Why did Frodo allowed himself to be........

Why did Frodo allowed himself to be consumed by the ring?This shouldn't happen because he's the ringbearer!

You think so?

[Selmo]

Frodo didn't "allow" himself to be consumed.
The Ring corrupted everyone who came in contact with it.

Frodo lasted much longer than anyone else.
Gollum became a murderer after a glimpse of the Ring. Boromir was consumed just by the knowledge that it existed. The mighty Isildur fell for it immediately, ignoring the advice that it should be destroyed. Saruman was twisted by the thought of possessing it. Gandalf and Galadriel both feared what it might do to them. Even down-to-earth Sam was tempted by it.

It was inevitable that Frodo would have his life destroyed by the Ring. He could only find peace in The West.

[Lord of Angmar]

One does not "allow" themselves to be consumed by the Ring. And Frodo certainly could not "forbid" the Ring from consuming him.

[Annalaliath]

And besideds if you read the books you see that Gandaf is surprised that Bilbo lasted as long as he did. So, all in all it is as such pure evil. That's the crux, the ring was evil and anyone to posses it was ultamatly corrupted by it despite their best intentions.

My advice to you, Alexandria Lumiere, is to read the books a bit more closly and to watch the movies closser too. They both have the same message about the Ring.

[Silmiel of Imladris]

"To have come so far still bearing the ring, the hobbit has show an incredible resilance to its evil." - Lord Elrond,FOTR

Elrond has a good observation on this because Frodo was a fighter, Boromir on the other hand as soon as he saw the ring he must have it. I may be getting into the symbolism here but the ring is like any other material posession that we tend to obsess about. Although the ring is more dangerous than my computer. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] The ring has an awesome power that is why Gandalf didn't take it and Elrond didn't want it in his house because if it consummed them (and it probably would have, Gandalf and Elrond are powerful but the ring would have gotten to them in time if they had to bear it like Frodo) they would destroy the world no matter if they wanted to or not.

[Lord of Angmar]

Silmiel, that quote is from the movie, correct? I may be wrong, but I do not remember ever reading it in the book.

[Iris Alantiel]

The ring was like a drug. One does not "allow" themselves to become addicted to drugs - addiction is just what happens as a result of prolonged contact with the drug. It's sad that Frodo was consumed by the ring, but it could not be avoided.

[Lady Snickerdoodle]

in concurrence with the majority of the people here, I agree that one can not allow oneself to become corrupted (sorry, huge english test today, I will use normal words now) but I think that one of the reasons both bilbo and frodo lasted longer than the others were because that hobbits are made of a stronger stuff than you or i (or whatever the heck that quote was...). Oh wait, gollum was a hobbit wasnt he... well then, Bilbo and Frodo resisted longer because they were the good guys and the good guys always beat the bad guys. Simple enough.

[Child of the 7th Age]

One of his readers raised a similar question to Tolkien. Here is some of his response.

I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum--impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.

This all ties in with the view Tolkien held of human nature: the fact that we are all inherently flawed, and that until the end of time, history will be a series of tiny victories but punctuated with great and continuing defeats.

We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance....I do not 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 would have been ---say, by being strangled by Gollum, or crushed by a falling rock.

So there you have it from the author! Just remember that Gandalf himself feared to take the Ring upon his body. So if the greatest and wisest of the Maiar knew that it would corrupt and break him, how could we possibly expect that a tiny mortal hobbit could escape its inevitable effects?

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 9:30 AM December 18, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[lord_of_rohan2003]

Well I dont have a whole lot to add that hasn't allready been said but there are other charcters such as Faramir who knew of the ring and wanted nothing to do with it,I always liked his qoute"I would not touch that thing even if I saw iy lying on the side of the road"

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lord of Rohan,

I think it is indeed possible to resist picking up the Ring. Faramir and Gandalf both made that decision. Sam was around Frodo for a long time but was not seriously tempted to take it.

But once one takes the Ring into one's possession, there is simply no way to shake it loose easily, at least if one is aware what it is. Frodo could not even toss it into the fireplace at Bag-end, and that was before he knew what it signified.

The desire is there and doesn't go away. Even Bilbo kept asking Frodo about it.
And after the Ring was destroyed, Frodo clearly mourned its loss. This, as much as any physical wound in his shoulder, is why he left for Elvenhome.

Child

[Phervasaion]

Boromir, in my opinion, became attracted to the ring straight away but he managed to resist it until he eventually fell for it and tried to take the ring from Frodo. Aragorn on the other hand didnt show that he was corrupted by it at all, but, there was one line in the FotR EE Dvd that I noticed. It’s when Aragorn and Boromir are arguing on where to take the Ring.

