Frodo – The Sleepiest Ringbearer In Middle-earth

Frodo Baggins: brave hobbit, reluctant hero, and possibly the most exhausted character in literary history. Follow his epic (and very tiring) journey from the Shire to Mount Doom, where he carries the One Ring and a whole lot of stress. A perfect bedtime tale—just don’t let Gollum steal your pillow.

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,

Where I bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host Benjamin Boster,

And today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled Frodo Baggins.

Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J.

R.

R.

Tolkien's writings,

And one of the protagonists in The Lord of the Rings.

Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire,

Who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins,

Described familiarly as Uncle,

And undertakes the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom and Mordor.

He is mentioned in Tolkien's posthumously published works The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

His first appearance is in The Fellowship of the Ring,

1954.

His last appearance is Bilbo's Last Song,

1974.

An alias is Mr.

Underhill.

His race is Hobbit.

He's male.

His affiliation is Company of the Ring.

He's family with Bilbo Baggins,

And his home is the Shire.

Frodo is repeatedly wounded during the quest and becomes increasingly burdened by the Ring as it nears Mordor.

He changes too,

Growing in understanding and compassion,

And avoiding violence.

On his return to the Shire,

He is unable to settle back into ordinary life.

Two years after the Ring's destruction,

He is allowed to take Shib to the earthly paradise of Valinor.

Frodo's name comes from the Old English name Froda,

Meaning wise by experience.

Commentators have written that he combines courage,

Selflessness,

And fidelity,

And that as a good character,

He seems unexciting but grows through his quest,

An unheroic person who reaches heroic stature.

Frodo is introduced in The Lord of the Rings as Bilbo Baggins' cousin and adoptive heir.

Frodo's parents,

Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck,

Had been killed in a accident when Frodo was twelve.

Frodo spends the next nine years living with his maternal family,

The Brandybucks,

In Brandy Hall.

At the age of twenty-one,

He is adopted by Bilbo,

Who brings him to live at his home,

Bag End,

In the Shire.

He and Bilbo share the same birthday,

The twenty-second of September.

Bilbo introduces Frodo to the Elvish languages,

And they often go on long walking trips together.

Frodo comes of age as Bilbo leaves the Shire.

Frodo inherits Bag End and Bilbo's ring.

Gandalf,

Uncertain about the origin of the ring,

Warns Frodo to avoid using it and keep it secret.

Frodo keeps it hidden for the next seventeen years,

And it gives him the same longevity at a given Bilbo.

Gandalf returns to tell him that it is the One Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron,

Who is seeking to recover and use it to conquer Middle-earth.

Realizing that he's a danger to the Shire as long as he remains there,

Frodo decides to take the ring to Rivendell,

Home of Elrond,

A mighty elf lord.

He leaves with three companions,

His gardener Samwise Gamgee and his cousins Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took.

They're just in time,

For Sauron's most powerful servants,

The Nine Nazgul,

Have entered the Shire as black riders looking for the ring.

They follow Frodo's trail,

Nearly intercepting him.

The hobbits escape into the Old Forest.

They are waylaid by the magic of Old Man Willow,

But rescued by Tom Bombadil,

Who gives them shelter and guidance.

They are caught in fog on the Barrow Downs by a Barrow-Wight and put under a spell.

Frodo breaks free,

Attacks the Barrow-Wight,

And summons Bombadil,

Who again rescues the hobbits and sets them on their way.

At the Prancing Pony Inn,

Frodo receives a delayed letter from Gandalf and meets a man calling himself Strider,

A ranger.

His real name is Aragorn.

The One Ring slips onto Frodo's finger in the inn's common room,

Turning him invisible.

This subtracts the Nazgul who ransacked the hobbits' empty rooms in the night.

Strider leads the group through the marshes.

While encamped on Weathertop,

They are attacked by five Nazgul.

The leader,

The Witch-King of Angmar,

Stabs Frodo with a Morgul blade,

The wound threatening to turn him into a race under the Nazgul's control.

Reaching Rivendell,

He is healed by Elrond.

The Council of Elrond resolves to destroy the Ring by casting it into Mount Doom and Mordor,

Sauron's realm.

Frodo,

Realizing that he is destined for this task,

Steps forward to be the Ring-Bearer.

A fellowship of nine companions is formed to assist him.

