After the Ring was Destroyed...

[Sleeping Beauty]

I have a question for all lovely Barrow-downers. What do you think Gandalf said to Frodo when Frodo woke up in the fields of Ithilien after the ring was destroyed? We don't know much since from then on it was shown mostly towards Sam. Do you think Gandalf knew Frodo would have kept the ring for himself? There are many foreshadowings back to Gollum from the Fellowship on, and I have always pondered what Gandalf would have said...

[Bill Ferny]

"Looks like I'm going to have to scrap those gloves I was knitting for you."

[VanimaEdhel]

I would guess that Frodo woke up in a similar manner to how he woke up in Rivendell, and Gandalf, knowing Gandalf, probably responded in a similar matter. Then, Gandalf said something witty, as always, and Frodo laughed.

Gandalf would have known that Frodo could not destroy the ring on his own, but I think he would have expected it. Even Gandalf did not dare to wield it, so he could not expect that the hobbits would be completely immune to its power. I think the most important thing is that the ring was destroyed. Everyone was a bit safer now.

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

I don't think, somehow, that anyone was too bothered about what had happened on Mount Doom. Just relieved, for now, that it did. Storytelling was for the weeks afterwards; I'm sure Gandalf knew what had happened, probably through Sam.

[Child of the 7th Age]

In his Letters, Tolkien states that Aragorn and Gandalf learned of the true events on Mount Doom, and that Frodo did nothing to conceal the truth:

I do not myself see that the breaking of his (i.e. Frodo's) mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of his body wold have been--say, by being srangled by Gollum, or crushed by a falling rock.

That appears to have been the judgement of Gandalf and Aragorn and of all who learned the full story of his journey. Certainly nothing would be concealed by Frodo! But what Frodo himself felt about the events is quite another matter.

I think Frodo can be accused of many weaknesses, ranging from pessimism to self-doubt, but I do not think, by any stretch of the imagination, that he could be accused of trying to turn himself into a public hero, by lying about what happened. His behavior in the Shire was exactly the opposite of this.

Gandalf would certainly have asked Frodo for the account of Mt. Doom. I think it is equally certain that Frodo would have been honest, and perhaps even self-effacing, in discussing what happened.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Kalimac]

Well, among other things Gandalf probably said something along the lines of "Congratulations, it's over. Thanks, by the way."

I agree with Child; Tolkien himself said that Frodo would have told the truth, and besides after an experience like that he would probably be beyond dissembling. He's already a shell of what he was before; his character has been stripped down to its essentials by what he went through; what possible pleasure or advantage could he take in having people believe that he did something which he couldn't? Lying about it would have made him feel worse about it than he did. It's like going through a very long, very hard illness and then finally taking a turn for the better. All your strength has been sapped by fighting the disease, and now that you're finally getting better you have no energy left to care about anything except recovering. There's no room in your brain for calculation of petty advantage; if someone asks you a question you'll tell them the honest answer, because it's the easiest and simplest thing to do.