![]() ![]() ![]() This is an old-hat theme for Tolkien at this point, but it’s given extra weight because of the sheer devastation that surrounds Sam. In this sense, he forms a nice thematic bridge to Denethor and Pippin in Book V. Sam’s victory here is not so much rooted in the fact that he maintained hope against all odds-though he does that for quite a long time-but in the fact that when he loses hope, he doesn’t fall into despair. This is something, in a very traditional fashion, that Sam “achieves:” he “wins” through force of his sheer indomitability. He later will return home, marry his sweetheart, and be MAYOR FOR LIFE. Sam has a classic journey: called into a big world beyond his purview and able to overcome the final challenge to his will to stare death in the face and carry Frodo up the mountain. While you can see “Mount Doom” as the deconstruction of a hero’s journey through Frodo’s arc, there’s also a parallel apotheosis through Sam. I don’t think it’s accidental that it’s one of Tolkien’s more unusual moments in his story, and also one of his most intensely Catholic. ![]() Instead, “Mount Doom” is concerned with suffering and its relationship to empathy, the reach of moral limitations, and what happens when someone is forced to surpass them. Yet the fact that he cannot, and does not, makes The Lord of the Rings a different sort of story than the classical hero’s journey template into which it is often uncomfortably shoved. After all, poor Frodo couldn’t even toss the Ring into the fire at Bag End! It would undercut the weight of much of Return of the King and The Two Towers if Frodo were simply able-even after an internal debate- to toss the Ring away. That Frodo is unable to destroy the Ring when he reaches the Cracks of Doom is both inevitable and devastating. But we’ve certainly reached the end of a line if not the line: the Ring is destroyed, Barad-dûr and the Nazgûl have sputtered out, and The Lord of the Rings has made one of the most unique and interesting narrative choices in its whole run. I am glad that all of you are joining me here today, here at the end of all things (except for the several months and six chapters that we have left to go). ![]()
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