The Hobbits,

Gandalf,

Aragorn,

The dwarf Gimli,

The elf Legolas,

And Boromir,

A man of Gondor.

Bilbo,

Living in Rivendell,

Gives Frodo his sword,

Sting,

And a coat of dwarf mail made of mithril.

The company,

Unable to cross the Misty Mountains by a pass,

Enters the Mines of Moria.

Frodo is stabbed by an orc with a spear,

But his mithril mail shirt saves his life.

Gandalf was killed battling a balrog.

Aragorn leads them out to Lothlorien.

There,

Galadriel gives Frodo an elven cloak and a phial,

Which carries the Light of Earendil,

To aid him on his quest.

The Fellowship travels by boat down the Anduin River and reaches the Lawn of Parsgallon,

Just above the impassable Falls of Rauros.

There,

Boromir,

Succumbing to the lure of the Ring,

Tries to take it by force.

Frodo escapes by putting it on.

This breaks the Fellowship.

The company is scattered by invading orcs.

Frodo chooses to continue the quest alone,

But Sam follows him.

Frodo and Sam make their way through the wilds,

Followed by the monster Gollum,

Who has been tracking them,

Seeking to reclaim the Ring,

Which he had lost to Bilbo.

Gollum attacks the hobbits,

But Frodo subdues him with Sting.

He takes pity on Gollum and spares his life,

Making him promise to guide them through the dead marshes to the Black Gate.

They find the gate impassable.

Gollum tells them of another way into Mordor,

And Frodo,

Over Sam's objections,

Lets him lead them south into Ithilien.

There they meet Faramir,

Younger brother of Boromir,

Who takes them to a hidden cave.

Frodo allows Gollum to be captured by Faramir,

Saving Gollum's life,

But leaving him feeling betrayed.

Faramir provisions the hobbits and sends them on their way,

Warning Frodo to beware of Gollum's treachery.

They pass Minas Morgul,

Where the pull of the Ring becomes overwhelming,

And climb the endless stair to cross into Mordor.

At the top they enter a tunnel,

Not knowing it is the home of the giant spider Shelob.

Gollum hopes to deliver the hobbits to her and retake the Ring after she had killed them.

Shelob stings Frodo,

Rendering him unconscious,

But Sam drives her off with Sting and the file of Galadriel.

Believing that Frodo is dead,

Sam takes the Ring and continues the quest.

Soon,

However,

He overhears orcs taking Frodo for questioning,

Saying that he is still alive.

Sam rescues Frodo and returns the Ring.

Dressed in scavenged orc armor,

They set it off,

Trailed by Gollum.

At Mount Doom,

Frodo enters the chasm where Sauron had forged the Ring.

Here,

Frodo loses the will to destroy the Ring and puts it on,

Claiming it for himself.

Gollum attacks the invisible Frodo,

Biting off his finger and reclaiming the Ring.

As he dances in elation,

Gollum falls with the Ring into the fiery cracks of Doom.

The Ring is destroyed,

And with it Sauron's power.

Frodo and Sam are rescued by great eagles as Mount Doom erupts,

Destroying Mordor.

After Aragorn's coronation,

The four hobbits return home.

They find that the fallen wizard Sauron and his agents have taken over the Shire and started to industrialize it.

Frodo and his companions lead a rebellion and defeat the intruders.

Even after Sauron attempts to stab Frodo,

Frodo lets him go,

Only for Sauron to be killed by his henchman,

Grimoire Wormtongue.

The hobbits restore the Shire to its prior state of peace and goodwill.

While successful in his quest,

Frodo never recovers from the physical and emotional wounds he suffered on the quest.

After two years,

Frodo and Bilbo,

As Ringbearers,

Are granted passage to Valinor.

OTHER WORKS The Sea Bell was published in Tolkien's 1962 collection A Verse,

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil with the subtitle Frodo's Dream.

Tolkien suggests that this enigmatic narrative poem represents the despairing dreams that visited Frodo in the Shire in the years following the destruction of the Ring.

It relates the unnamed speaker's journey to a mysterious land across the sea,

Where he tries but fails to make contact with the people who dwell there.

He descends into despair and near madness,

Eventually returning to his own country,

To find himself utterly alienated from those he once knew.

