Good Got Lucky
April 24th, 2009 - 12:40 am
Am I the only person on the planet who feels that at the end of Return of the King (both book and movie versions) that in the end, the heroes actually failed? They did their best, and got really lucky, but in the end Frodo fails to relinquish the ring and refuses to destroy it. The ring won. It was only greed and happenstance that really brought The One Ring to its ultimate doom. I’m fairly sure I felt that way after reading the books in college, and I know I felt that way after seeing the movies.
I thought the ending was sad, and less than heroic. The two hobbits went all that way and suffered so much, all to do one thing, and … they failed to do that thing. Didn’t even want to do that one thing anymore. Good didn’t win over evil. Greed did. Good got lucky.
I’m sure you know I could go on, but I believe instead of releasing my inner Tolkien Geek (or is it LOTR Nerd — or Geek — I get confused), I will take my beer into the living room and away from the computer and spare us all what I am sure would be an extended, long-winded, and eloquent piece of persuasive writing, educating everyone on the fact that Return of the King –and the Lord of the Rings trilogy on the whole– was a tragedy, and the hero failed at his quest. Failed. Frodo completely and totally failed to do the very thing he set out to do. FAILED!
And no, I do not have much sympathy. Frodo FAILED, FAILED, FAILED!
Now, what did I say about taking my beer to the living room? Perhaps that would be wise. 
Frodo failed. FAILED! Do you hear me? Good did NOT win over evil!
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5 Responses to “Good Got Lucky”
There were other ways out, but JRRT wanted to justify having Gollum along.
Frodo was always going to fail, that’s why Sam was there. If Gollum hadn’t done what he did then it would have fallen to Sam to go through a lot of angsting before stabbing the invisible Frodo through the chest and rolling his corpse into the cracks of doom. Which would probably have been more awesome but less popular.
My version of the stories would have been much shorter. Elrond would have done what he should have done when he had the chance, and the ring would have been destroyed then and there and never left that cave again.
And it follows that all the hassle the heroes have to go through is entirely Elrond’s fault. He also totally failed to do the right thing and kill Isildur when he saw he had no intention of giving up the ring. Should have killed him on the spot and tossed that ring right into Mount Doom (and everyone would have lived happily ever after), but noooo .. Elrond didn’t do that!
But then it wouldn’t be much of a story if it had gone the way I wanted it to, now would it?
Elrond was probably afraid of being corrupted by the One Ring…that’s why he didn’t even want to touch it. None of the elves wanted to touch it, really–to me, it sounds like they were super vulnerable to the power of the one ring. And Galadriel had a tough time resisting it even without touching it. That’s my two cents anyhow.
(I am such a geek….)
As for the ring being destroyed by greed and happenstance, maybe JRRT was making a point on how good really doesn’t need to destroy evil: it will destroy itself just fine.
Me? I would just have had one of those eagles fly me over Mt. Doom…and voila! No more ring.
Lora-Lee, how are you….I was wondering about you the other day….So, I googled you and bingo…
My email is pfbcon@yahoo.com
Tip and Nola were my in-laws. Stanford was my husband. I have lost track of some of the cousins. Fred and Molly had 3 children, Ray and Ethel, Bub and Dorthy had 4, Dewey and Rachel had 2, and Stan and I had 2
If you are interested..
I enjoyed reading your orb and getting to know a little about Ray and Ethel’s grand child. I’m sure they would be proud of you..