Worthless and Weak

Many Meetings, and the Council of Elrond:

So the first book is done, and the second book begins in Rivendell, Frodo is recovering from the encounter with the Ringwraiths, and everybody's back stories are told. We learn about what happened to Galdalf, and are for the first time (through story) introduced to Saruman, (would it have killed Tolkien to have the two main villains of his book not both begin with SA, end with N, and have a and R and a U in the middle). The council of Elrond decides that the ring cannot be hidden, nor guarded, or thrown into the sea, and they dare not use it, for even though they could destroy Sauron with the Ring, it would not benefit the world at all, as they would inevitably become that which they seek to destroy. Finally, they decide that it is not for the mighty or the wise to destroy it, for Sauron will quickly overcome might or outsmart wisdom, but instead Frodo shall hope to go unnoticed to the fires of Mt Doom.

That Frodo, and not Aragorn or Gandalf (or Elrond or Glorfindel or so on) should bear the ring is of great importance artistically, first it is easier for us to identify with Frodo than with a Ranger or a Wizard, and of course having the fish out of water character allows for much easier exposition (when Gandalf or Aragorn tell Frodo about some piece of history, they're really telling us), but it goes even deeper than that. The trilogy is chalk full of symbolism, in fact its easy to make the argument that it is nothing but symbolism, and they symbolism of Frodo is that it is each person's job to combat evil, that we all have a ring to bear, and while there are no doubt Gandalfs and Aragorns in our lives, and we must trust in them, we cannot fully rely on them, and in the end we must rely on ourselves and the Sams of the world.

Labels: LOTR