But also happy Froday so we will have my fave letter 246 featuring our fave hobbit. :)

"Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. HIs humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed."

This is from a footnote of my favorite letter 246

"No account is here taken of 'grace' or the enhancement of our powers as instruments of Providence. Frodo was given 'grace' : first to answer the call (at the end of the Council) after long resisting a complete surrender; and later in his resistance to the temptation of the Ring (at times when to claim and so reveal it would have been fatal), and in his endurance of fear and suffering. But grace is not infinite, and for the most part seems in the Divine economy limited to what is sufficient for the accomplishment of the task appointed to one instrument in a pattern of circumstances and other instruments."

Sorry that it is belated but i was thinking about TOlkien Reading Day/Gondorian New Year the whole day on Froday!

Here's my entry from his Letters:

My fave letter!

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I need a nice image to calm me down first...



Pretty..i have an icon of that too. ♥

ok...
Quotage from my fave letter:
"He appears at first to have had no sense of guilt; he was restored to sanity and peace. But then he thought that he had given his life in sacrifice: he expected to die very soon. But he did not, and one can observe the disquiet growing in him. Arwen was the first to observe the signs, and gave him her jewel for comfort, and thought of a way of healing him. Slowly he fades 'out of the picture', saying and doing less and less. I think it is clear on reflection to an attentive reader that when his dark times came upon him and he was conscious of being 'wounded by knife sting and tooth and a long burden' it was not only nightmare memories of past horrors that afflicted him, but also unreasoning self-reproach: he saw himself and all that he done as a broken failure. 'Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same, for I shall not be the same.' That was actually a temptation out of the Dark, a last flicker of pride: desire to have returned as a 'hero', not content with being a mere instrument of good. And it was mixed with another temptation, blacker and yet (in a sense) more merited, for however that may be explained, he had not in fact cast away the Ring by a voluntary act: he was tempted to regret its destruction, and still to desire it."
~Letter 246

Ok..not the perkiest quote but such inspiration for fanfic......... :P We'll have angst and have much, much, much comfort.... ;)

The actual letter to the real Sam Gamgee: ;)
"Dear Mr. Gamgee,
It was very kind of you to write. You can imagine my astonishment, when I saw your signature! I can only say, for your comfort I hope, that the ‘Sam Gamgee’ in my story is a most heroic character, now widely beloved by many readers, even though his origins are rustic. So that perhaps you will not be displeased by the coincidence of the name of this imaginary character (of supposedly many centuries ago) being the same as yours. The reason of my use of the name is this. I lived near Birmingham as a child, and we used ‘gamgee’ as a word for ‘cottonwool’; so in my story the families of Cotton and Gamgee are connected. I didn’t know as a child, though I know now, that ‘Gamgee’ was shortned from ‘gamgee-tissue’, and that named after its inventor (a surgeon I think) who lived between 1828 and 1886.

…
I can only say that I shall be happy and proud to send you a signed copy of all 3 vols. As a tribute from the author to the distinguished family of Gamgee.”

