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Hero - A Part to Play
It always bothers me a bit when people call Sam the real hero of LotR.
Is there now a one-hero limit per story?
I would say that Sam is a real hero of LotR. I would say the same of Gandalf and of Aragorn and of Eowyn and Merry and Pippin and Faramir.
There are three applicable definitions of 'hero'.
a) A man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength
Which is shown by so many in this trilogy.
b) The principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem
And I would say by this definition that Frodo is the hero of LotR (this definition is commonly linked more to the word 'protagonist').
c) Someone who fights for a cause
Which, again, covers a wide range of characters and motivations.
The other two definitions that I found are the classical definition, which is just about ability, heritage, and great deeds (Aragorn as hero), and the sandwich definition.
Now, my definition of hero tends to be more a and c, whereas I do think of b as a protagonist. Under my definition - yes, Sam is most definitely a hero, but he is not the only one and there's no way that he could have ever undertaken the quest without Frodo. Frodo is his reason for going. Frodo is the cause that he fights for, with the Shire in there, too, yes, but it's mostly All About Frodo and getting him there and back again.
Is Frodo a hero? In the final, most vital moment, he breaks and claims the ring. In the end, he can't cast it into the fire and he doesn't stop longing for it after it is destroyed. But he got the ring to the mountain - to the very fires of Mount Doom. Because he does break in the moment of decision, I would say that he wasn't a hero in the end. But that doesn't mean that he wasn't the right choice to carry the ring.
Pippin and Merry are definitely heroes. Merry makes it possible for Eowyn to slay the Witch King and Pippin saves Faramir's life and lights the first beacon - thus saving all of Gondor. And Billy Boyd is gorgeous, which has nothing to do with being heroic, but it doesn't hurt. Yowza.
Gandalf brings the turn of the tide many times. Aragorn also saves Gondor's ass when he brings the Army of the Dead. Eowyn, as previously noted, slays the Witch King. Faramir, who we are shown time and again as so longing for his father's approval, goes against that in TT to do the right thing and give Frodo and Sam their chance.
What every hero needs, though, is a reason to fight. A reason to go on. They need to know that there are things in the world worth fighting for. That's what Frodo lost at the end. One of the times that I was closest to actually crying was when Frodo said he couldn't remember what things in the Shire had been like or what food tasted like. Frodo got lost because he couldn't remember why he should fight, because the ring and the want for the ring were blocking out all the reasons that he'd taken the burden onto himself in the first place.
Sam always had his reason for fighting right in front of him, in the form of Frodo. The times that he seemed to despair were because he didn't have that reason with him anymore.
Merry and Pippin (and Gandalf, in many ways) all fight to save the Shire - which is, of course, a symbol of all that is green and good in the world. Aragorn fights for what he has claimed as his people (in the end of Fellowship) and also to save the woman that he loves (which I didn't mind as an addition - in Fellowship, Arwen gives her grace to Frodo, so it makes sense that she would be bound to him and thus the ring). Eowyn fights for her people and for her right to defend that which she loves.
I think that they're all heroes and that there isn't a need to narrow it down to one - because they all needed each other to save Middle-Earth. Not one of them could have done it alone.
And that's as it should be.
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Sam hadn't had to deal with carrying that kind of evil on his skin for that long - it takes a while for the ring to corrupt the halflings, we do see that, and Sam didn't have it on for long enough.
And that's it, exactly - there are so many essential things, so many people needed to destroy the ring and save middle-earth.
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But still, it wasn't much time, and I suspect motives do make a considerable difference at first. And I did love that the vision it offered Sam ended up making him laugh, but if you can't be blamed for what tempts you (as opposed to for doing it) then you can't necessarily be credited if what tempts you happens to be rather absurd when exaggerated to world dominion (though he still gets credit for noticing).
I'm rambling. I'm rather inclined to say that Sam is definitely a real hero of LotR, and probably in the running for the best sidekick ever, and yes he darned well can do both. ;)
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