On comparing

This past weekend I was busy hosting Boston Massacre, a Diplomacy Tournament, and though I hoped to use Sunday evening or Monday to post, I am frankly much too exhausted and now it is Tuesday.  So rather than share my thoughts about these comparisons I found, I'll just leave the comparisons, and leave the thinking to all of you :)

This week we read "Mount Doom," the final struggle of the Ring, and its lucky destruction.  During this chapter Sam rises to the occasion in two specific ways similar to Frodo earlier in our text.  First, Sam is reflecting on the people he left behind in the Shire, and how everything has gone wrong since Gandalf died in Moria.  Recalling this grief, we are told,

But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam’s plain
hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his
limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair
nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.

This parallels very nearly with Frodo's experience in the Barrows.

But though his fear was so great that it seemed to be part of the very darkness that was round him,
he found himself as he lay thinking about Bilbo Baggins and his stories, of their jogging along
together in the lanes of the Shire and talking about roads and adventures.There is a seed of courage
hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some
final and desperate danger to make it grow. Frodo was neither very fat nor very timid; indeed, though he
did not know it, Bilbo (and Gandalf) had thought him the best hobbit in the Shire. He thought
he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found
himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.

Shortly later Sam has picked Frodo up and walked with him on his back up the slope of the mountain.  There is no path, nor can he see any opening into the mountain.  After a while, he puts Frodo down, exhausted at the effort.

Frodo opened his eyes and drew a breath. It was easier to breathe up here above the reeks that
coiled and drifted down below. ‘Thank you, Sam,’ he said in a cracked whisper. ‘How far is
there to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Sam, ‘because I don’t know where we’re going.’

And this is what Frodo says at the conclusion of the Council of Elrond,

‘I will take the Ring,’ he said, ‘though I do not know the way.’

Let me know your thoughts!

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