Lessons in Life Taught by Hobbits

by Antane

There are many different journeys the souls of Hobbits, Elves, Men and Dwarves take during the War of the Ring, but none deeper, darker and more illuminating than Frodo’s and Sam’s. I wish to focus on the journeys of those two souls in this essay.

We are all put on this planet for a specific purpose. It is in Frodo’s humble acceptance in becoming a vessel a higher Power could work through that he and we learn why he was created. He did not know Who that Power was, but he belonged to a people who though, as St. Paul says, they do not have the law, keep it as if by instinct, having it written in their hearts. As can happen to us if we are open to it, Frodo’s mind may have not understood why he responded the way he did, but his heart and soul did for love and grace spoke there in a language that the mind does not always comprehend, but the heart and soul always does. Frodo became the suffering servant, a sacrificial lamb. It took great courage to offer himself up to continue being the Ring-bearer, after it had already nearly killed him; to endure and fight against the rape of his mind and soul; to suffer those demonic assaults for months so no one else would have to; to carry his cross all the way to Mount Doom. He was given extra grace through his life to strengthen him, to prepare him to endure it all and given the greatest grace of all in having Sam at his side. He also shows mercy and compassion and true caring for Smeagol for he knows what that tormented creature is suffering because he is addicted to the same thing and is being torn apart by the same desires. He is every bit a hero and as the story unfolds you have no doubt that he will succeed in his Quest.

It is surprising then that he was crushed in the end. He was the hero, wasn’t he? Heroes don’t fail. But this is more than a fairy tale with a happy ending. This is closer to reality than those tales. And there is more than one hero in this story. It is the ever-faithful Sam, toiling silently in the background, as it were, who is revealed to be an even greater hero, something he would never consider himself to be, but who everyone, especially Frodo, recognizes as such. And Frodo is still very much a hero himself, even though he was overcome at last by his burden, heavier than anyone should have ever had to bear, and he bore it for months, with little complaint. He did it because he chose to, because he loved Middle-earth and its people and if he could save them, he would do anything to do so. But in the end or what appeared to be the end, he could not save himself and had it not been for Gollum, he would have perished and with him all Middle-earth. Then salvation came from a surprising, unlooked for source. In Frodo’s abandonment of the Quest and the Ring’s destruction, the Power that had been guiding him and protecting him the whole time, still protected him and made sure the Quest succeeded. Good was drawn out of great evil.

That is the true power of Professor Tolkien’s sub-creation of the War of the Ring and its many heroes that makes it resound more than pat, happily-ever-after, the hero-never-shows-any-weakness fairy tales. In reality, even heroes have moments of fraility, doubts and fears. Frodo and Sam and every other single hero in the books and films, had all those, but they also did what they needed to do, despite them. Sam had no idea how to proceed after Frodo had apparently been killed, but he went on because he knew the Quest was too important for it to fail. He was terrified to enter the Tower of Cirith Ungol, but he did so out of love for his master. Frodo was scared out of his mind by the burden he had taken on, but he knew what he had to do and he did it. He was tired, cold and hungry, but he went on out of love. He was twisted inside out by the Ring, but he fought against it and when he failed, he got up and fought again. He was intent on saving everyone else even as he came to understand more and more that it would come at the cost of himself. Still he went on. He was spent bit by bit on that journey, poured out like a sacrifice. His body seemed too small for all he had to endure, but not his heart. He gave and gave and gave. He sacrificed everything so those he loved and so many others he did not even know, but still wished to save, wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything. The Ring did not spare Frodo’s heart any more than it did his body, tearing it to shreds as it weakened his frame in its quest to dominate him. Still he went on, pushing past his tears, doubts, terror and despair; holding on because his Sam still had hope; going on despite starvation and dehydration severe enough to cause him to hallucinate toward the end; knowing all along he would not be able to give up the Ring, but still completely set on destroying it, even if it meant dying with it; struggling to the point of crawling on his belly when he was too weakened by his suffering and the weight of the Ring to do anything else, so great was his determination to fulfill the Quest - I have not loved or admired him more than that moment.

We can and must do the same as he. Frodo’s journey is our own. Like the vast majority of us, he did not have to fight in combat as did the soldiers of Rohan and Gondor. Like all of us, his battlefield was in his own mind, heart and soul. He was, and we are, continually engaged in spiritual warfare and it is not a battleground we can leave until death takes us from it. This is not to discourage us or cause us to despair, but to give us patience and strength to endure the battle and win the war. We are all Ring-bearers of one kind of another, struggling with our own fears, troubles and addictions. We all do hateful, hurtful things to those we do or should love the most. We all sometimes give into the seductive call of temptation, of hate or anger. We all sometimes desire things that we know are bad for us, things that can or have hurt us or others and will continue to hurt, things that perhaps we try to pull away from, but still want and cannot part from without great strength of will and humble asking for God’s assistance. Tolkien, the master storyteller, was inspired by the Master Himself, to have his tale resound with such truth. Watching Frodo’s struggle, we see sometimes we can overcome our temptations and weaknesses and sometimes they overcome us, but like him, each time we can get back up when we fall and start the struggle anew to keep going and destroy what we know is evil. We can walk away from the drinking, the drugs, the slot machines, the toxic relationships, whatever is poisoning us. We can say no to hate and anger and the hurt and violence it causes. We can choose another path. We may fail many times, we may fail in the end, or we may succeed, depending on how open we are to receiving and responding to the grace that is available to us. Even if we fail, mercy can be given to us, if that is our part in the Music.

