The Failure of Frodo Baggins

and the mercies that rescued him.

Then Frodo spoke with a clear voice, indeed with a voice clearer and more powerful than Sam had ever heard him use, and it rose above the throb and turmoil of Mount Doom, ringing in the roof and walls. ‘I have come,’ he said. ‘But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!’ And suddenly, as he set it on his finger, he vanished from Sam’s sight.
—The Return of the King, Mount Doom.

On the twenty-fifth day of March in Year 3,019 of the Third Age, Frodo Baggins carried the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom.

And there he failed in his quest.

Temptation won out. Frodo claimed the ring as his own.

From the moment he first received the Ring from Bilbo, Frodo was locked in an inescapable struggle between his own will and the grave malice of Sauron. For years that evil weighed down upon him.

And this moment—in the Fires of Doom when Frodo renounces his quest to take the Ring for himself—is the end of that struggle. It ends with Frodo’s defeat.

It is not, however, the end of the story.

In the grandeur of Tolkien’s epic, the big moments get all the press. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Gandalf’s duel with the balrog, the fight at the Black Gate… these are the great and memorable clashes between good and evil that have inspired audiences since The Lord of the Rings first released.

But to focus on the big, cinematic moments (as I have done on this very blog) is to miss the point.

Instead, Frodo’s failure at the most pivotal moment brings out the central themes of the work: the struggle between good and evil, the corruptibility of every character, and the necessity of quiet virtue.

The Lord of the Rings is indeed a sweeping epic of the fight between Good and Evil.

Sometimes, that fight plays out on a literal battlefield. More importantly, however, that battle plays out within the heart.

In this regard, Frodo’s failure is Tolkien’s narrative masterstroke.

Let’s review how the Ring is ultimately destroyed. In the event itself, the Ring falls into the Fire because Gollum slipped. He follows the Ring into the tunnel and wrestles it away from Frodo, biting off the hobbit’s finger in the process.

‘Precious, precious, precious!’ Gollum cried. ‘My Precious! O my Precious!’ And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail, Precious, and he was gone.
—The Return of the King, Mount Doom.

Soon enough, Sauron is gone too. The Nazgûl fade and disappear. “Towers fell and mountains slid,” writes the author; “walls crumbled and melted, crashing down; vast spires of smoke and spouting streams went billowing up, up, until they toppled like an overwhelming wave, and its wild crest curled and came foaming down upon the land.”

Quite the knock-on effect from a creature like Gollum accidentally falling over a ledge.

It isn’t merely an accident, of course.

Gollum falls in that particular moment because “his eyes were lifted up to gloat.” He is subservient to his obsession. He cannot master himself long enough to truly claim his prize and walk away. He must gloat and give his whole attention to the Ring.

And so he falls.

Gollum’s corruption is a by-product of the Ring itself. As willing a slave as Gollum was to the Ring, it was the Ring that made him thus.

And so the Ring falls with him.

The Ring holds within it the domineering power of Sauron. He crafted it to break and conquer the minds of those who held the other Rings of Power. In his hubris he put his very soul into his craft.

And so Sauron falls with Gollum too.

Gollum got what he wanted. The Ring created its own killer. Sauron crafted his own destruction. Evil has ultimately consumed itself.

The fact that evil has ultimately corroded itself into oblivion does not diminish the valor of those who fought against that evil over the course of the books.

The Ring only makes it to Mount Doom because of Sam’s constancy as Frodo’s loyal companion. They only make it through Mordor because Aragorn and Gandalf and all the Free Peoples make a bold and sacrificial attack against the Black Gate. That army only exists because of the bravery, sacrifice, and determination of countless others—like Théoden, Eowyn, Treebeard, and Faramir.

Further and further back the chain goes, from Mordor to Gondor to Rohan and Lorien. Up the Great River to the bridge of Khazad-dûm and Rivendell and Bree and ultimately to four friends who band together in a quiet dining room to help their pal, Frodo.¹

Every half-chance taken and every strike against evil was necessary in the end.

Every effort was needed. Not a single instance of courage nor a single drop of blood was wasted in the struggle.

Nonetheless, Frodo told Sam even on the slopes of the erupting mountain:

‘But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end.’
—The Return of the King, Mount Doom.

All the strife prior to Frodo’s failure was necessary. Equally necessary was Gollum’s presence.

Because what if Gollum hadn’t been there? What if it had been only Sam and Frodo, and Frodo claimed the Ring for himself?