Frodo's a halfling,

As mentioned briefly at the end of the Cimmerillion,

As,

Alone with his servant,

He passed through peril and darkness,

And cast the Great Ring of Power into the fire.

In the poem Bilbo's Last Song,

Frodo is at the Grey Havens at the farthest west of Middle-earth,

About to leave the mortal world on an elven ship to Valinor.

The Hunt for the Ring,

In Unfinished Tales,

Describes how the Black Riders traveled to Isengard and the Shire in search of the One Ring,

Purportedly according to the account that Gandalf gave to Frodo.

It is one of several mentions of Frodo in the book.

The Tolkien scholar Jason Fisher notes that Tolkien stated that hobbits were extremely clannish,

And had a strong predilection for genealogy.

According to Tolkien's decision to include Frodo's family tree in Lord of the Rings,

Gives the book,

In Fisher's view,

A strongly hobbitish perspective.

The tree also,

He notes,

Serves to show Frodo's and Bilbo's connections and familial characteristics.

Frodo did not appear until the third draft of A Long Expected Party,

The first chapter of The Lord of the Rings,

When he was named Bingo son of Bilbo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck.

In the fourth draft he was renamed Bingo Bulger Baggins,

Son of Rolo Bulger and Primula Brandybuck.

Tolkien did not change the name to Frodo until the third phase of writing,

When much of the narrative,

As far as the hobbits' arrival in Rivendell,

Had already taken shape.

Prior to this,

The name Frodo had been used for the character who eventually became Pippin Took.

In drafts of the final chapters,

Published as Sauron Defeated,

Gandalf names Frodo Brownwy Athan Horthod,

Endurance Beyond Hope,

After the destruction of the ring.

Tolkien states that Frodo's name in Westruun was Mora Lumbinji.

Frodo is the only prominent hobbit whose name is not explained in Tolkien's appendices to The Lord of the Rings.

In a letter,

Tolkien states that it is the Old English name,

Froda,

Connected to Frod,

Wise by experience.

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey suggests that the choice of name is significant,

Not,

In Tolkien's phrase,

One of the many names that had no meaning at all in the hobbit's daily language.

Instead,

He notes the Old Norse name Fróði is mentioned in Beowulf as the minor character Fróða.

Fróði was,

He writes,

Said by Saxo Grammaticus and Snorri Sturluson to be a peaceful ruler at the time of Christ,

His time being named the Fróðafrið,

The Peace of Fróði.

This was created by his magic mill,

Worked by two female giants that could churn out peace and gold.

He makes the giants work all day,

Long at this task,

Until they rebel and grind out an army instead,

Which kills him and takes over,

Making the giants grind salt until the sea is full of it.

The name Fróði is forgotten.

Clearly,

Shippey observes,

Evil is impossible to cure.

And Frodo,

Too,

Is a peacemaker,

Indeed,

In the end,

A pacifist.

And he writes,

As Frodo gains experience through the quest,

He also gains wisdom,

Matching the meaning of his name.

Michael Stanton,

Writing in the J.

R.

R.

Tolkien Encyclopedia,

Describes Frodo's character as combining courage,

Selflessness,

And fidelity,

Attributes that make Frodo ideal as a ring-bearer.

He lacks Sam's simple sturdiness,

Merian Bippin's clowning,

And the psychopathology of Gollum,

Writes Stanton,

Bearing out the saying that good is less exciting than evil.

But Frodo grows through his quest,

Becoming ennobled by it,

To the extent that returning to the Shire feels,

In Frodo's words,

Like falling asleep again.

Tolkien was a devout Catholic and wrote in his private letters that his Middle-earth stories were Christian.

Scholars,

Including Peter Creeft,

Paul E.

Carey,

And Joseph Peirce,

State that there is no one complete,

Concrete,

Visible Christ-figure in the Lord of the Rings.

But Frodo serves as the priestly aspect of Christ,

Alongside Gandalf as prophet,

And Aragorn as king,

Together making up the three-fold office of the Messiah.

The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance quotes Randall Helm's view that in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,

A most unheroic hobbit,

Bilbo,

Frodo,

Achieves heroic stature in a quest romance.

Chance writes that Frodo grows from seeing the Thread as external,

Such as from the Black Riders,

To internal,

Whether within the Fellowship,

As shown by Boromir's attempt on the Ring,

Or within himself,

As he struggles against the controlling power of the Ring.

