[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry as Frodo or not?

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 176677

Magpie:
>I would agree that Harry and Frodo have little in common, though I 
>don't see much in common between Harry and Sam either. I have trouble 
>with the whole "Sam never fails" idea, because while it's certainly 
>true that he never fails, Sam *would* have failed if he carried the 
>ring as well, because the task itself was impossible. It's not like 
>killing Voldemort where you just have to do the right thing, it's that 
>you *can't* do it unless you are literally God, which Sam was not. I 
>think the scene in the Tower where Sam doesn't initially want to give 
>the ring back because he wants to "spare Frodo the burden" indicates 
>that. Failing was Frodo's mission all along.

Bart:
The part of Tom Bombadil in the LORD OF THE RINGS is twofold. The first is because Tolkein liked the character (the image I like the most is that he is the personification of poetry), a major enough reason that he was left out of the version in the medium-that-must-not-be-named. But a secondary reason was to show a character who could safely hold the ring, and that the very fact that he CAN hold the ring means he WON'T hold the ring. Because only one who has no desire can safely carry the ring, even a desire to rid the world of Sauron. 

This is a common religious theme; that only through sacrifice of the individual self can one achieve freedom and defeat evil. DD sees that the only way that Morty can be defeated is to for Harry to die; the evidence (notably his look of triumph in GOF) points to his not wanting that result. But he later figures out that the only way that Harry can die, come back, and defeat Voldemort is if Harry dies with pure selflessness. I have two theories as to that, and am not sure which one is better:

A) The blood-link means that Harry would be coming back no matter what; the selflessness in dying allows the Mortysoul to separate sufficiently from the Harrysoul to knock it loose.

B) Sometimes, in a physical injury, tensing up to defend one's self against the injury can actually make the injury worse (martial artists, for example, protect themselves from injury by "rolling with the blow"). It is not coincidence that, in drunken driving accidents, the least hurt person is often the drunken driver, who does not tense up. Perhaps if Harry did not give himself up 100%, there would have been secondary injuries.

Bart