I've been on my semi-annual revisit of LOTR (in case any of you weren't already aware) and there's something so special to me this time around about Frodo as a disabled hero and how that is framed in such a caring and patient way, which is so rare to see in fiction.
Lesser stories would have healed Frodo the moment the ring was destroyed. It's a familiar trope, particularly in fantasy and science fiction, because why would a character still be disabled when there are surely ways to cure them? How could it be a good ending, unless all the trauma our heroes faced was magically over?
We're so used to disabling injuries in fiction being treated somehow because it wouldn't be a true happy ending unless that character is cured. There's always some sort of magic hand waving that erases this new facet of their identity, telling the audience that it was always something that had to be fixed. And I shouldn't need to explain how this feeds into the idea that to be disabled is to be inherently "broken".
But Frodo isn't magically healed at the end of The Lord of the Rings.
‘Are you in pain, Frodo?’ said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo’s side.
‘Well, yes I am,’ said Frodo. ‘It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.’
‘Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,’ said Gandalf.
‘I fear it may be so with mine,’ said Frodo. ‘There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?’
Gandalf did not answer.
I keep thinking about this passage from Return of the King. There can be loneliness in disability, especially in invisible disabilities and chronic illness, because most of your loved ones will never be able to understand how it feels. There are so many stories from the community about "Disability Grief," particularly as more and more people are becoming disabled by Long Covid.
You grieve the life you had before and the people you've lost along the way, who grew tired of waiting for you to get better. You grieve the ability to rely on medical professionals to help, as now all they can do is offer temporary and expensive measures through a broken system that has all but abandoned you. Where shall I find rest?
By the end of the day after this conversation, Frodo is very nearly back to his old self, the pain forgotten as he laughs with his friends again. When he returns to the Shire, there are still good days and bad days, and yet "Frodo knew that he was more lucky himself; for there was not a hobbit in the Shire that was looked after with such care."
And we see Frodo enfolded in such love and care throughout the story. We see him wounded so early on, both physically with the morgul blade at Weathertop and spiritually in the Mines of Moria with the loss of Gandalf, and we see the slow and painful effect of the ring on him - and yet this is never treated as a burden.
While there are a lot of fans out there who see Frodo as weak (which is a rant of its own for another time), that isn't the case in the story. And it's never the case for Samwise Gamgee, friend of friends, and dearest of all hobbits, who carries Frodo on his back up the mountain as though he weighs nothing at all - because he was never a burden and he never will be.
There's an understanding throughout the narrative and from most of the characters of how much of a terrible weight Frodo carries. When he falls, when the ring takes what's left of his strength, and when he can barely walk near the end - he isn't seen as weak, and there is always someone there, holding him through it and keeping him steady.
Though there is often grief woven in the fabric of our disabled bodies, there is still so much joy in community. We care for each other, even if no one else will, and even when society as a whole would rather leave us behind. We share the weight of our grief and our burdens so that it's never truly ours to carry alone. “It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it – books, bricks, grief – it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” - Mary Oliver, 'Heavy'
Frodo's wounds aren't healed by the narrative. Even with all that love and care wrapped around him, it still isn't enough, and he has to leave it all behind to finally find rest after his long journey.
FRODO Goodbye, Sam.
SAM No, Frodo.
FRODO You must stay here. You have Rosie now, and a baby due before Spring. You've so much to enjoy, and be, and do.
SAM I thought we'd do it together.
FRODO So did I, for a while. But I'm too badly hurt, Sam. I choose the evening, and your love is given to the morning. Everything we did was to save the Shire. It has been saved, but not for me... All that I had, and might have had, I leave to you.
And it hurts. It doesn't matter how many times I watch or read his departure for the Grey Havens, I will always cry and feel as though I'm also saying goodbye to a loved one. It never gets any easier.
But I still don't think I'd want it to end any other way. Because it's okay to need rest. It's okay to stop for a while in this world that never seems to slow down, even as it leaves the most vulnerable in our communities behind. Some wounds can't be healed, and yet there is still hope and respite in community. There is still light and high beauty, forever beyond the shadow's reach.
NARRATOR So Frodo Baggins boards the Great Ship and passes onwards into the West, until a sweet fragrance fills his senses and the sound of music comes over the water. Then it seems to him, as in a dream, the grey cloud is rolled back. He beholds white shores and, beyond them, a far green country.