If we are fortunate, we will have a Sam with us, supporting us for this struggle is not one we can win alone, but it can be won. It must be won if we are not to be totally lost. We can learn as much or even more from Samwise the Stout-Hearted, Samwise the Loving, a light to the world when all other lights go out, as we can from Frodo. I love watching most in both the books and the films the deep love between these two hobbits, especially in Book Six, though Book Four has some nice spots also - Sam watching his master sleep and thinking of the brightness that is in him and that he loves him whether it’s there or not. But Book Six and the tower scene was what really sealed it for me. Frodo falling asleep in Sam’s arms and Sam thinking he can be happy for eternity just holding him is the most beautiful scene in the entire story. It is such a wonderful, tender, loving scene that shows the purity and beauty of their love so well. There is nothing erotic or sexual about it, just complete love and trust. It is our society that has grown so corrupt that nakedness has to automatically equal sexuality. It doesn’t and it didn’t in this story. There is so much more to admire about that humble gardener and steadfast friend: his reverent kisses to forehead and hand; his promise to return if he could to his master’s body and never leave him again like a human Greyfriars Bobby which British fans will recognize as the faithful dog who remained at his master’s grave until his own death; his calling out, despite being scared to death of discovery in the tower, “I’m coming, Mr. Frodo!” and singing to Frodo so his master would know he was not alone in that terrible place. Sam is the guardian angel who held his master or his hand as they slept; who made sure Frodo ate and drank and slept, going without himself if necessary; who wanted to be the first to drink what they found so that if it was poisoned, Frodo wouldn’t be harmed; who, despite his own exhaustion and starvation, carried his master when Frodo could move no longer; who, while Mount Doom is collapsing around them, felt only “joy, great joy” that Frodo was once again Frodo and not just a slave to the Ring. It took great strength and courage for Sam to always be there; to continue to love more and more; to never not love, even with a sword pointed at his throat, even when his beloved master broke his heart again and again. But that was why he was created - to love that special, bright, shining soul of Frodo’s; to be a visible beacon of God’s love for him, to love him even when he was being twisted into something unlovable, since without that love Frodo would not have able to accomplish what he was created to do. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sam was born the same year Frodo’s parents drowned in that boating accident. There was never a time when Frodo wasn’t protected or watched over by his Creator Who took away two guardians, but replaced them with another to be ready when the time came. It is interesting to watch as the Quest progresses, Frodo becomes the younger of the hobbits and Sam the elder as Frodo leans more and more on Sam’s guidance, help and strength as he is less and less able to go on himself. Sam’s love and care, which all along has been for a master and a best friend, becomes at times the love of a parent who loves his child even when that child sometimes does unlovable things, but is not loved any less because of it; who is forgiven automatically and without thought, because though the act is bad, the child is not and that is who Sam sees. A quote from Washington Irving about a mother’s love is most appropriately fit to Sam:“A mother’s love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of...the commendation of a single soul in judgement against itself. She remembers the...innocent eyes of her child so can never be brought to think him all unworthy. A mother’s love ever lives, ever forgives and while it lives, it stands with open arms and gives and gives, the strongest thing in the universe, never failing, enduring forever, always hoping...” Sam knows Frodo suffers greatly from his burden, and as much as he does, Sam suffers, perhaps, even more, watching the brother of his heart decline more and more into darkness and, much as he does all he can to stop that, he is helpless to stop it entirely. As St. Therese of Lisieux said as she watched her father decline in illness, “The greatest suffering on earth is to see people we love suffer and not to be able to do anything about it.” Sam knew that suffering, but he is also Harthad Uluithiad - Hope Unquenchable. Perhaps our part in the Music is be a Sam for someone, to love as he loved, perhaps also to suffer as he did, but to keep loving all the same; to stand by our Frodo through every hardship; to be their light and their strength and hope; to be willing even to die for them or with them. Imagine what the world would be like if we could all love and be loved as deeply and purely as Sam loved his Frodo and his Rosie. Beautiful, isn’t it? Or perhaps we shall be saved through totally unexpected means or persons, to mercies we gave and receive back.

Another part of the story that deviates once more from the fairy tale to reality, in that not all veterans of war who come back home, come back whole. Frodo had to deal with the trauma of being a victim of a very brutal and repeated rape and worse, to still desire his assailant (and make no mistake, that was what the Ring was). Frodo sacrificed everything to destroy it, including his mental health. He and everyone else assumed to be Ring-bearer also meant to be Ring-destroyer and he suffered from the guilt and shame of giving in at the last after all he had endured to get to Mordor and for still desiring the Ring after its destruction, even after the horrible violation of his mind, heart and soul it had caused. But to destroy the Ring was not his part in the Music. It was merely to get the Ring to where it could be destroyed. For some reason, that was kept from him. The Power that had chosen him for his task knew it would in the end be too much for him, but knew also that he would fulfill what he had been created to do, having fully corresponded with the grace he had been given, being truly named Bronwe anthan Harthad - Endurance Beyond Hope. Sam, too, fulfilled his pledge to be at his master’s side. All happened as it was to be. The Music continued to play out, though parts of it were heartbreaking.

