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A reflection about the One Ring and why Bilbo, Sam and Frodo were amazing characters!

One of the defenses itself of the One Ring of Power was keeping the bearer become attached to it (I've always understood this as if it were an addiction, something that the person knows is bad for him, but it's very difficult to abandon). So far explains that it is VERY difficult to give up the Ring, but not impossible (it depends on the willpower and heart/nature of the bearer, and just remembering that Gandalf and Galadriel were also afraid of what they could do if they obtained it, shows that not only nature of the ring perverts peoples, it 'plays' with the will to power each person craves).

Hobbits don't have many ambitions, so they are less prone to manipulation by the One Ring. Then Gandalf tells Frodo that Gollum/Smeagol both loved and hated the Ring, he might be a Hobbit, his ambitions were not great, but Gollum's little ambition was fatal to him. He took a life just for the ambition of having the One, he no longer shows great inner strength.

Bilbo however, when acquiring the ring, just wanted to be able to leave the tunnel alive (that was his maximum ambition at that moment and that's it), even later he does not use the ring for great ambitions because his ambition is to return home and stay in his hole and after he wants: "lived happily ever after to the end of his days" (I love this Hobbit❤). Bilbo have an almost utopian ambition, worthy of a silly fairy tale.

Bilbo, despite having spent a long time with the item, knew that it was corrupting him and with the help of Gandalf managed to relinquish the Item.

I believe that when Bilbo realized that the Item was even instigating him to attack anyone who tried to take the Ring from him, and with Gandalf's voice and frightening power against him, Bilbo realized how bad the Ring was making him act and so he managed to hear Gandalf and leave the Ring.

Even because Bilbo already felt that the Ring was doing him harm, and understand: Bilbo willingness to leave it was greater than his need/ambition to have it. Which is already an incredible feat by Bilbo, who had been with the One for decades.

Gandalf also says that Bilbo's first act with the Ring was to spare a life (Gollum/Smeagol), while Gollum himself took a life in his first moments with the Ring. This already shows the strength of each one's ambitions and where such ambitions lead them.

Bilbo warns Frodo, in the letter, to leave the ring attached to the chain because the ring tends to change shape, sometimes becoming too thin or too wide and falling off. This is the ring not finding wearer useful and trying to leave him. Bilbo, a hobbit with fairy-tale ambitions, is not suited to the Ring nefarious desires.

The nature of the person with the Ring also counts in the form of resilience against its evil force, as much as the strength of the holder's ambitions. Even if at first the person says that will use the ring for "good ambitions". It is clear that even a good soul in possession of the ring, with great ambitions, can be led to corruption by it.

Bilbo is proof, he didn't have big ambitions, and yet the ring was changing him as much as it could (made Bilbo a liar and prone to pranks where only he laughs. But only. Bilbo adopted Frodo taking him to reside in Bag End, while Gollum became slinky mad and prone to violence after getting the ring. Bilbo held large and lively parties, with much food and entertainment for all the Shire, giving gifts to all. He was also liberal with money and helped those in need. And although he grumbled peevishly at those who gossiped negatively about him, as well as self-serving relatives, Bilbo NEVER wished harm on anyone. Bilbo kept himself well, he was an unfit wielder of the Evil Ring).

But if not even the least ambitious souls could withstand the ring over time, let alone the most prominent beings.

When Gandalf warns Frodo about what the Ring is, about how he was harming Bilbo (and I found Frodo's concern for Bilbo cute, Frodo was concerned for Bilbo's well-being and wanted to know if Bilbo was still at risk since he had possessed the evil ring for so long, and after how Gandalf says that Bilbo didn't know what that ring was because if he had known he would never have left something evil as a burden to Frodo,Bilbo would not have been able to entrust the ring to Frodo if he had known what it was, for he worried with Frodo well-being). (...)

well, the wizard says that Gollum both loved and hated the Ring, to which Frodo mutters about why then Gollum did not destroy the One Ring, Gandalf informs him that it cannot be destroyed in the ordinary way. He also tells us that it's one thing to give up the ring, it's another to try to destroy it!

