When Sam returns...

[Menelvagor]

I noticed that in the timeline in Appendix B of RotK it says that Sam returns home from the Grey Havens after Frodo has gone on October 6, the date of Frodo's wounding with the morgul blade, and I was wondering what significance (if any) can be attibuted to this. I was thinking that maybe, now that Frodo has gone and Sam is the only ringbearer left, he now carrries some of the burden that Frodo felt before he left (leaving it behind, inadvertently, for Sam, kind of). Any other opinions?

[Menelvagor]

anyone?

[FrodoFriend]

Hmmm. I never really saw Sam as being really burdened. All evil just seems to slide off him. He's untouchable. Go Sam!

[Menelvagor]

I think after Frodo leaves he's burdened though. He fells "torn in two" wanting to stay in middle earth with Rosie and wanting to follow Frodo. Sam was (is, ...Sam Lives!) a pretty ccool guy, but he wasn't without his problems.

[FrodoFriend]

But Frodo also said Sam would be whole. Sam must have felt pretty good, I mean, he did father about 20 kids!

[Menelvagor]

hm, you have a point, but I think being the only ringbearer left in middle earth would have some effect (like the effects it had on Frodo, just slower to take less sever), and we know that he had to go eventually (Frodo said so), but maybe it wasn't enough to make a big issue for him. I was just wondering 'cause he does return to Bag End on the 6th of October, and that was the date when Frodo's burden is expressed in the later parts of the book (he always gets ill on Oct. 6 and Marth 13 (when he ws poisoned by Shelob)) and I was thinking that might be sybolic in some way. I might be wrong though.

[FrodoFriend]

No, you might be right, in a way. He might get depressed on those days, remembering Frodo. It makes sense that he would experience this slight . . . scarring (?) through Frodo, since he basically experienced the Ring through Frodo. And he did get to go to Valinor, so maybe there was something left to heal - his loss of his master. I think in Sam's case it has more to do with Frodo than his brief stint as a Ringbearer.

[Menelvagor]

That would make sense. :)

[coolismo]

Just some quick thoughts,

to me Sam and Frodo are like the two aspects of christ: master and servant. I kinda dont agree with those who think that they later go beyond being master and servant to become just really good friends. The third aspect of christ is the lamb. Christ was sacrificed for us (now hang on i'm not a catholic nutball but it helps to sometimes look at this what with the Inklings and all). Together the two halflings make this third aspect. They become the sacrificial lamb that are the salvation not only of men but the other races as well. It's something created after the breaking of the fellowship. The only way in which Sam is the servant really is that he does not suffer the physical wounds that Frodo receives.
The union of the two aspects make the lamb, the sacrifice and, like christ, there are moments they admit to realising they will probably die and they'd rather not.
Funnily enough the Hobbits are a bit lamb like. They live in Flocks (brandybucks, tooks etc) and I think if you flew over the shire they would look like little sheep.
Thanks for your post I'll go scuttling to look it all up so thanks for the little project.
They both suffer back at the shire. Theres really no escaping the fact that they are not going to find any escape from the lamb aspect of their bond. Frodo has to leave his beloved shire and dwell in the more etheric Grey Havens and Sam has to mitigate his suffering through long service to the 'flock.'
Off to reread the stuff about the dates and anniversaries of the woundings ..........

[FrodoFriend]

I don't think so. Tolkien repeatedly and emphatically denied that LotR was a Christian allegory - it has Christian principles, but that's not the same thing.

I also don't agree with Hobbits being like sheep, and I especially don't agree that Sam was "suffering" through serving the Shire. He loved the Shire, and was happy to serve as mayor or whatever else. It wasn't suffering! His suffering was the loss of his beloved master.

Sam wasn't sacrificial, Sam was the one whom the destruction of the Ring was supposed to save. Frodo sacrificed himself so that Sam and all the other happy little people could be, well, happy little people!

[ragamuffin92]

But Sam sacrificed so much to serve Frodo, even to death, if necessary, when he willingly agreed give up his life in the Shire, and accompany Frodo to Mordor. He willingly did this, even though they had no realistic chance of returning. Sam sacrificed himself so Mr. Frodo could complete his task, in getting the Ring back to the Crack of Doom. As Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than to lay down their life for a friend."
Your last sentence showed the difference in their sacrifices, tho, which I had never thought about before (STOP BEING SMARTER THAN ME!! LOL)
This is a generalization, but Frodo did it for the all Middle-earth, Sam did it for Frodo (and his Gaffer and Rosie, etc.) Both noble gestures, from slightly different perspectives.

