Frodo Baggins is a fictional character of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.
He is the primary protagonist of Tolkien's The
Lord of the Rings. He is also mentioned in The Silmarillion. He was
also the last ring-bearer. Frodo as a name is associated with Old English fród, meaning
'wise by experience'. The derivation of Frodo's name is explained in Tolkien's Letters (No 168, dated 1955), where he also
explains that '...it had mythological connexions with the legends of the Golden Age in the North.' This seems to be a reference
to King Fróði of the Danes, whose reign was legendary for its prosperity and fruitfulness.
Appearances
Literature
Frodo, a Hobbit, is introduced in The
Fellowship of the Ring as the son of Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck. At the age of 12, Frodo lost both his parents in a boating accident, and was taken
in by his mother's family, the Brandybucks. At 21, Frodo came under the guardianship of
Bilbo Baggins, who adopted him, and whom he thought of as his uncle (though Frodo
was actually his first and second cousin once removed). The childless Bilbo chose Frodo as his adoptive heir, and brought
him to live at Bag End. The two shared the same birthday (September 22). During the next twelve
years, Bilbo taught Frodo a bit of Elvish, and they often took long walking trips
together.
When Frodo came of age, Bilbo left for Rivendell on his eleventy-first (111th) birthday, and
Frodo inherited Bag End and Bilbo's magic ring. Gandalf warned
Frodo that the Ring must never be used and should be kept secret. (At the time, he was not yet certain that it was
Sauron's One Ring.) Frodo kept the Ring hidden for seventeen years, until Gandalf
returned to confirm that it was indeed the One Ring.
Realising that keeping the Ring at Bag End was extremely dangerous, Frodo agreed to take the ring to Rivendell, home of Elrond. Selling his beloved Bag End, he left the
Shire with three companions: his gardener Samwise
Gamgee and his cousins Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took.
While stopping at the Inn of the Prancing Pony in the nearby village of Bree,
Frodo met the Ranger Aragorn, who later became the
Hobbits' guide in the wilderness.
While waiting for Gandalf at Amon Sûl, Frodo was stabbed by the Witch-king of
Angmar, the chief of the Nazgûl, with a Morgul-blade. Without the assistance of Elrond, the wound would have turned him into a wraith under the
control of Sauron. The wound never healed completely.
In Rivendell, at Elrond's Council, it was
decided that the Ring must be destroyed by casting it into Mount Doom. A fellowship was formed to protect Frodo as the Ring-bearer. His quest to destroy the Ring forms the main story of The Lord of the Rings. After
leaving Rivendell, Frodo carried Sting, Bilbo's Elvish short sword, and wore a coat
of Dwarven chain mail made of
mithril under his clothes. At Lothlórien,
Galadriel gave him an Elven cloak and a phial carrying the light of Eärendil to aid him on his quest.
Frodo was heartbroken by Gandalf's apparent death in Moria, having grown up with
the old wizard as a kind of grandfather-figure.
Frodo and Sam left the Fellowship after one of its members, Boromir, tried to take the Ring
for himself at Amon Hen. The Fellowship further separated after Boromir was mortally wounded by
Uruk-hai while defending Pippin and Merry, an attempt at redemption. Frodo and Sam headed
toward Mount Doom, followed by the creature Gollum, who was seeking to reclaim the Ring he had
possessed for centuries.
In The Two Towers, Frodo captured and "tamed" Gollum, using him as their guide
to Mordor. The two formed a sort of bond, as they both knew all too well what a heavy, seductive burden the Ring was.
Gollum eventually betrayed them, however, leading them to Cirith Ungol, the lair of
Shelob, where he planned to take the Ring after the giant spider had eaten them. Shelob stung
Frodo and put him into a coma, but he was saved from death when Sam fought her off. However, Sam could not save him from a pack
of Orcs, who carried him off to their dungeon. Thankfully, Sam pocketed the Ring
before the Orcs arrived.