Yours sincerely,
JRR Tolkien
~From Letter 184 to the real Sam Gamgee who was a doctor =)

~~~~~~~
"The situation as between Frodo with the Ring and the Eight might be compared to that of a small brave man armed with a devastating weapon, faced by eight savage warriors of great strength and agility armed with poisoned blades. The man’s weakness was that he did not know how to use his weapon yet; and he was by temperament and training averse to violence. Their weakness that the man’s weapon was a thing that filled them with fear as an object of terror in their religious cult, by which they had been conditioned to tgreat one who wielded it with servility. I think they would have shown ‘servility’. They would have greeted Frodo as ‘Lord’. With fair speeches they would have induced him to leave the Sammath Naur—for instance ‘ to look upon his new kingdom, and behold afar with his new sight the abode of power that he must now claim and turn to his own purposes’. Once outside the chamber while he was gazing some of them would have destroyed the entrance. Frodo would by then probably have been already too enmeshed in great plans of reformed rule—like but far greater and wider than the vision that tempted Sam --- to heed this. But if he still preserved some sanity and partly understood the significance of it, so that he refused now to go with them to Barad-dur, they would simply have waited. Until Sauron himself came. In any case a confrontation of Frodo and Sauron would soon have taken place, if the Ring was intact. Its result was inevitable. …”
~my fave letter… (someone guess which one that is?) written to Ms. Eileen Elgar, 1963

---
/Random/
I'm immensely enjoying a reread of The Silmarillion right now (don't ask me how i manage the time...I think the anticipation fro CoH is getting to me ...11 days! ;) :P
Fingolfin and Feanor just takes my heart right now...and the tragedies...gosh...
(and now i can flip back to the indices/genealogy/maps because i placed tabs on those pages so i can refer to them when i need to...so Sil is as annotated as my Letters. ;)
I like this quote from Feanor which is showcased as the last quote in my quote box on the left of my journal. :) *points left*
I'm on the cusp of reading "Of Beren and Luthien" (tomorrow maybe)-- things are looking bleaker than ever fro the Noldor...
I wish there was a discussion group for Sil somewhere...
(i have so many q's and discussion ideas! ;)

---
Ok...enough babbling...
good night dear mellyn~

“I do not think that Frodo was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum—impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honor; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.

We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul0body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man’s effort or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached. Nonetheless, I think it can be observed in history and experience that some individuals seem to be placed in ‘sacrificial’ positions: situations or tasks that for perfection of solution demand powers beyond their utmost limits, even beyond all possible limits for an incarnate creatures in a physical world—in which a body may be destroyed, or so maimed that it affects the mind and will. Judgment upon any such case should then depend on the motives and disposition with which he started out, and should weigh his actions against the utmost possibility of his powers, all along the road to whatever proved the breaking-point.”
~Letter 246 to Mrs. Eileen Elgar, Sept. 1963

…
“Well here comes Christmas! That astonishing thing that no ‘commercialism’ can in fact defile—unless you let it. I hope, my dearest , that it will bring you some rest and refreshment in every way, and I shall remember you in communion (as always but specially) and wish that I had all my family beside me in the ancient patriarchal way!”
~From Letter 243 to his son MIchael Tolkien, Dec. 1962

...
I can quote the whole Letter 246 eventually because it just has so much info to share. (And so much Tolkien Frodo Love too. ;)
And that bit to his son is so fitting for the season, right? ;)


...
Last Tolkien Day till '07 since i'll be away for a week-- hope you won't miss it/me so much. ;)

::hugsf-list::

"'Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured', said Gandalf--not in Middle-earth. Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to heal him--if that could be done, before he died. He would have eventually to 'pass away' : no mortal could, or can, abide for ever on earth, or within Time. So he went both to a purgatory and to a reward, for a while: a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and in greatness, spent still in Time amid the natural beauty of 'Arda Unmarred', the Earth unspoiled by evil.

Bilbo went too. No doubt as a completion of the plan due to Gandalf himself. Gandalf had a great affection for Bilbo, from the hobbit's childhood onwards. His companionship was really necessary for Frodo's sake--it is difficult to imagine a hobbit, even one who had been through Frodo's experiences, being really happy even in an earthly paradise without a companion of his own kind, and Bilbo was the person that Frodo most loved. But he also needed and deserved the favour on his own account. He bore still the mark of the Ring that needed to be finally erased: a trace of pride and personal possessiveness. Of course he was old and confused in mind, but it was still a revelation of the 'black mark' when he said in Rivendell 'What's become of my ring, Frodo that you took away?'; and when he was reminded of what had happened, his immediate reply was: 'What a pity! I should have liked to see it again'. As for reward for his part, it is difficult to feel that his life would be complete without an experience of 'pure Elvishness', and the opportunity of hearing the legends and histories in full the fragments of which had so delighted him."
~Letter 246, my favorite letter ♥

Intriguing tidbit--246 contains a lot of explanations of why Frodo had to pass to the West and also the significance of how he was changed and such... It's good to know why Bilbo went too; i like the fact that Tolkien mentioned that it was because he was so interested in elves and that he could learn more about them. :)
