Letters 191 and 192

These two letters are also among my favorites since they again address the question of whether Frodo failed in his Quest when he could not destroy the Ring. The first letter says he had done everything he possibly could, but had reached a point that was beyond his power to resist in which it was “quite impossible for him [Frodo] to surrender the Ring, in act or will, especially at its point of maximum power...”

Yet despite this, Frodo was given honor because he had accepted the burden out of humility and done everything within his power to succeed. It was, however, outside his own personal power to destroy the Ring using his own free will. The letter also addresses that part of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which the apostle says God does not bring us a temptation that we can fall to without giving us a way out of it. Though certainly Frodo was given many ways out during earlier temptations, Tolkien doesn’t think that really applies to the Ring-bearer’s case at the Fire. He thinks the part of the Lord’s Prayer that says “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” fits better, pointing to the fact that we can have times in our lives when we are under the direct power of evil: “There exists the possibility of being placed in positions beyond one’s power. In which case...salvation from ruin will depend on...the general sanctity (and humility and
mercy) of the sacrificial person.”

Frodo is broken at last, but Tolkien argues, as in the case of others broken by torture, neither Frodo nor any other should be judged by their brokenness and what they did because of it, but “by the will and intentions with (which?) they entered the Sammath Naur; and not demand impossible feats of will, which could only happen in stories unconcerned with real moral and mental probability.”

This is also when the professor notes, “It is possible that once the ring was destroyed he [Frodo] had little recollection of the last scene. But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however ‘good’; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.”

Both letters speak of Frodo and the Quest being saved by Mercy and “forgiveness of injury.”

The second letter says “Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), ‘that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named’ (as one critic has said).”

Happy New Year everyone! God bless. :)