Verlin Flieger,

A scholar of literature and of Tolkien's works,

Summarizes Frodo's role in Lord of the Rings.

The greatest hero of all,

Frodo Baggins,

Is also the most tragic.

He comes to the end of his story bereft of the Ring,

Denied in his home shire the recognition he deserves,

And unable to continue his life as it was before his terrible adventure.

Both medical and Tolkien scholars have suggested that Frodo,

Returning irreparably wounded from his quest,

Could be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,

Making him one of several characters in The Lord of the Rings with mental illnesses.

The Tolkien critic Paul H.

Kocher discusses the role of Providence in the form of intentions of the angel-like Valar,

Or of the creature Eru Iluvatar,

In Bilbo's finding of the Ring and Frodo's bearing of it.

As Gandalf says,

Frodo was meant to have it,

Though it remains his choice to cooperate with this purpose.

Frodo is at the center of a complex web of feudal-style allegiances and betrayals involving Sam,

Gollum,

And Faramir.

Sam serves him faithfully,

But accidentally betrays him to Faramir with the smoke from his cooking fire,

And then by mentioning the Ring.

Frodo offers his service to Faramir,

Who reciprocally grants him protection in the manner of a feudal lord to a vassal.

Gollum swears to Frodo not to run off,

And for a time guides him faithfully.

Frodo is obliged by Faramir to lure Gollum into captivity,

Which Gollum sees as a betrayal.

Gollum then swears to Faramir never to revisit the forbidden pool outside Faramir's secret stronghold.

Frodo thus appears both as a feudal master to Sam and Gollum,

And as a feudal vassal to Faramir.

Frodo appears in adaptations of The Lord of the Rings for radio,

Cinema,

And stage.

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version,

Frodo was voiced by Christopher Gard.

In the 1980 Rankin-Bass animated version of The Return of the King made for television,

The character was voiced by Orson Bean,

Who had previously played Bilbo in the same company's adaptation of The Hobbit.

In the massive 1981 BBC radio serial of The Lord of the Rings,

Frodo is played by Ian Holm,

Who later played Bilbo in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

In Leningrad Television's two-part 1991 teleplay,

Granatelli,

Keepers of the Ring,

Frodo is played by Valery Dyachenko,

While in the Finnish broadcaster Illy's 1993 television miniseries,

Hobbit,

The role is played by Tanneli Makkala.

In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy,

2001-2003,

Frodo is played by the American actor Elijah Wood.

Dan Timmons writes in Janet Brennan-Croft's 2004 Tolkien on film that the themes and internal logic of the Jackson films are undermined by the portrayal of Frodo,

Which he considers a weakening of Tolkien's original.

The film critic Roger Ebert writes that he missed the depths of characterization he felt in the book,

Frodo doing little but watching other characters decide his fate,

And occasionally gazing significantly upon the ring.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stones,

However,

Wrote that Wood played the role with soulful conviction,

And that his portrayal matured as the story progressed.

Wood reprised the role in a brief appearance in The Hobbit,

An Unexpected Journey.

On stage,

Frodo was portrayed by James Loy in the three-hour stage production of The Lord of the Rings,

Which opened in Toronto in 2006,

And was brought to London in 2007.

Frodo was portrayed by Joseph Franco in the Cincinnati productions of The Fellowship of the Ring,

2001,

The Two Towers,

2002,

And The Return of the King,

2003,

For clear-stage Cincinnati.

Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J.

R.

R.

Tolkien.

About half-average human height,

Tolkien presented Hobbits as a variety of humanity,

Or close relatives thereof.

Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings,

They live barefooted,

And traditionally dwell in homely underground houses which have windows,

Built into the side of hills,

Though others live in houses.

Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles,

So they do not need shoes,

And are covered on top with curly hair.

Hobbits' first appearance in the 1937 children's novel The Hobbit,

Whose titular Hobbit is the protagonist Bilbo Baggins,

Who is thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a dragon.

In its sequel,

The Lord of the Rings,

The Hobbits,

Frodo Baggins,

Sam Gamgee,

Pippin Took,

And Mary Brandybuck,

Are primary characters who all play key roles in fighting to save their world,

Middle-earth,

From evil.