I will not lead the ring within 100 leagues of your city-Aragorn

Notice he says the word I. This means he may think that the ring will either be his or can be his. Really it should be Frodos choice on where to take it.

[Annalaliath]

True Aragorn was not corrupted by the ring but Phervasaion, you do realize that that was a PJ line. The book being written by Hobbits I do not belive has that line in it. I think that he was tempted, and so he resisted.

[Lhunardawen]

I believe that the possibility of corruption dangerously increases when one knows what he or she can do when he or she gets to posess the Ring. Take Galadriel and Boromir for example, they were both tempted to take the Ring. But if one recognizes more the danger of wielding it than what "good" it can do, he or she will be less susceptible to being tempted. Gandalf and Aragorn both do. Frodo is truly amazing here because inspite of everything he knows, or he was told, about the Ring, it was only in the end that he wanted to keep the Ring for himself. Truly, there is more to him than meets the eye, as Gandalf said (I can't remember the exact quote, I'm sorry).

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 2:39 AM December 19, 2003: Message edited by: Lhunardawen ]

[Phervasaion]

you do realize that that was a PJ line.

Yes, i was meant to say that in my last post but i forgot. I also think that Frodo showed great resistance because he thought too much for the shire. As been as he liked the shire so much and always wanted to go back there, so he tried to resist the ring more.

[Silmiel of Imladris]

Silmiel, that quote is from the movie, correct? I may be wrong, but I do not remember ever reading it in the book.

Yes it was a quote from the movie but it still has a good point regardless.

[Trippo The Hippo]

The whole story hinges on that fact that standing at the cracks of mount doom no man, dwarf, elf, or hobbit could have resisted the rings power. I sincerly doubt that Gandalf intended to walk up to mount doom toss in the ring and turn around. I always believed he planned to cross that bridge when he came to it. It's amazing Frodo held on as long as he did.

ps Faramir is an odd case but I am sure there are countless threads devoted to him and the ring so I wont get into it.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 12:49 AM December 29, 2003: Message edited by: Trippo The Hippo ]

[Annalaliath]

This is all a great way of saying that there is sin in the world and no one can escape it. Tolkien was a devout Catholic. So, inevitably we have the ring which is pure evil, and also, very powerful for those who can use it. It corrupts indefinitely and no one can escape its corruption, not even Frodo, even though he is a Hobbit and it seems to take longer than it would have to corrupted anyone else. Like sin this means that no one can escape it not even Mother Teresa; and Tolkien knew this. But there is also sin in Middle Earth that is not connected to the ring. So, we just have to come to the terms of this ring as evil and the temptation it poised was great enough that even Gandalf the strongest and the wisest of all wizards was afraid of taking it. And Galadriel, one of the Noldar( I think I know that she originated in Middle Earth and then went to Valinor and then came back to ME. I think that makes her a Noldor does it not?) older than Elrond was hesitant to take the One Ring. This means that for all accounts and purposes it had to be entrusted to a Hobbit. Yesterday in church the pastor brought up a great point that applies here, God's people cannot be trusted. It applies in the way that this task was taken up by Frodo and he could not be trusted to fulfill it in the end, because Middle Earth was also somewhat of a fallen world and sin existed and the Ring was an embodiment of all power and evil in the world. And Frodo could not resist the ring when it came time to cast it into the Crack of Doom; it took Gollum to take it from Frodo and fall in. In the end it was not an upright righteous person to do the deed, it was a crepe little evil dude who did the job.

Rant, rant, rant, I could go on for days....

Everybody here seems to imply that Frodo best resisted the Ring, but I believe it was Bilbo who resisted its evil best. After all, he had it MUCH longer than Frodo and yet gave it up willingly in the end to Frodo.

As for the ability to resist the Ring in the first place, it is well documented that various persons and even various races differed in their resistance. After all, the dwarves were relatively immune to the control of the 7 rings given unto them (the One Ring could have been a different story, but no dwarf ever weilded the One).

[Kalimac]

I don't know about Bilbo resisting better than Frodo. It's just that Sauron was less powerful when Bilbo first found the Ring, so it was a little less active, so to speak. Remember Frodo had the Ring for 17 years before the real trouble began, and, at Gandalf's advice, he used it even less than Bilbo did. Besides, I doubt Bilbo would have done any better if he had been bearing the Ring into Sauron's own dominion.

[Theron Bugtussle]

I don't know about Bilbo resisting better than Frodo.

Agreed. And Bilbo did surrender the ring willingly, but he was not surrendering it to destruction.

That would have been an interesting thought. Bilbo never could imagine the ring not being there. Even though he was present at the Council of Elrond and knew the Fellowship's goal was to destroy the ring, at the end of the book, he still asked Frodo if he could have another look at it. It still possessed him to some degree.