believe) salvation from ruin will depend on something apparently unconnected: the general sanctity (and humility and mercy) of the sacrificial person.  I did not &#8220;arrange&#8221; the deliverance in this case: it again follows the logic of the story.  (Gollum had had his chance of repentance, and of returning generosity with love; and had fallen off the knife-edge).  In the case of those who now issue from prison &#8220;brainwashed&#8221;, broken, or insane, praising their torturers, no such immediate deliverance is as a rule to be seen.  But we can at least judge them by the will and intentions with which they entered the <i>Sammath Naur<\/i>; and not demand impossible feats of will, which could only happen in stories unconcerned with real moral and mental probability.<\/p>\n<p>No, Frodo &#8220;failed&#8221;.  It is possible that once the ring was destroyed he had little recollection of the last scene.  But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is <i>not<\/i> finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however &#8220;good&#8221;; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.<\/p>\n<p><i>27 July 1956  Letter to Amy Ronald<\/i><br \/>\nBy chance, I have just had another letter regarding the failure of Frodo.  Very few seem even to have observed it.  But following the logic of the plot, it was clearly inevitable, as an event.  And surely it is a more significant and real event than a mere &#8220;fairy story&#8221; ending in which the hero is indomitable?  It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome &#8211; in themselves.  In this case the cause (not the &#8220;hero&#8221;) was triumphant, because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed and disaster averted.  Gandalf certainly foresaw this.  (&#8220;Pity?  It was pity that stayed [Bilbo&#8217;s] hand.  Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.  And he has been well rewarded, Frodo.  Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so.  With Pity.&#8221;)  Of course he did not mean to say that one must be merciful, for it may prove useful later &#8211; it would not then be mercy or pity, which are only truly present when contrary to prudence.  Not ours to plan!  But we are assured that we must be ourselves extravagantly generous, if we are to hope for the extravagant generosity which the slightest easing of, or escape from, the consequences of our own follies and errors represents.  And that mercy does sometimes occur in this life.<\/p>\n<p>Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further.  Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far.  The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), &#8220;that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named&#8221; (as one critic has said). (Gandalf to Frodo:  &#8220;Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-Maker.  I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was <i>meant<\/i> to find the Ring, and <i>not<\/i> by its maker.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>A third (the only other) commentator on the point some months ago reviled Frodo as a scoundrel (who should have been hung and not honoured), and me too.  It seems sad and strange that, in this evil time when daily people of good will are tortured, &#8220;brainwashed&#8221;, and broken, anyone could be so fiercely simpleminded and righteous.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0618056998&#038;asins=0618056998&#038;linkId=BEKUL4CFXIE5X26Z&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tolkien responds to many letters from fans and reviewers about the failure of Frodo, in the end, to complete the Quest. I have a lot more to say on this &#8211; Tolkien&#8217;s discussion of Pity, and Mercy &#8211; and how &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=334\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[262,1095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101186,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/101186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}