A Question About Samwise Gamgee…and Tolkien’s Answer

Over at Noel Campbell’s blog, he has posited an interesting question about Samwise Gamgee from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  The question was quite good, and caused me to peruse Tolkien’s letters for the answer. The question is this: Who would history say destroyed the ring if Samwise had told the story?  To quote Mr. Campbell:

Tolkien on Tolkien: Frodo’s Other Option

For those of us who have read The Lord of the Rings, we all thrill when Frodo finally throws the One Ring into the crack of Mount Doom, but according to Tolkien’s own letters Frodo had one other option once he possessed the Dark One’s Ring. In a letter to a fan, one Eileen Elgar, who

Tolkien’s 5 Tips for Creating Complex Heroes

Tolkien’s letters are rich with information about J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing process.  I wrote a post last week about Aragorn being Tolkien’s example of an epic hero, and someone posted: “But Frodo Baggins is the hero of the LOTR trilogy, right?”  I would argue that he is not, but only one of three or four characters who together