The Pity of Frodo
At Bag End, Frodo is adamantly opposed to Bilbo’s pity for Gollum of which Gandalf tells. Nevertheless, the wizard’s words later sink deep into the hobbit’s heart – for the good of all Middle-earth. Gandalf speaks of the small hope for Gollum’s redemption, which enables Frodo’s own hope and efforts for a “cure” for Sméagol. It is no small wonder that even after nearly five hundred years as Ring-bearer, there was still a little Sméagol left in Gollum. This is why we should not give up trying to help others and praying for the salvation of those held in the chains of the Enemy. We can always return when we have strayed, though the further into our fall, the harder it will be to do so. However, even so, “where there’s life there’s hope” (LotR IV:7, 685) as Sam says, quoting his Gaffer. We will learn in heaven all the good we did. Perhaps someone was saved only through our prayers who would have been lost otherwise, but somehow found the strength to fight their way back to God, out of the darkness into the light.
When Frodo and Sam are in the Emyn Muil and realize they are going in circles, Sam speaks of his certainty that they are lost, but Frodo is confident that there must be a way: “It’s my doom, I think, to go that Shadow yonder, so that a way will be found. But will good or evil show it to me?” (IV:1, 590). They soon discover it is both when they spot Gollum slinking his way down the cliff. More than anyone else, Sméagol walks in the twilight world between darkness and light, as Frodo increasingly does. Peter S. Beagle observes,
At the time Frodo takes him, Gollum is, of course, quite mad. The dark, silent centuries of living with the Ring’s hunger, and the torments of Sauron after that, have burned his mind away to a single, glowing cinder of meaningless desire. He is two creatures now, two voices that hiss and chatter in him night and day: Gollum and Sméagol–one no person at all, no I, but the Ring’s thing; the other somehow still alive, still retaining a few shreds of its own will after all this long time . . . . (“Tolkien’s Magic Ring” xiii)
When Gollum slips off the cliff wall, Sam jumps on him and Frodo has to draw Sting on their spy to save his friend’s life. Sam advocates leaving the wretched creature tied up with the Elven rope to die a slow death, but Frodo refuses to kill him just because they fear the ruined hobbit will do them harm. Gandalf’s words about Bilbo’s pity come back to the Ring-bearer and he realizes his own previous lack of it: “What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!” (LotR I:2, 58). Further, “I am sorry . . . But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum” (LotR I:2, 58). Linda Greenwood notes,
As those remembered words internally ring forth, Frodo lays down his sword. His desire for justice dies and he spares Gollum’s life. What is his motive? It seems to be a pure act of pity. His act is motivated by compassion. He acts with a mercy that demands and expects nothing in return, with the ‘Divine Gift-love’, which [C.S.] Lewis explains, enables a man ‘to love what is naturally unlovable . . . ’ (Four Loves 128). (“Love” 179)
Frodo then speaks aloud to his absent and, as far as he knows, dead wizard friend when he says, “Very well . . . But still I am afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him” (LotR II:1, 601). His view has completely changed, and he wants Gandalf to know it. Gimli says as the Company is ready to leave Rivendell that “sworn word may strengthen quaking heart” (II:3, 274). Frodo now discovers pity can do that also. It is that which gives him strength over his fear and stays his hand, just as it had stayed Bilbo’s. In this act, Frodo shows that he is not only Bilbo’s heir to the Ring but also to his mercy.
Gandalf speaks in Bag End of his intuition that Gollum “has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least” (I:2, 58). Frodo does not want to interfere with this, for he understands that, for whatever reason, his life is now bound up with Sméagol’s, and he trusts that this will help him fulfill his Quest. This meeting and free giving of mercy and compassion will help ensure the success of the Quest as Frodo’s pity builds on that of Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Elves, and will make possible that of Faramir and Sam. Frodo’s fear has not left him, but his heart has softened because he has by now carried for some months the same burden Sméagol has for centuries.
As Helen Keller said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” In the painful presence of the Ring, like a crown of thorns, Frodo gains insight into torment and suffering that he has not had before. This is another instance of evil doing good it does not intend. Safe in the Shire, well-fed, innocent and happy, Frodo doesn’t understand how or why pity should be shown to Gollum. Now in the process of being violated and consumed by the same lust that has long ravaged Sméagol, he understands in the growing dark what was incomprehensible in the sunlight. He sees a kindred spirit where before he vigorously objected to the very idea that Gollum could be of hobbit-kind.