Perhaps Samwise could have tried to destroy the Ring? He would have likely had to kill his master in order to try. Frodo—now giving in to the Ring’s corruption—would not have hesitated to kill Sam any more than Sméagol had hesitated to kill Déagol. It would have been a bitter fight, with evil winning either way.

Even if Sam had taken the Ring from Frodo’s dead finger, all would have been lost. Sam himself was tempted by the Ring when he carried it in Frodo’s absence, but Tolkien writes that “it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm. But also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden…”

How would that love have helped Sam resist if he had just slayed that same master? By killing Frodo, Sam would have been acting out of a belief that he was indeed “large enough to bear such a burden.”

Pure-hearted Samwise could not have conquered the Ring once Frodo claimed It; stopping Frodo would have required him to do evil to accomplish good; by doing evil, he would no longer be pure-hearted; he would have started his ownership of the Ring like Sméagol rather than starting like Bilbo; as a result, he would have been unable to do the good he had set out to do. Like Frodo, he would have failed.

Indeed, anyone would have failed. It is not a judgement on Frodo, or Sam, or anyone else; rather it is simply a fact of the great evil which they sought to destroy.

This is why Elrond did not slay Isildur: to take the Ring by force—even in the name of goodness—is to surrender to the malice of the Ring even before you grasp it. It is to lose even before you have a chance at winning.

Simply put: if Gollum had not been there, Sauron would have won.

Why is Gollum there at Mount Doom in the first place?

Because he was shown mercy, again and again. He was shown mercy even when those who did so did not understand what they were doing.

To explain this more fully, I want to hone in on four moments. All four are relatively easy to miss among all the sweeping action, but all four come into fierce contrast once we consider Frodo’s failure in the end.

In all four cases, someone with power over Gollum decides to show him mercy. In all four cases, Gollum did not deserve that mercy. And in all of these cases, that mercy is beyond the comprehension of those involved.

Let’s move through them, and then unpack them.

The first moment is when Bilbo first gets the Ring in The Hobbit. But it’s worth recollecting this through the second chapter of The Fellowship, when Gandalf speaks with Frodo in Bag End about the Ring. Frodo bemoans the Ring and all the harm that Gollum has caused. In reply, Gandalf foreshadows the events to come.

‘What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’

‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his 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.’

Here we see Gandalf explain the corrupting principle of the Ring: to have taken it in violence—even to fight evil—would only compound evil in the end. The conversation goes on:

‘I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’ [said Frodo]

‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in.

‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’

I can’t understand you. That’s Frodo’s reaction to those who have spared Gollum so far. It’s only slowly, over time, that Frodo comes to understand.

That understanding begins during the second vital moment I want to share: when Frodo decides to spare Gollum’s life and instead take him on as a guide to Mordor. Gollum has literally just tried to kill both Frodo and Sam in order to take the Ring. But Frodo remembers Gandalf’s words from Bag End, and hesitates in his own strike.

Sam points out that Gollum will try again to kill them, and Frodo agrees (note that Sam is, in fact, correct). Sam wants to tie up the creature and let him die. But Frodo decides against this. “For now that I see him,” he says, “I do pity him.”

Sam ascents to his master’s will, but struggles to understand it.

Sam scowled at [Gollum], and sucked his teeth; but he seemed to sense that there was something odd about his master’s mood and that the matter was beyond argument. All the same he was amazed at Frodo’s reply.
—The Two Towers, The Taming of Sméagol.

Frodo himself unable to explain this mercy either. Later in the story, when Frodo and Sam are in the custody of Faramir and his rangers, Gollum commits yet another crime that warrants his death. He enters the forbidden pool of Henneth Annûn. Faramir’s unseen rangers hold ready to shoot him dead.

Three or four separate times Faramir demands answers of Frodo: “Shall we shoot?... Tell me why it should be spared… His life is forfeit. Why should we spare? … How can this slippery thing of many guises be caught, save by a feathered shaft?”

In reply, Frodo can only appeal to those wiser than him:

‘The creature is wretched and hungry,’ said Frodo, ‘and unaware of his danger. And Gandalf… would have bidden you not to slay him for that reason, and for others. He forbade the Elves to do so. I do not know clearly why, and of what I guess I cannot speak openly out here. But this creature is in some way bound up with my errand…’
—The Two Towers, The Forbidden Pool

In that moment, Frodo again considers killing Gollum. He hears Gollum’s voice “with pity and disgust,” and wishes “that he never need hear that voice again… Only one true shot, and Frodo would be rid of the miserable voice for ever.”

