As the main protagonist of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins is one of the most recognizable characters in fiction. He’s the archetypal fantasy hero: the small guy in a big scary world who has to go on a quest and destroy Evil once and for all. But if you’ve never read or watched Lord of the Rings, you might not know that he’s a surprisingly complicated character, or that his journey doesn’t map onto the Hero’s Journey at all. So, who is Frodo, really?
This article contains major spoilers for The Lord of the Rings! If you haven’t read or watched it yet, you might want to before continuing.
The Basics
NAME: Frodo Baggins
CULTURE: Hobbit of the Shire
TITLES: Ring-Bearer, Elf-Friend, Deputy Mayor of Michael Delving
ROLE: Protagonist of The Lord of the Rings, hero of the Third Age
PLAYED BY: Elijah Wood (LOTR 2001-2003); Christopher Guard (LOTR 1978), Orson Bean (Return of the King 1980), Taneli Mäkelä (Hobiti 1993)
Physical Description
Frodo doesn’t get much physical description in the books. Early in The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf describes him as “a stout fellow with red cheeks, taller than some (hobbits), and fairer than most” (Fellowship Ch X). Apart from that, we can assume he mostly looks like any other hobbit, with curly hair, large hairy feet, and tanned skin.
As the story progresses, the Ring’s corruption starts to affect Frodo. He begins to lose weight and look tired and peaked. Even after returning to the Shire, he still looks ill and tired.
Adaptations tend to give Frodo dark brown hair, a slender figure by hobbit standards, and big, emotionally expressive eyes.
Personality
According to Wikipedia, Frodo is an “unheroic person who reaches heroic stature”. He begins the series as an ordinary hobbit; he ends it as the Ring-Bearer.
Frodo’s most defining trait is his compassion and mercy. He spares multiple villains along his quest — most notably, Gollum — and is often willing to forgive slights against himself and his family. He’s an earnest, good, kind person.
This kindness makes Frodo incredibly vulnerable. Along the Quest for the Ring, he’s wounded in ways both great and small; he’s nearly killed several times, and he has to deal with the psychological torment of carrying the One Ring. The wounds he receives, both physical and mental, take a toll on him.
Frodo’s also very interested in scholarship; he learned to read and studied the Elvish languages with his uncle Bilbo, and was the only one allowed to read Bilbo’s memoirs while Bilbo was composing them. He frequently learns stories and songs along the Quest for the Ring (such as the song Tom Bombadil taught the Hobbits to fend off the Barrow-Wights).
Biography
Early Life
Frodo was the child of Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck.
His parents died in a boating accident when he was young, and he was left orphaned.
He stayed with his mother’s relatives for several years, but was eventually adopted by his cousin Bilbo (who he affectionately calls Uncle Bilbo).
Bilbo taught Frodo to read and write, and often took him for long walking trips. They grew quite close, and Frodo enjoyed his life at Bag End.
When Bilbo left the Shire, he made Frodo his heir.
Quest for the Ring
Fellowship of the Ring
After Bilbo left the Shire, the wizard Gandalf came to see Frodo. He warned Frodo that the ring Bilbo bequeathed to him was dangerous, and told him to “keep it secret, keep it safe” (Fellowship Ch. II).
Gandalf returned several years later, telling Frodo that the ring Bilbo gave him was actually the One Ring, an incredibly evil, powerful artefact. Its owner, the Dark Lord Sauron, would be looking for it.
The two decided that Frodo would have to leave the Shire for his own safety, and agreed that the best thing to do would be to take the Ring to Rivendell, where the elves could advise Frodo on how to handle it.
Together with his gardener Sam and his cousins Merry and Pippin, Frodo set out to leave the Shire — and none too soon.
The evil servants of Sauron, in the form of Black Riders, came to hunt him down. Frodo and friends evaded the Black Riders and leave their home.
After several adventures, Frodo and company came to the town of Bree, where they met a mysterious man – a Ranger named Aragorn.
The Black Riders came after the hobbits; Aragorn helped them escape, and led them away from Bree, towards the hill fortress of Weathertop. At Weathertop, the Black Riders attacked once again, wounding Frodo with a cursed Morgul blade. They meant to turn him into one of them – a Nazgul, a cursed servant of Sauron.
With the help of Aragorn and an elf sent to find them, the hobbits once again escaped and made it to the safe haven of Rivendell.
At Rivendell, Frodo was healed from his cursed wound.