In The Hobbit,

Hobbits live together in a small town called Hobbiton,

Which in The Lord of the Rings is identified as being part of a larger rural region called the Shire,

The homeland of the Hobbits in the northwest of Middle-earth.

Some also live in a region east of the Shire,

Bree-land,

Where they co-exist with men.

The origins of the name and idea of Hobbits have been debated.

Literary antecedents include Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt,

And Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 The Marvelous Land of Snurgs.

The word Hobbit also appears in a list of ghostly beings in the Denim Tracks,

1895,

Though these bear no similarity to Tolkien's Hobbits.

Scholars have noted Tolkien's denial of a relationship with the word rabbit,

Pointing to several lines of evidence to the contrary.

Hobbits are modern,

Unlike the heroic ancient-style culture of Gondor and Rohan,

With familiar things like umbrellas,

Matches,

And clocks.

As such,

They mediate between the modern world known to readers and the heroic ancient world of Middle-earth.

Halflings appear as a race in Dungeons and Dragons,

And the works of other fantasy authors including Terry Brooks,

Jack Vance,

And Clifford D.

Simak.

Tolkien claimed that he started the Hobbit suddenly,

Without premeditation,

In the midst of grading a set of student essay exams in 1930 or 1931,

Writing its famous opening line on a piece of paper,

In the hole in the ground,

There lived a Hobbit.

The term Hobbit,

However,

Has real antecedents in modern English.

One is the fact that Tolkien admitted,

The title of Sinclair Lewis' 1922 novel Babbit,

About a complacent American businessman who goes through a journey of some kind of self-discovery.

Facing near disgrace,

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey observes that there are some parallels here with Bilbo's own journey.

According to a letter from Tolkien to W.

H.

Auden,

One probably unconscious inspiration was Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 children's book,

The Marvelous Land of Snergs.

Tolkien described the Snergs as a race of people only slightly taller than the average table,

But broad in the shoulders,

And who have the strength of ten men.

Another possible origin emerged in 1977 when the Oxford English Dictionary announced that it had found the source that it supposed Tolkien to have used.

James Hardy wrote in his 1895 The Denim Tracks Vol.

2,

The whole earth was overrun with ghosts,

Boggles,

Hobbits,

Hopgoblins.

Shippey writes that the list was of ghostly creatures without bodies,

Nothing like Tolkien's solid flesh and blood hobbits.

Tolkien scholars consider it unlikely that Tolkien saw the list.

An additional connection is with rabbit,

One that Tolkien emphatically rejected,

Although the word appears in The Hobbit in connection with other characters' opinion of Bilbo in several places.

Bilbo compares himself to a rabbit when he is with the eagle that carries him.

The eagle too tells Bilbo not to be frightened like a rabbit.

The giant bear-man Beorn teases Bilbo and jokes that little bunny is nice and fat again,

While the dwarf Thorin shakes Bilbo like a rabbit.

Shippey writes that the rabbit is not a native English species,

But was deliberately introduced in the 13th century and has become accepted as a local wild animal.

Shippey compares this situation of anachorism-cum-familiarity with the lifestyle of the hobbit,

Giving the example of smoking pipeweed.

He argues that Tolkien did not want to write tobacco,

As it did not arrive until the 16th century,

So Tolkien invented a caulk made of English words.

Donald O'Brien,

Writing in Mythlore,

Notes too that Aragorn's description of Frodo's priceless mithril mail-shirt,

Here's a pretty hobbit skin to wrap an elven princeling in,

Is a curious echo of an English nursery rhyme,

To find a pretty rabbit skin to wrap the baby bundling in.

Tolkien has King Théoden of Rohan say the halflings that some among us called the Holbitlan.

Tolkien set out fictional etymology for the word hobbit in an appendix to the Lord of the Rings,

That it was derived from holbitla,

Plural holbitlan,

Meaning hole builder.

This was Tolkien's own new construction from Old English hol,

Or hole or hollow,

And bitlan,

To build.

Reviews

I love Frodo and LOTR, thanks for reading this! 😻
Didn’t make it to the end though….😂

Since your readings put me to sleep so fast I can listen to them a number of times, starting 10 or so minutes in after the first listen. Thank Ben, for being reliably boring and soothing.

Super! I am so grateful for your work. Thank you!!!