Why frodo leave

Frodo explains his choice to Sam in the book The Return of the King :. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.

Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil. My work is now finished. Here at last, on the shores of the sea, comes the end of our Fellowship. I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil. The dialogue continues, where it does not in the book borrowing words from elsewhere in the book :.

Gandalf: It is time, Frodo. Sam: What does he mean? At the conclusion of the third and final film in the trilogy, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King , Frodo makes the fateful decision to leave his ancestral home for the legendary realm known as the Undying Lands. In Return of the King , after the ring has been destroyed and Sauron defeated, Frodo returns to the Shire and gets a job as its Deputy Mayor.

The ship leaves the Grey Havens and sets off for the Undying Lands, a special place outside of Middle-earth which is only welcome to immortals and Ring-bearers. This is how Frodo's journey finally ends , but why didn't he stay in the Shire with the other hobbits?

Frodo left Middle-earth because of what happened to him during Lord of the Rings. He experienced two injuries which never completely faded, meaning he couldn't stay and be happy in Middle-earth. The Ring had won until fate intervened—a fact Frodo will have to carry with him the rest of his days. How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand—there is no going back. Here they are, back home, the place they've wanted to be for the past eleven and a half months.

But everything is different now that they have a completely different perspective on life and their world. When they look around at each other, there is sadness in their eyes, especially Frodo's.

This is because although they are in a familiar place doing something they've done a thousand times before , Frodo feels like an empty shell going through the motions with the constant lingering memories of all that has happened. Frodo cannot go back to his old life. There is no turning back, only moving forward. That is the only way Frodo will ever heal spiritually and mentally. One must wonder what became of their souls, wounded and not redressed. Tolkien did consider that Gollum — having been mean and disposed toward selfishness and small acts of evil to begin with — was simply propelled further along the path he had chosen by the Ring.

Isildur had been a heroic figure even in Numenor, where he risked his life to save a sapling of the White Tree of Armenelos, suffering grievous wounds but preserving the ancient heritage of the relationship between the Eldar and the House of Elros. In Middle-earth Isildur had also been a great leader in the war against Sauron. Once having given in to the Ring Isildur became its servant, even if only unwilling.

I suggest that these things are significant for there is a question that Tolkien never directly answered: what would have happened had Gil-galad and Elendil survived and defeated Sauron?

Confronted by the One Ring, would Gil-galad and Elendil have fought for control of it? Did their deaths perhaps save them from a fate similar to that of Deagol and Smeagol? Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles? Your email:. Tolkien was a World War I veteran who was in the Battle of the Somme, and spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering from typhus.

This Website does not collect personally identifying information for the sake of processing user data. Org earns commissions from qualifying purchases. Skip to content. Because the burden of carrying the One Ring had wounded his spirit, his soul.

Only the Valar could heal him before dying. The healing allowed his spirit to pass on peacefully and in a state of grace. He goes on at length a little later: Frodo undertook his quest out of love — to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task.

We will never know. One comment Tolkien was a World War I veteran who was in the Battle of the Somme, and spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering from typhus. Are There Female Orcs in Middle-earth? Did J. Tolkien Invent Orcs.