![]() They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the divine nature).” They do not perceive the complexity of any given situation in Time, in which an absolute ideal is enmeshed. I do not say ‘simple minds’ with contempt: they often see with clarity the simple truth and absolute ideal to which effort must be directed, even if it is unattainable. “Frodo indeed ‘failed’ as a hero, as conceived by simple minds: he did not endure to the end. Tolkien wrote this about Frodo at the Cracks of Doom: Tolkien’s reflections on this letter and on others who questioned him about Frodo’s “failure” take us right to the heart of his deep compassion, not just for Frodo, but also to all who have given their all but who fall at the last. Tolkien wrote that “I have had one savage letter, crying out that he should have been executed as a traitor, not honoured.” Has Frodo turned traitor at the very last, betraying all those who had put their trust in him, all who had marched to the Black Gate and were prepared to lay down their lives for him? And had Frodo betrayed Sam who had for love of him gone every step of the way with him, risking his life time and again?Ĭertainly one of Tolkien’s correspondents thought that Frodo was a traitor. ![]() But he cannot do what he had purposed to do. Frodo comes, at the last, to Sammath Naur, the Cracks of Doom where the One Ring was first forged by its master.
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