Elrond, the Lord of Rivendell, convened a Council, to figure out what was to be done with the Ring. The Council decided that the Ring needed to be destroyed; the only way to do it was to throw it into the Cracks of Doom – the fire in which it was forged. Someone had to bear the Ring to Mordor. Frodo, realizing it was his fate, volunteered to take the Ring to Mordor, though he did not know the way.
The Council chose a Fellowship, made up of companions to help protect Frodo on his journey: the other hobbits; Gandalf; Aragorn; Boromir, the son of the Steward of Gondor; Legolas, an Elf of Mirkwood; and Gimli, a Dwarf of Erebor. The Fellowship set out from Rivendell to destroy the Ring once and for all.
The Fellowship traveled down the river Anduin. Frodo began to suspect that something was following them; he could hear it traveling behind them.
Frodo’s companion Boromir fell victim to the corruption of the Ring and tried to take the Ring from Frodo. Frodo ran from him. He put on the One Ring and turned invisible to escape.
After that, Frodo decided that it was too dangerous for him to travel with the Fellowship; he took a boat and set out on his own. Sam followed him, eventually catching up, and insisted that Frodo let him come along.
The Two Towers
Frodo and Sam traveled through the foothills of the Emyn Muil; they soon discovered they were being followed.
Gollum was stalking them, trying to steal back the Ring (his “precious”) for himself. Frodo commanded him, using the power of the Ring, to make him their guide.
They traveled through the Dead Marshes, through Ithilien, and into Mordor.
Gollum betrayed Frodo and Sam, leading them into Cirith Ungol, the den of the monstrous spider Shelob, and leaving them to their fate.
Sam rescued Frodo, and together they set off on the final trek to the Cracks of Doom.
Return of the King
At the Cracks of Doom, Frodo hesitated. He’d been suffering for months, starving and weary and falling under the Ring’s spell.
In the final moment, the moment of truth… Frodo failed. He gave in to the Ring’s influence, and claimed the Ring as his own.
But Gollum attacked, trying to steal back his Precious… and knocked the ring into the fires of Orodruin.
The world was saved; Sauron was defeated, and the Eagles came to carry Frodo and his friends back to safety.
After the Quest
Frodo returned to the Shire, where he learned that the evil wizard Saruman had taken over. Saruman tried to industrialize the Shire, paving over paradise; Frodo and friends overthrew him, and tried to return to their old lives.
But Frodo was tired, weary, and suffering from PTSD; every year, on the anniversary of his greatest wounds, he fell ill. The wound from the Morgul blade and the influence of the One Ring had taken their toll on him. He was unable to rest, and unable to recover.
For some time, he served as the Mayor of Michael Delving – the leader of the de facto capital of the Shire – but he stepped down from the position as soon as its original occupant was well enough to take the job.
Eventually, Frodo had to leave the world, traveling to Valinor, the Undying Lands. His injuries were too great to bear, but he could be healed if he left for the land of the Elves and Valar.
He left Sam behind, making him his heir, with a promise that when Sam is ready, he too can pass to the Lonely Isle.
Story Development
The Lord of the Rings was originally conceived as a sequel to the Hobbit, and it shows. In the original draft of LOTR, Frodo’s name was “Bingo Bolger-Baggins”, and the adventure had a much more light-hearted feel. As Tolkien figured out the true nature of the Ring, though, the Quest took on a much darker tone. Frodo’s name had to be changed to match.
Speaking of names, all of the hobbits have names in Westron (the language portrayed as English in Lord of the Rings) — and these aren’t the names they have in the text! In Westron, Frodo’s name is “Maura Labingi” — Tolkien “translated” all the hobbits’ names to archaic English or Germanic names with similar meanings. Frodo’s name means “wise by experience”.
In a letter Tolkien wrote to Eileen Elgar in 1963, he discussed Frodo’s failure, and explained some of his thought process in crafting the end of the tale:
… Frodo failed as a ‘hero’ conceived in abstract ideal terms: he succumbed to the pressure of the Ring, which at that instant reached its maximum, when starved, utterly exhausted, and after months of increasing fear and torment. But we are all finite creatures, having absolute limits to our powers of soul, mind, and body … Frodo took the Ring in complete humility, and his motive was entirely selfless … By his sufferings he provided a situation in which the quest could be achieved, and by his pity (for Gollum) he made the means for this available.
We, the readers, and within the book the Great can, I think, have no doubt whatever in our praise.
