Could Sam have done it?

[superwizard]

Hey everyone

I know I haven't been posting very often on this board these days but actually I do come here quite often. It just is the case that most of the time I feel that I really don't have much to contribute and end up not really posting. Don't worry I already know that you guys will jump up and say that that's utter rubbish and that I should post more often and I really appreciate it and I think with time I will hopefully resume posting frequently.

Well anyways today (or tonight rather) I do feel like I have something to contribute and that is this simple question: Had the burden fallen on Sam do you think he would have been capable of travelling all the way to Mount Doom and destroying the Ring?

Sure this question could be asked about practically anyone but seeing as we already know Sam was able to travel to Mount Doom and that he also was able to (at least temporarily) resist the power of the Ring quite well he already has quite a strong case.

Personally I am quite ambivalent about the issue. On one hand it does seem that given his strength and his resolve it would have been possible but on the other hand he was never really used to being in the forefront and I think the weight of the matter might have been too much for our loyal Sam to handle. Of course one can argue that such an experience might have changed him and made him more 'Frodoish' but that (as does this whole thread in fact!) lies in the realm of speculation.

So what are your wise thoughts on the issue?

[Folca]

As long as Samwise believed he was taking the ring to Mt. Doom specifically on behalf of someone he knew personally, I think he would have been successful had the task fallen to him. He is stronger, more aggressive and possesses more courage than Frodo. But, I believe Samwise had to have a personal reason to act, over a more idealistic one.

[axordil]

possesses more courage than Frodo

More physical courage, perhaps. His moral courage is strong but never tested as deeply, so it's impossible to say on that count.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No. Absolutely, positively no way. Tolkien says, when pointing out that Frodo's failure was not a moral failure, that "At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum -- impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist." (Letter 246.) Elsewhere in describing the trap that Frodo was in he said "a person of greater power could probably never have resisted the ring's lure to power so long; a person of less power could not hope to resist it in the final decision." (Letter 181.) Sam definitely falls into the latter category. I'm sorry to offend all of you Sam fans out there, but Sam was a bit of a jerk; his main redeeming qualities were his loyalty to Frodo, and his dogged stubbornness. As Tolkien said:

Sam can be very "trying". He is a more representative hobbit than any others that we have to see much of; and he has consequently a stronger ingredient of that quality which even some hobbits found at times hard to bear: a vulgarity -- by which I do not mean a mere 'down-to-earthiness -- a mental myopia which is proud of itself, a smugness (in varying degrees) and cocksureness, and a readiness to measure and sum up all things from a limited experience, largely enshrined in sententious traditional 'wisdom'. ...

Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any way admirable -- except in his service and loyalty to his master. that had an ingredient (probably inevitable) of pride and possessiveness: it is difficult to exclude it from the devotion of those who perform such service. In any case it prevented him from fully understanding the master that he loved, and from following him in his gradual education to the nobility of service to the unlovable and of perception of damaged good in the corrupt. ...

The only reason that Sam was able to resist the temptation of the Ring for the short time that he bore it was that he was doing so for the purpose of rescuing his master. He had in fact given up on the idea of trying to destroy the Ring on his own. Despite the admirable loyalty that that act showed it would have been an ultimately extremely stupid thing to do to put the Ring into such risk of capture so soon after he had saved it from capture by taking it from Frodo's seemingly lifeless body except for one fact: there is absolutely, positively no chance that Sam would have had the power of mind and will to destroy the Ring himself.

[Primula Baggins]

I won't argue that Sam could have done it, because I don't think he would have been able to, for the reasons you state.

And obviously I can't argue with Tolkien's conception of his own character/creation as described in the letter.

However, I will say that I don't see that "smugness" and "cocksureness" in Sam as portrayed in LotR, and I'm glad of it. It's not "on the page," and therefore, by my lights, it's fair for a reader to ignore the whole idea.

I do not see Sam as "a bit of a jerk" at all; just untutored and rough around the edges. Good intention, imperfect execution, and I can't hold that against him.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I felt very much that way about Sam long before I ever read Tolkien's letters. So for me it is "on the page."

[Primula Baggins]

Of course. I'm describing what I see, not prescribing what anyone else should. Any book complicated enough to be worth discussing (and this one is infinitely so) is complicated enough to present a different face to each reader. What we bring to the book influences what we take from it. Etc., etc., you know all this.

[yovargas]

I'm sorry to offend all of you Sam fans out there, but Sam was a bit of a jerk

Hey! That's my future husband you're talking about there!!




Seriously though, I don't see any of those qualities in Sam at all. I have always thought of Sam as being a thoroughly humble guy. I don't see how someone could think him "cocksure" or "smug". Sam was not at all someone who thought himself bigger or better than he was.

(Waits for V-dude to pull a hundred quotes of Sam doing jerky, smug things. )

(sorry, sw, not thoughts on the original topic)

[axordil]

I would think the passage in which it is explained Sam thinks of Frodo as both the best hobbit he knows AND hopelessly naive about the nature of evil illustrates his character in this context very well. The smugness he has is not of the material but the moral variety, of always knowing the easy answer to so-called (in his mind) moral dilemmas. Sam, for example, would have killed Gollum in a heartbeat had he not been prevented from doing so.