Frodo came back, slowly shattering, to an already shattered Shire. For someone still reeling from the horrors of what he had had to endure and what he had done and what could have happened, it was another terrible shock. He had to have wondered, for what did I leave? He had been helpless, after all the soul-lacerating pain he had willingly endured for months just so his beloved Shire could be saved, to save it after all. But even then, he showed mercy - to Saruman who attacked and would have killed him - and in his demand that no hobbits be killed if it could be avoided.

But though the Shire healed of its wounds, Frodo did not and in this lesson from this hobbit who, with his Sam, has taught us so much about perseverance, endurance and self-sacrifice, we learn hownot to behave. After the initial joy over surviving something he had long given up hope for, Frodo suffered an increasingly severe depression, stemming from as Prof. Tolkien calls in his letters, “unreasoning self-reproach” for claiming the Ring, for still desiring it, for not having been able to save the Shire. His feeling of self-worth declined until, to quote the Professor again, “he saw himself and all that he [had] done as a broken failure.” (both quotes from Letter 264, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien). He did not talk to anyone of his troubles and therein lay his mistake. He wrote the book, but it was one of deeds, not much of how those deeds affected him. That was what he needed to talk about and he did not share that, not wanting to burden anyone, especially his Sam. It would have been humiliating for him to admit to anyone that he still wanted the Ring, perhaps pride prevented him from making that admission, perhaps shame did. That is something we would have all felt if we had claimed the Ring, if we still wanted it. How many times had that happened to us in one form or another already? How many times have we bowed down to the same shame or pride and denied ourselves the healing that is ours for the asking? If only Frodo had talked to someone, especially Gandalf, he would have been made to understand that the Ring had claimed him, he hadn’t claimed it; that no one could have endured when he couldn’t in the end and that he had endured longer than anyone dared hope, longer than anyone else could have. He was in no way a “broken failure”. He would have understood it was not an evil only his own soul was afflicted with to still desire the Ring, but that it was a burden that all Ring-bearers had to carry. He would have understood that he did not suffer from some terrible weakness that no one else did as we perhaps feel when we surrender to temptation and then think that no one else would have. I wonder if he had made that confession and was made to better understand what he was feeling and should be feeling, he would have found the peace he sought and would not have had to leave. But he did not talk to anyone. Even if he had, he would have had to believe in that reassurance that he was still a good person. Perhaps that would have been difficult for him, at least at first. We can only speculate. In the end he believes that to heal, or at least to have the hope of healing, he must make the heartbreaking decision to leave all but one of those he endured such bitter suffering for. Our hearts break for him and with him, but we also understand his heart was already broken and he felt could not be mended in any other way but by leaving. It seems to be a punishment and in a way it is, but it’s also a reward for his labor and what he did endure for so long; an opportunity for the peace, rest and healing he had sought but could not find in the Shire; a means to fully understand why he was chosen among all other beings to bear the Ring; a way to discover that he was not only the beloved child of Primula and Drogo, but a deeply loved one of his Creator whose vessel he had agreed to be. He would learn that he was not a failure, but that he had succeeded in ways no one else could have.

We can do the same. If we are strong enough and humble enough, we can go to that person who God will choose to work through, who we can offer the pieces of our broken hearts to and have them molded back together and returned to us whole. Yes, it is humiliating, but it is healing and releasing. Frodo denied himself that and increased his pain still further. Let’s not make the same mistake. Pain shared is pain halved. Pain held in is pain doubled. Through admitting our faults and having sincere sorrow for them, we can also come to understand how greatly loved we are by our Creator. We can heal.

Another lesson we sorely need to hope in and strive for is that in our era of broken promises and betrayal of friends and spouses, we can see two examples of shining faithfulness and devotion, one being Sam and Rosie celebrating their golden anniversary and far beyond. We can also hope thatone day Frodo saw his Sam again on the white shores of the West and having become a being of radiant light once more, ran to embrace his heart’s brother and was made whole and complete once more and “lived happily ever after, to the end of his days.”

It is also through Merry and Pippin, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and every soldier of Rohan and Gondor that we see bright examples of perseverance, loyalty and dedication to completing even seemingly impossible tasks, as they discover they are braver than they ever thought they could be, that they can push away their own fears and do what they needed to because others they loved depended on them. They learned as we have learned that evil is alive and well in the world, but in so many other ways so is love, so is faith, so is humility and self-sacrifice. The darkness will not endure forever. Love and light will. May the light of all the myriad heroes whose stories Prof. Tolkien retold “in this very nick of time” be a beacon for us as well to draw strength and inspiration from when we must make our own journeys to Mordor or confront the Shadow in other ways and places.