[ragamuffin92]

That last sentence in my previous post was a surface generalization, I know. Sam's loved his own people, and Elves, and Dwarves, etc, too. The point I ewas trying to make was that I think his love was more simple and down-to-earth than Frodo's was, and more personal.
Gandalf, too, was very much a selfless servant. He never built himself up or put his own needs over those of the good inhabitants of Middle-earth, the enemies of Sauron, to whom he was sent as an aid. Saruman, on the other hand, was the epitome of self-centered ambition, and I don't believe that there was one drop of love or unselfishness in him.

[FrodoFriend]

I agree with the last sentence of your second-to-last post. Sam did it for Frodo; I think the idea of saving all of Middle Earth was just too large to really hit home to him. But he suffered much to save Frodo, as Frodo suffered to save Middle Earth. Interesting. :)

[coolismo]

This has become a dry theoretical debate. The master and servant aspect and the sacrificial happen in the momentum of the writing. At points the bond is personal and at other impersonal, at times they suffer doubt and others they are resolved, sometimes they are afraid and at others they are unstoppable. You can't really pit one of thease moments against the other and say they are definitive. The relationship of master and servant is dialectical, transforming and shifting as they go. Sometimes it is embodied in one of them, sometimes in the other and often it is somewhere in between them.
Jesus was a human being prone to all the doubts and emotions but the master and servant aspects were always there.
I agree though that Sam's sacrifice is more personal on balance. The servant aspect is really a love of people and a joy in serving them. Devotional though probably describes it better.
Maybe by reading Mount Doom though in one sitting the momentum of the master and servant aspects is clearer, it can't really be reduced to one of its parts, one incident or one expression of some contrary doubt.

[Menelvagor]

Coolismo, as I was pondering your posts I happened to pick up our newspaper, and there on the front page 'Lord of the Rings Praised by Religious Groups.'

For example, some fans see Frodo as a Christlike figure who reluctantly carries the ring-a metaphoric cross- in order to save mankind.

Is that kind of what you mean, except with Frodo and Sam making up the two aspects of Christ?

[coolismo]

Actually I'm against the idea that LOTR is an allegory. I do think there are christian elements in the text though. Sure the story is a journey and the bible is full of journeys (espLuke) but I dont think the ring is original sin or that Men have fallen since Numenor which is supposed to be Eden etc. I think LOTR is a rich text and really expands some basic christian themes in its own way. Take one:
The wound. Frodo endures 4 wounds like christ. One: the Morgul blade two: Hill troll in Moria three Shelob's sting (ouch that MUST have hurt) and his finger.

Th morgul blade wounding is the one that Tolkien himself regarded as most important. The shard works its way to his hard and thretens to consume him. But the wound also confers vision and foresight. After it Frodo can take the burden of being the ringbearer, he can see further than any in the fellowship knowing that he must break the fellowship to succeed. In overcoming the wound like a virus being tamed by an immune system Frodo becomes infinitely more visionary and capable. Christianity is full of stuff about wounds and their power but I dont see anything as brilliant as JRR's. It's not a literal allegory though but a magical evocation of the power of the wound, the role of evil and the power of the individual to embody many many aspects of divinity at once.

[KGamgee]

You guys are all pretty deep for me. Lol. I don't think that Sam had to carry much of a burden after Frodo left. I mean sure, he missed him like heck, but think of all they went through together. It hurt for a while, but like Frodo said, Sam was "meant to be whole." He had horrors in his past, but I think he lived, under the circumstances, a rather normal life. He didn't carry the Ring for long, and he did wind up going over the Sea too, the last of the Ringbearers.
I always cry at the end.....
~KGamgee~

[ragamuffin92]

As most of us here know, you are 100% correct about the fact that LOTR was not written as an allegory. The author stated that himself many times.

However, if Professor T had read your statement--"Christianity is full of stuff about wounds and their power but I dont see anything as brilliant as JRR's"--(and knowing his faith in Jesus' act of paying man's sin debt--"By His stripes, we are healed"), I'm positive he would have responded that anything that he or any mortal has ever created is absolutely infantile and negligible in comparison with God's work. As you noted, LOTR has a number of partial symbolic representations of laying down of one's life for the good of all (Samwise giving his all to serve his master, Frodo taking up a burden he did not want at great personal sacrifice, Gandalf laying aside personal comfort, ambition, and advancement to obey the will of Eru and the Valar), but these are all small potatoes compared to God's work on the Cross.

I am not as deep philosophically you are, or as gifted an analyst, but I do know some things. :) It would be extremely worth your while to study what the Bible says about the Atonement, and Jesus' role as Servant. After all, it was good enough for JRR Tolkien, and as you said, the man was brilliant!!