This letter also reminds me of the Frodo healing stories that shirebound and i_o_r_h_a_e_l are currently working on. :)

--

sidenote: hey it's Oct. 6th---anyone have some Frodo angst stories in honor for today? ;)

I might post something... i wrote a while ago. ;)

Your weekly Tolkien Day Quote:

"Sam is meant to be lovable and laughable. Some readers he irritates and even infuriates. I can well understand it. All hobbits at times affect me in the same way, though I remain very fond of them. But Sam can be very 'trying'. He is a more representative hobbit than any others that we have to see much of; and he has consequently a stronger ingredient of that quality which even some hobbits found at times hard to bear: a vulgarity --by which I do not mean a mere 'down-to-earthiness' --a mental myopia which is proud of itself, a smugness (in varying degrees) and cocksureness, and a readiness to measure and sum all things from a limited experience, largely enshrined in sententious traditional 'wisdom'. We only meet exceptional hobbits in close companionship--those who had a grace or gift: a vision of beauty, and a reverence for things nobler than themselves, at war with their rustic self-satisfaction. Imagine Sam without his education by Bilbo and his fascination with things Elvish! Not difficult. The Cotton family and the Gaffer, when the 'Travellers' return are a sufficient glimpse.

Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any way admirable--except in his service and loyalty to his master. ..."
~Brought to you by the infamous Letter 246 ;) =)

I've been thinking of posting this for a while but sometimes i feel that Tolkien is a bit harsh on Sam--cocksure and conceited? i guess in some ways but always to me, those adjectives sound a bit harsh... And it always sounds a bit negative in the beginning but then again, this is Tolkien's point of view of the character which he let narrate in Book 4 and Book 6.... (and not to mention thinking he's the "chief hero" in some other letter...) But i have to keep in mind that all characters have flaws right? Even favorite ones. ;)

Sam is Love either way to me and his bravery and loyalty are the qualities that i love best about him. ♥ ♥

"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'.
~Letter 192 to Amy Ronald, July 1956

Frodo is Love.

"I think that an effect of his partial regeneration by love would have been a clearer vision when he claimed the Ring. He would have perceived the evil of Sauron, and suddenly realized that he could not use the Ring and had not the strength or stature to keep it in Sauron's despite: the only way to keep it and hurt Sauron was to destroy it and himself together--and in a flash he may have seen that this woould be also be the greatest service to Frodo. Frodo in the tale actually takes the Ring and claims it, and certainly he too would have had a clear vision--but he was not given any time: he was immediately attacked by Gollum. When Sauron was aware of the seizure of the RIng his one hope was in its power: that the claimant would be unable to relinquish it until Sauron had time to deal with him. Frodo too, would then probably, if not attacked, have had to take the same way: cast himself with the Ring into the abyss. If not he would of course have completely failed. It is an intersting problem: how Sauron would have acted or the claimant have resisted. Sauron sent at once the Ringwraiths. They were naturally fully instructed, and in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring. The wearer would not be invisible to them, but the reverse; and the more vulnerable to their weapons. But the situation was now different to that under Weathertop, where Frodo acted merely in fear and wished only to use (in vain) the Ring's subsidieary power of conferring invisibility. He had grown since then. Would they have been immune from its power if he claimed it as an instrument of command and domination?
~My favorite letter, Letter 246, Sept. 1963 =)

omg, the angst and how dead i would be if Frodo *had* jumped too. :*(
(i think there is an AU-ish story of darker times at Mt. Doom right? ... please direct me if there is... but then i would be like ultra dead from reading that.... ;)

But no, FRODO LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;)

From Letter 246 ♥ : 0=)

"We only meet exceptional hobbits in close companionship--those who had a grace or gift: a vision of beauty, and a reverence for things nobler than themselves, at war with their rustic self-satisfaction."
Just that sentence...
Hobbits! So Love. Respect. Cherish. Worship. Admire. OMG. Love Some More.
♥ ♥ ♥♥ ♥
:D

From Letter #131 (a little tidbit from a loooong one to Milton Waldman in 1951):
"I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and sheer beauty."

What i found most interesting is Tolkien's mentioning of Sam/Rosie love being so important to the development of the "chief" hero... now "chief" can be debated, couldn't it? :P

Hee..that reminds me of that panel i went to in ELF last year debating "who is the hero". So many panelists said ARagorn or Gandalf or Sam to be the hero...

and of course the audience erupted with claims of Frodo (wow lots of people fro Frodo :P), Sam, and there was even an eloquent defense of Pippin too. :)

But then again, "hero" is such an absolute term. I would say this topic can be debated ten times over and still there will not be consensus. :P
Because there are so many right answers. :)

Quote from my favorite letter:

"Frodo had become a considerable person, but of a special kind: in spiritual enlargement rather than in increase of physical or mental power; his will was much stronger than it had been, but so far it had been exercised in resisting not using the Ring and with the object of destroying it. He needed time, much time, before he could control the Ring or (which in such a case is the same) before it could control him; before his will and arrogrance could grow to a stature in which eh could dominate other major hostile wills. Even so for a long time his acts and commands would stil have to seem 'good' to him, to be for the benefit of others besides himself." ~Letter 246, Sept. 1963 From a Letter to Mrs. Eileen Elgar

Enlightening... but always good to hear it from the Professor himself. ;)

Happy Froday! ♥

oh yeah, i made this icon from the icon maker thing... i think it came out quite nice. ;) :D