Gollum has also met the same, after so many centuries of loneliness. The little bit that is still Sméagol “loves the specialness that is Frodo’s care of him,” as Roger Sale notes (“Tolkien” 287), and he begins to love Frodo as much as his atrophied, stunted goodness is capable. Although even pale moonlight is a physical pain to the wretched creature, he still sees Frodo’s light and cannot help but turn to it as even a horribly deformed flower responds to the sun. His dawning love for Frodo in return is, Sale continues, “the tentative unbelieving response to a caring so unlikely it seems heroic even to the Gollum” (“Tolkien” 287).
Until Sam has held the Ring himself, he does not understand why his master is so kind to their ruined guide. Fleming Rutledge quite beautifully says: “Sam and Frodo both ‘see’ Gollum, but only Frodo is enabled to see him as God sees him. That sort of sight, as all the Gospels make clear, can be granted only by the grace of God” (Battle 198). Bradley Birzer agrees: “While there are many manifestations of grace in The Lord of the Rings, the most important and the most telling example revolves around the relationship between Gollum and Frodo” (Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth 59). From the first moment they meet, Frodo can see behind and beyond Gollum to the soul of Sméagol that is still there suffering after so many years.
This is another part of the discernment, wisdom and grace that is growing in Frodo. The younger Ring-bearer now wants to save this wretched soul he finds. He loves his enemy as we are instructed to do and wishes and works for Sméagol’s salvation. Adversity has indeed cleared his vision to many things. In some ways only an addict can understand another addict. Frodo is still standing outside the prison Sméagol is in, though his back is to the gate. He can still understand what is happening in his own soul and in Sméagol’s from the viewpoint of light, and from that point, he can still guide his fellow Ring-bearer as best he can. Frodo is doing what we all should: looking after another’s soul, being his “brother’s guardian” (Gen. 4:10). Tolkien observes, “He [Gollum] remained a human being, not an animal or a mere bogey, even if deformed in mind and body: an object of disgust, but also of pity - to the deep-sighted, such as Frodo had become” (qtd. in Hammond and Scull 447). Very similar words could be used to describe the Ring-bearer’s pity of Saruman.
This care of Sméagol’s soul begins immediately as Frodo dedicates himself to the search of a ‘cure’ for the tormented creature, just as Sam undermines it. The first thing Frodo does is release Gollum from the Elven rope that is truly causing him physical pain, but also spiritual agony as evil cannot tolerate being in contact with and bound by goodness.
Another thing Frodo does is that he is careful to call Gollum by his given name of Sméagol. Names are given by God and so, though neither of them know Him, Frodo is connecting the wretched hobbit once more to his Creator. To Sam’s surprise, Frodo tells the tricksy creature of their intent to enter Mordor and asks for aid in doing so. An interesting little bit of dialogue takes place toward the end of that: “Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious, and he’s lost now.” “Perhaps, we’ll find him again, if you come with us,” Frodo says (LotR IV:1, 602). Indeed this is true, for through Frodo’s care, Sméagol does begin to re-emerge from Gollum. As Ralph C. Wood says, “Frodo calls forth Gollum’s best traits by refusing to focus on his worst ones. Tolkien thus echoes what, in his Confessions, St. Augustine says about God’s own love for him: ‘In loving me, You made me lovable’” (Gospel 132).
Frodo warns Sméagol of the danger to his soul when the ruined hobbit insists on swearing on the Ring to be very good and not let Sauron have it. By now, Frodo is aware of the treacherous nature of the Ring, and tells Sméagol of the peril of swearing by such a thing. When the twisted hobbit still insists on actually touching the Ring to validate his promise, Frodo refuses. The younger Ring-bearer is growing increasingly aware of the threat of being in physical contact with the Ring, held against his heart these many months, and it is out of concern for Sméagol’s soul that he does not let the ruined hobbit touch it, aware that it will cause even more damage than it already has. This is the same that any addict would suffer if they came back into contact with the person or thing that had so hurt them before.
The most fascinating thing said in the entire tale is also wrapped up in Frodo’s care for Gollum when the creature is offered the lembas bread and chokes on it. Frodo observes, “I think this food would do you good, if you would try. But perhaps you can’t even try, not yet anyway” (LotR IV:2, 608). On a deeply intuitive level, the younger Ring-bearer understands that the Eucharistic properties of the lembas would be part of the ‘cure’ he and Gandalf both hope for. The wretched creature, trapped for centuries in sin, is not yet capable of receiving the blessed bread, but Frodo keeps hoping and trying to, as Fleming Rutledge says, “find some sort of entry into [Sméagol’s] imprisoned soul” (Battle 199).
In some ways, Frodo’s “scarred and beautiful relationship with Sméagol,” to again use words of Roger Sale, (“Tolkien” 287) is one of the greater love stories, hidden in plain sight, in a tale which glorifies agape love, the purest and highest form. It is most obvious in Sam’s love for Frodo, but it is present here also until it is destroyed, and in many other places.