In The Return of the King, Sam rescued Frodo from the Orcs, and the two
set off for Mount Doom. By this time, however, Frodo was considerably weakened by the Ring's growing influence; when they reached
the volcano, Frodo finally gave in to its power and claimed it for himself. Moments later, however, Gollum attacked him and bit
off his finger, finally taking back the Ring. Gollum then lost his balance and fell into the waiting lava, taking the Ring with
him. The Ring was finally destroyed, Sauron was defeated and peace was brought to most of Middle-earth. Frodo and Sam were saved by the Eagles of Manwë
as the volcano erupted and collapsed.
Upon his return to the Shire, Frodo helped clear out a criminal mob, led by his cousin, Lotho Sackville-Baggins, and the fallen wizard Saruman, that had taken
over the region during his absence. He refused to draw his sword, however, and saw to it that any enemies captured were not
killed. He never recovered from the physical, emotional and psychological wounds he had suffered during the War of the Ring, and was in particular taken ill on the anniversaries of his wounding on Weathertop and
his poisoning by Shelob. He briefly served as Deputy Mayor of the Shire, but later resigned. Two years after the Ring was
destroyed, Frodo as the Ring-bearer and Bilbo as the Ring-finder were accorded the special right to travel to Valinor — where Frodo might be healed and find peace — together with Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel, the Keepers
of the Three Rings. They boarded a ship at the Grey Havens
and passed over the sea. Having no children of his own, Frodo left his estate, along with the Red Book of Westmarch, to Sam, who, according to Hobbit legend, followed Frodo across the sea
sixty-one years later, following the death of his wife Rose (née) Cotton.
Adaptations
In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated
version of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo was voiced by Christopher Guard.
Billy Barty was the model for Frodo, as well as Bilbo and Sam, in the live-action recordings
Bakshi used for rotoscoping.
In the 1980 Rankin/Bass animated version of The Return of the King, made for television, the character was voiced by
Orson Bean, who had previously played Bilbo in the same company's adaptation of
The Hobbit.
In the 1981 BBC radio serial of
The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is played by Ian Holm, who later played Bilbo in
Peter Jackson's film
adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson — The Lord of
the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) — Frodo is
played by American actor Elijah Wood. The timeline in
Jackson's movie trilogy is simplified and much shorter than in the novel; in the movie Frodo sets out on his adventure
immediately after inheriting Bag End and Bilbo's possessions, including the One Ring. Consequently he is much less than fifty
years old, and starts out the same age as his friends Sam, Merry and Pippin, when he begins his adventure.
On stage, Frodo was portrayed by James Loye in the three-hour stage production of
The Lord of the Rings, which opened in Toronto in 2006, and was brought to London in 2007. In the United
States, Frodo was portrayed by Joe Sofranko in the Cincinnati productions of The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and
The Return of the King (2003) for Clear Stage Cincinnati. In
Chicago, Patrick Blashill played Frodo in
the Lifeline Theatre production of The Two Towers in 1999. Frodo was once on
nick jr. as a featured creature. That day they received many complaints because children were scared and confused. Nick jr. never
had a featured creature again.
Characteristics
Frodo, as described by Gandalf, was a "taller than some and fairer than most, [with] a cleft in his chin: perky chap with a
bright eye." (The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 10, "Strider".) He had thick, curly brown hair like most other hobbits,
and had lighter-than-usual skin due to his Fallohide ancestry through his Brandybuck
mother.
Bilbo and Frodo shared a common birthday on September 22, but Bilbo was 78 years Frodo's senior. At the opening of The
Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and Bilbo were celebrating their thirty-third and eleventy-first (111th) birthdays,
respectively.
Frodo, like Bilbo, was considered by many others in Hobbiton to be a little odd.
His interests in the outside world, fascination with Elves and faraway places (like those to which Bilbo travelled in
The Hobbit) did not fit the general content personality of most Hobbits. This
curiosity was also attributed to his Took ancestry.
References
<http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/f/frodobaggins.html>
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
