Sin, Lord of the Rings, and Social Distancing pt. 2

I'm back, with more thoughts on Lord of the Rings and the theme of Frodo leaving the group. Last time we looked exclusively at The Fellowship of the Ring. This week, due to a surprising lack of instances, we'll be looking at The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The connections to sin and social distancing will have to wait until the next post though (so stay tuned!).

Distance in The Two Towers

The Two Towers contains almost no instances of Frodo leaving behind his companions. Which is interesting. We saw last time how ubiquitous the theme was in The Fellowship of the Ring and so for it to suddenly drop off like that is shocking to say the least.

What we can say, however, is that The Two Towers could be categorized as one long leaving behind of Frodo's companions. The first book in the volume focuses on Aragorn and Co. while the second book focuses on Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. Throughout the two, Frodo slowly gets farther and farther away from the Fellowship. With that overarching narrative in place, let's look at the only instance of Frodo being entirely separated from the group.

While this instance doesn't exactly fall into our theme, it's the very differences that will allow for fruitful implications to be drawn in our next post.

At the very end of the book, Frodo is poisoned by Shelob and taken by the Orcs into Cirith Ungol. Frodo is in the worst possible situation. Tolkien ends the volume with the simple, yet horrifying, statement, "Frodo was alive but taken by the Enemy." This is the very thing that Sam, Gandalf, and Elrond were trying to avoid by refusing to let Frodo go off on his own, and now it's happened. How did he get into this situation though? Why wasn't trusty ol' Sam taken as well?

Frodo ran ahead of Sam out of Shelob's lair (separating himself from the group). Sam is even physically separated from Frodo by Shelob's massive bulk, and then his attention and energy is separated by the fight with Gollum.

This is the first logical conclusion of the theme's trajectory as it built in The Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo is left entirely alone, with no one to help him, in the very clutches of the enemy. Let's turn now to two instances in The Return of the King that shed an enormous amount of light on the point Tolkien is making though this theme.

Distance in The Return of the King

The Return of the King, like The Two Towers, contains a shockingly sparse amount of moments in which Frodo is able to run off on his own. To be fair, there's a lot that goes on (though I won't spoil the surprising epilogue for those who have only watched the movies and not read the books).

After Sam rescues Frodo from the dastardly clutches of the Orcs, the two hobbits make their way through the land of Mordor over to Mount Doom. As they're climbing up the slopes of the volcano, Gollum once again separates our heroes. Now, this is the first time Frodo is actually able to get alone with the Ring. Sam had managed to take the Ring from Frodo's (supposedly) dead body when he was taken by the Orcs. 

Being the first time that Frodo is left alone with the Ring, it will be incredibly important for understanding why so many people throughout the two books were seeking to foil his plans.

Frodo climbs up the path, by himself, enters into the very heart of Mount Doom, and instead of destroying the Ring, claims it for himself. In a moment of arrogance, Frodo presumes to be able to control the power of the Ring, to wrest the authority of Sauron from him and take it for himself.

No doubt, this was not actually Frodo's idea. The Ring's sinister desire to get back to its master, was finally able to be realized. Convince this one, weak hobbit to claim the Ring and then the Nazgul would come running to take him down (probably quite easily).

We come now, to our final instance of Frodo leaving behind his companions. Freed from the power of the Ring, yet due to its extended influence, unable to return fully to a normal life, Frodo leaves behind Middle Earth and sets sail for the Undying Lands.

Frodo's attempt to leave is simultaneously foiled and not. Pippin declares that Frodo has failed at "giving them the slip," because Merry, Pippin, and most of all Sam were able to make it to the Grey Havens to say goodbye, but at the same time, Frodo successfully leaves and his three original companions are unable to follow him.

This time, there is another important distinction. Frodo does not have the Ring. And so, his plan to leave behind (just about) everyone he knows is successful. Frodo gets on the boat, leaves Middle Earth, and goes to the Undying Lands.

Conclusion to Part Two

We have successfully finished tracking the theme of Frodo leaving behind everyone for (as he conceives of it) the greater good. As the story progressed and developed so did the theme. It went from a simple, "Frodo runs away but is once again foiled by Sam" to three instances where Frodo is successfully separated, once without the Ring and not of his own accord, once with the Ring and of his own accord, and once without the Ring and of his own accord.

A few final comments on this theme before we end this post and I begin preparing for the final post in which we consider the implications of this theme.

Each volume ends with Frodo leaving behind people. The Fellowship of the Ring ends with him leaving the Fellowship and heading off with just Sam. The Two Towers ends with Frodo alone in Mordor, having left behind Sam. The Return of the King ends with Frodo leaving behind the original group of hobbits and heading off for the Undying Lands. From this, we can see that it is indeed an important theme to Tolkien. He chose to end each of his volumes with a unique instance of it.

Another thing to note, is that besides Frodo's last attempt to the leave the group (which according to Pippin is foiled by Gandalf), every time Frodo goes off on his own it is Sam that meets him there and journeys with him. Sam is, in this regard, utterly unique from every other character. Nobody knows Frodo like he does. Nobody helps Frodo like he does. And nobody else (besides Bilbo) bore the Ring besides Sam and Frodo.

Next time, we'll look at some implications of this theme and what to make of it in our own lives.