But he saves Gollum from the Rangers anyway.

The final moment of mercy comes just before the cataclysmic finale. Gollum has followed Frodo and Sam through Mordor and, for the umpteenth time, tries to murder them. They subdue him. Sam holds Gollum at sword-point, and says “I’ll deal with him. Go on!” Frodo goes on to the chasm to finish his errand.

‘Now!’ said Sam. ‘At last I can deal with you!’ He leaped forward with drawn blade ready for battle. But Gollum did not spring. He fell flat on the ground and whimpered. [...]

Sam's hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil. It would be just to slay this treacherous, murderous creature, just and many times deserved; and also it seemed the only safe thing to do. But deep in his heart there was something that restrained him: he could not strike this thing lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched. He himself, though only for a little while, had borne the Ring, and now he dimly guessed the agony of Gollum's shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again. But Sam had no words to express what he felt.

‘Oh, curse you, you stinking thing!’ he said. ‘Go away! Be off!’
—The Return of the King, Mount Doom.

He knows Gollum deserves death; and he’s right. He knows killing him would be the smart, easy, practical thing to do; and he’s right. He cannot even express his own decision, yet he spares Gollum. He had prepared for Gollum to resist him and fight back, but resistance doesn’t come. Sam, like Bilbo all those years before, resists the urge to “strike without need.”

It is only through those moments—Bilbo sparing Gollum in the caves, Frodo pitying him in the Emyn Muil, Frodo advocating for Gollum with Faramir, and then Sam showing mercy in the very end—that the Ring comes to be destroyed. All other effort would have been in vain without these.

And not a single person understood the importance of that mercy when they were giving it. They gave it in spite of their own understanding.

The reason I love Frodo’s failure—and its narrative consequences—is because it shows that the battle between Good and Evil is not something external to any one of us.

It happens in the heart. In your heart. In mine.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains an uprooted small corner of evil.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

The battle between good and evil is not something that happens out there, against those people—if only we could stop them or kill them or remove their influence. The battle happens within.

This is not to say it is bad or counterproductive to fight for good in physical, public ways. Helm’s Deep was necessary. The fight at Minas Tirith was necessary. But these would have been in vain if evil had won out in the hearts of those who did that fighting.

As Solzhenitsin said of those who seek to create utopias through violent revolutions:

They destroy only those carriers of evil contemporary with them…. And they then take to themselves as their heritage the actual evil itself, magnified still more.
—The Gulag Archipelago

This is the lesson of the Ring. We can never fully destroy the evil within ourselves; but we can work each day to overcome it, to improve, and to work toward the good.

Frodo’s failure shows that the truest battles happen in moments which are small and seemingly inconsequential. Bilbo, Faramir, Frodo, Sam… all of these could have slain Gollum without negative consequence. No one would have thought them evil. No one would have judged. Everyone would have understood, nodding along, even celebrating Gollum’s well-deserved end. It would have been just. It would have been, in material logic, smart.

It is only in retrospect that we can understand the necessity of those small mercies. Frodo renounced all goodness and knowingly condemns the world to the Ring’s domination. That domination is instead overthrown by his earlier choices. Those choices built, unbeknownst to him, a trap in which evil then consumed itself.

Frodo received the same mercy he previously showed. Gollum did not deserve mercy, but received it; Frodo, in giving over to the ring, likewise needed mercy. First, he gave mercy when he did not need to, and then he received it when his need was greatest. His adherence to the good during the small but difficult moments propelled his ultimate victory in the end, during a moment when no one—not Sam, not Aragorn, not Elrond, not Gandalf—could have prevailed.

So yes, Frodo “failed,” in one moment. But he conquered in a greater way. When he renounced his friends and claimed the Ring, the victory had in fact already been won.

Good doesn’t win by being physically stronger. It doesn’t win by force of arms. It doesn’t win by conquest or raw, worldly power.

It doesn’t even win by making itself clear to us—as so often doing the right thing appears to be stupid, unpragmatic, useless, or unjust. At least at first.

And yet the only way for Good to flourish is for each of us to choose it anyway. Small people. In small moments. Choosing good.

We don’t always understand the significance of those choices. But good will triumph over evil, so long as we choose it in those small moments. That is where the greatest victories over evil are won: in the quiet decisions, in our own hearts, where the line between good and evil is drawn anew, each and every day.

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1. Yes, four friends, not three. People always forget about Fatty Bolger.