Harry and Frodo

[Danemead]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7371
From: Danemead
Subject: Harry and Frodo
Reply To: [Yahoo! #7358] Re: Friendship, Love and Armageddon
Date: 8/20/00 3:38 pm  (ET)

This comparison of Harry to Frodo is exactly the feeling I got at the
end of GoF, but for a different reason. If I recall correctly, as it has
been many years since I read "Lord of the Rings", Frodo was so weary in
mind and spirit by the end of the trilogy, that he chose to go "over the
water" with Bilbo, rather than stay and have a normal Hobbit life with
his friends. Frodo was still very young, but already decades older in his
experience. Rather like a shell-shocked veteran of a 20th century war,
being no longer able to fit into society. This is already the feeling
I had about Harry by the time he left Hogwarts for summer vacation. And
he still has three more books' worth of war and loss to get through.

>From "Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien:

'But,' said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, 'I thought you were going
to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.'

[Frodo] 'So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I
tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must
often be so, Sam, when things are in danger; some one has to give them
up, lose them, so that others may keep them...'