Gandalf even instigates Frodo to throw the Ring into the fireplace, but Frodo cannot and puts it in his pocket. Already a foreshadowing that no one can really destroy the ring by free will, at that moment Frodo thought that throwing the ring there would destroy it and so was not able, the ring protects itself.

It's not Frodo's fault, it's as if the Ring is a sentient being and has a sense of preservation, compelling the wielder not to harm the item.

I was more worried about Frodo wishing Bilbo had killed Gollum. And anyway, later Frodo's lack of empathy towards Gollum changes after he really realizes what a burden the Ring is, he then understands Gollum afterwards. People judge Frodo, but his approach to Gollum at a given moment in the narrative makes sense because he starts to understand him.

Returning to the question, Bilbo did not do horrible things in possession of the One Ring, and even spared a life as soon as he acquired the Item, then gave up the Ring after decades, because he was a simple hobbit with children's fairy tale ambitions (a fact in itself only that already shows the strength he needed to carry out such acts, a lot of willpower even though he was ensnared by the evil of the ring, he had a good heart).

And Sam! Sam only had the Ring for a very short period of time, and anyway his heart was also good enough to return the Ring to Frodo, after all Sam's ambition at that point was to help Frodo, only. Sam was also a Hobbit who had ambition to simple things of live and loyalty, only.

Including, it is precisely because of the simplicity that Tolkien himself claims to have a preference for Sam and Bilbo, where Frodo is more than simple, he is notorious.

p.s: read "simple" not as something banal, but as rare people who cherish and value the simple things in life rather than of anything else. It is so rare, there was no one like Bilbo and Sam before to leave the Ring of their own accord. So understand "simple" as rare here. And Frodo being remarkable makes him important.

I believe that Frodo would be able to give up the Ring too if he had to, as did Sam and Bilbo. Because abdicating it is one thing, trying to destroy it is more difficult.

Trying to destroy it requires much more.

And even Frodo already shows that he couldn't do that already in chapter 2 of Fellowship of the Ring. And that doesn't make him any less. After all, I love Frodo's resistance and resilience in the mission. He did everything he could, gave it his all, the way he was able. Although some argue against it, Frodo was the only person truly capable of carrying out the task given to him (no one else could: that's why Frodo is more than simple, he's notable).

if just giving up the ring was something unfeasible for most of Middle-earth, and if that already makes Bilbo and Sam memorable characters just for being able to accomplish such a feat (especially Bilbo, decades with the ring), think about how SPECIAL is someone who not only deign to relinquish it, as much as set out to destroy it? Even if it destroys himself in the process! Frodo is special for simply trying to destroy something that does everything to not be harmed.

Understand that I'm not trying to diminish Frodo, nor Bilbo and Sam (because they are my favorite Hobbits, and anyone who knows me knows that I love Bilbo).

Bilbo and Sam wanted an adventure, both were up for the journey, both wanted to see Elves, and both ended up getting into bigger things than themselves. Frodo didn't want an adventure, and yet he found himself on a suicidal journey which he went on. Okay, where Bilbo and Sam are proactive, Frodo is a reactive character. But where Bilbo and Sam's proactivity takes them on a journey with greater consequences than they could have imagined, Frodo's reactivity makes him understand the weight of the situations involved in his sacrificial journey because he understood the burden better than anyone else (That's why Sam seems ingenuous in accompanying Frodo, much as Bilbo seemed ingenuous when he proposed to go and destroy the ring himself: Sam and Bilbo don't fully understand what is being required on that journey when carrying the ring to destruction).

Taking the ring to destruction takes more than some might think. It is not a mere item to be carried and discarded. It is something that will try to consume you, destroy you, your mind and your willingness to do so, and therefore it is a journey that demands sacrifice. The sacrifice is not in destroying it, but in carrying it to destruction.

