Frodo Baggins

The Ring-bearer; Nine-fingered; Mr. Frodo; Elf-friend

House / Order	The Fellowship
Race / Culture	Hobbit
Status	Departed
Origin	Bag End, Hobbiton, the Shire
Born	22 September T.A. 2968
Died	Departed over Sea (sailed 29 September T.A. 3021)
Weapon	Sting; the mithril coat (a gift of Bilbo)
Fate	Bore the One Ring to Mount Doom; wounded beyond healing, sailed into the West
Portrayed by	Elijah Wood

I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.

Frodo Baggins of Bag End was the Hobbit who carried the One Ring from the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, and so brought about the ruin of Sauron in the War of the Ring. Heir of Bilbo Baggins, he was named the Ring-bearer, and is reckoned among the chief of the small folk whose courage decided the fate of the Third Age.

Of all the Fellowship his was the heaviest burden — to bear into the Enemy's own land the thing the Enemy most desired. He did not destroy the Ring by his own will at the last, yet his endurance, and the mercy he showed to Gollum, won the victory that strength of arms could not.

Origins

Frodo was born in T.A. 2968, son of Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck, who were drowned in a boating accident on the Brandywine when Frodo was twelve. Orphaned, he was raised for a time among his mother's kin in Brandy Hall in Buckland, until Bilbo Baggins — his cousin and adopted heir — took him to live at Bag End. The two shared a birthday, 22 September, and a love of books, walking, and the company of Elves that set them apart from their neighbours.

When Bilbo departed the Shire after his eleventy-first birthday party in T.A. 3001, he left Bag End and all his possessions to Frodo — including, at Gandalf's urging, the magic ring he had found long before in the dark under the Misty Mountains.

Biography

The burden revealed

For seventeen years Frodo kept the ring quietly. Then Gandalf returned with grim certainty: it was the One Ring of Sauron, and the Enemy had learned the names "Baggins" and "Shire". Frodo resolved to leave, taking the name Underhill, and set out with his gardener Sam and his cousins Merry and Pippin.

Hunted by the Black Riders, the hobbits crossed the Old Forest, were saved by Tom Bombadil from a barrow-wight, and reached Bree, where they met the Ranger Strider. On Weathertop the Witch-king stabbed Frodo with a Morgul-blade; only the skill of Elrond at Rivendell drew out the splinter and saved his life.

The Fellowship

At the Council of Elrond Frodo offered himself to bear the Ring to Mount Doom, though he did not know the way. With eight companions he set out as the Fellowship of the Ring. Through the snows of Caradhras and the deeps of Moria — where Gandalf fell — they came to Lothlórien. There Galadriel tested and counselled him, and gave him the Phial of Galadriel. At Amon Hen Boromir, maddened by desire for the Ring, tried to take it; Frodo, seeing the Fellowship could not safely go on together, resolved to go to Mordor alone — but Sam would not be left behind.

Into Mordor

Main article: The Ring-bearer

Frodo and Sam crossed the Emyn Muil and the Dead Marshes, guided by Gollum, whom Frodo spared and even pitied, sensing in him a shadow of his own peril. Gollum led them to Cirith Ungol and the lair of Shelob, where Frodo was stung and taken for dead. Sam bore the Ring briefly before rescuing him from the orc-tower.

Through the ashen waste of Gorgoroth the two crawled to the Cracks of Doom. There, at the very edge, the Ring mastered Frodo at last: he claimed it for his own. But Gollum bit the Ring from his hand and fell with it into the fire — and so, by the mercy Frodo had shown, the Quest was fulfilled though Frodo's own will had failed.

The Shire and after

Returning home, Frodo found the Shire ruined under Saruman and helped lead the Scouring of the Shire, though he himself drew no sword and forbade the slaying of the broken wizard. But he was wounded in body and spirit — by the Morgul-knife, by Shelob's sting, by the loss of the Ring — and could find no lasting peace. "It must often be so," he told Sam, "when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them." In T.A. 3021 he rode to the Grey Havens and passed over Sea with Gandalf, Bilbo, Elrond, and Galadriel into the Undying Lands.

Character

Frodo was thoughtful, generous, and quietly brave — more a scholar and walker than a warrior. He grew in wisdom and authority under the Ring's burden even as it consumed him, learning a deep pity that extended even to Gollum. His failure at the last is, in Gandalf's and Tolkien's own reading, no shame but the proof that no will could have resisted the Ring at the Cracks of Doom; what mattered was the mercy that had spared the creature who finished the task.

Relationships

Samwise Gamgee — his gardener and the truest of companions, who never left him.
Bilbo Baggins — cousin, guardian, and the source of his inheritance and his doom.
Gandalf — his guide, who set him on the road and trusted his courage.
Gollum — whom he pitied and spared, and who unwittingly saved the Quest.
Aragorn — protector on the road and king of the world he helped save.
Faramir — who released him in Ithilien against the law of Gondor, trusting his errand.

Appearances

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy (2001–2003), Frodo was portrayed by Elijah Wood. The films omit the Scouring of the Shire and the role of Tom Bombadil, and compress Frodo's mistrust of Sam under Gollum's influence.

Quotes

I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.

But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.