[Primula Baggins]

I don't get smugness from that, Ax, even moral smugness. Smugness has an element of rejoicing in one's rightness, and Sam simply felt sure he was right, much as a parent with more experience of the world may feel sure he's right about what a teenaged child of his should do.

And, if Sam had killed Gollum, I don't see it being out of "smugness" so much as out of acting to protect someone he loved. To Sam that was not the easy answer, but the only answer. He couldn't see the fine shades, couldn't imagine possible futures, couldn't entertain the idea that one should not close off options through which fate can act. He just knew that Gollum might hurt Frodo.

[axordil]

Smugness has an element of rejoicing in one's rightness

Or simply not being able to conceive of an alternative. I don't think smugness implies rejoicing so much as unthinking satisfaction. It doesn't have to shade into self-righteousness, which is what I think you're describing.

[Primula Baggins]

I think I must have a different connotation for "satisfaction" than you do, Ax; Sam seems to me to really wish none of these choices were necessary, and so it's a disconnect for me to understand how he could be satisfied with his own rightness about any of them.

But that hair is probably too thin for me to split any further.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ax pretty much speaks for me on this one.

[Dave_LF]

a mental myopia which is proud of itself, a smugness (in varying degrees) and cocksureness, and a readiness to measure and sum up all things from a limited experience, largely enshrined in sententious traditional 'wisdom'. ...

Give this man a talk show!

[axordil]

I think I must have a different connotation for "satisfaction" than you do, Ax; Sam seems to me to really wish none of these choices were necessary, and so it's a disconnect for me to understand how he could be satisfied with his own rightness about any of them.

You don't know my sister. I know moral smugness all too well--and it doesn't see choices at all in those situations, only an opportunity to "do right." Choice would after all imply the possibility of doing wrong.

But that hair is probably too thin for me to split any further.

Oh, I think we could break out a diamond-bladed microtome if need be.

Spurious tag edit

[yovargas]

Good lord, I utterly disagree. There was someone trying to kill them. Sam wanted to make sure they didn't. You call this smugness? What I see in Sam is merely pragmatism, something which, quite frankly, high-minded Frodo needed a lot of to get through his quest. I see no difference in Sam wanting to rid themselves of Gollum than in him trying to kill Shelob, or the orcs in the tower, or, hell, even Sauron himself.

[axordil]

And yet, is there any doubt that in fact killing Gollum would have been not only disastrous in terms of outcome, but morally dubious as well? I mean, he IS who Gandalf was referring to directly when speaking about not being so ready to kill even though he "deserved" to die.

When it comes to morality, pragmatism is too often another name for expediency. And being morally smug is all about expediency, about never having to pause to consider whether an action is right. It is the province only of the most insular and most uncomplicated of souls. Sam had an excuse, of course: he was raised in a singularly insular environment, the Shire, and not as a Took or Brandybuck or even Baggins. By the END of the story, he has changed, grown, seen the world, and come back still Sam...but a more thoughtful Sam, and thus a better one.

[Primula Baggins]

<gets out diamond microtome>

The question I see is whether Sam would have considered his choice the right one because he was morally smug, or because he could not understand any "higher" choices.

Maybe all I am objecting to here is the distasteful connotation of the word smugness. I can't apply that to Sam, or see him as a "jerk." That's not because I think Sam is perfect; it's because I think he was doing the best he could with the limited understanding of the world he had. Smugness and humility just don't go together for me, and where Sam steps in to make decisions because Frodo cannot, he makes his self-doubt and anguish clear (at least, at Cirith Ungol he does, when he thinks Frodo is dead; I may be forgetting something else).

[Crucifer]

Sam was really horrible to Gollum. I mean, really really horrible. Slinker and Stinker? I know there was always a risk that Gollum would kill Frodo, but a lot of the work Frodo did trying to gain Gollum's trust was destroyed by Sam's attitude towards him.

As for his smugness, I agree with Ax and V to a certain extent, but we have to remember that Sam was totally ignorant of the world outside the Shire. He was a "set in his ways" Hobbit, and the world outside the Shire was very different to the Shire. Might he be over compensating for his ignorance by asserting at every possible moment that what he knows is all one needs to know, that his way is the best way?

[axordil]

and where Sam steps in to make decisions because Frodo cannot, he makes his self-doubt and anguish clear

And that's where the smugness (the kind born from insularity, not chosen!) falls away--at that precise moment, really. There's a reason the chapter's title is "The Choices of Master Samwise." There is no Gandalf, no Strider, no Frodo, no Gaffer to choose for him any more. There is no cozy Shire frame of reference to turn to. There is a naked moral AND practical choice.

Might he be over compensating for his ignorance by asserting at every possible moment that what he knows is all one needs to know, that his way is the best way?

Ah, you DO know my sister.