What I mean is, in short, I agree that Bilbo and Sam have given up the Ring, and that requires:

1) a lot of willpower

2) low ambitions

3) good heart

True! Gollum never managed to leave the Ring because he lacked something in this triad for him, nor did anyone before him too, as far as I remember, and this shows the giant heart and simplicity of Bilbo and Sam.

But relinquishing to Item is different from trying to destroy the item. Frodo is also an excellent character, but his function was more than to give up that thing.

And I believe that both the end of The Hobbit book and the "chapter 2" of Fellowship of the Ring already establish that concerning the finding and destruction of the Ring: that is in the hands of something bigger (it was no People/character business destroyed the ring, that Gollum had destroyed himself with the ring was the work, not of any character's will, but of providence).

From this line in The Hobbit, "You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!"

Gandalf is informing that Bilbo's "luck" wasn't really that. As Well, Gollum finding the ring, that it reached Bilbo, Bilbo sparing gollum's life, Bilbo passed the Ring on to Frodo, that Sam kept loyal to Frodo, and that Gollum accidentally destroyed The Ring in the end when disputing its possession, can be seen as fate for some, and divine providence for others.

The hobbits were least suited to the task of bringing the Ring to destruction, but notice how ALL involved were capacitate to do so. (it is the triumph of good over evil, in an implicit way. The ways of evil were made void by being enmeshed in a greater chain of events which culminated in the end of the Ring. And it was not "chance" or "luck", as Gandalf well warns us).

Each character there ended up playing the role he had to play. Who they were, their journeys and their choices throughout was important too, but not just that! (each character gave what they could, and this builds on the chain of events that says that no matter how much evil tries to twist the song, the sound will never go beyond of what is allowed).

The hobbits, each in their own way, were important to the chain of events. but they were also just little hobbits (and that may contain redundancy) in a very big world.

Personality-wise, Frodo is more introverted, Bilbo is ambiverted, and Sam is charismatic. Their personalities don't make them any less (love a character more than another varies according to the personality that each fan values more in a character. It has nothing to do comparing each other's journey or accomplishments when discussing personality only).

The life of Anakin Skywalker was one of servitude. Becoming Darth Vader was meant to free him of his slave life but it only made it worse for the Jedi turned Sith Lord. From his beginnings as a slave to watto, through his Jedi career, and ending with his death as a Sith Lord, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were two halves of a whole that finally became free of all bonds.

I do absolutely think that Anakin choosing the dark side led to him being enslaved as Vader. He inarguably spent a larger percentage of his time alive as a slave than free, under Watto and Sidious. He did become free of those bonds with death, but... I don't think all bonds are evil.

My qualm with the blanket statement that he was in servitude his entire life was that to me there is a difference in kind between slavery (Sith) and making a commitment to protect and serve others (Jedi). He was free at any time to leave the Jedi, but he chose to stay... until he fell, and chose to leave.

I would argue that his years as a Jedi involved a great deal of freedom. As Obi-Wan's Padawan before the war, he had duties and responsibilities, yes, but they were ones he opted into. He had agency. He wasn't forced to be there, and wasn't forced to stay. He wanted to be a Jedi and help people.

He was participating by choice in a larger altruistic project. He also was free enough to break those commitments and pursue his heart's desire with Padmé. He had a great deal of freedom, and he threw that freedom, and the entire galaxy's freedom, away to serve a Sith who used and hurt him.

He was selfish and wanted power, and all it did was render him into a slave. When he finally felt compassion again, and died, we see that he returned to being Anakin Skywalker as he was before he threw everything else away, the moment when he was most free.

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #i just think that his years as a jedi #are not qualitatively the same #he had freedom and agency #yes he had accountability #but teenagers need that #it doesn't mean they're slaves #it means they're learning and need training wheels to make #good decisions #sw meta