Featured Image Credit: New Line Cinema
Topics: The Lord Of The Rings, TV And Film
Throughout the long and arduous journey to Mount Doom, while Frodo carried the One Ring to its destruction, his loyal friend Samwise Gamgee managed to resist the temptation to steal the ring.
While I’d love to say the canonical reason for this detail in The Lord of the Rings is due to Sam being the best boy and having the energy of a Golden Retriever, it isn’t the reason Tolkien gave.
Fans are still picking apart secrets from The Lord of the Rings
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Many fans have wondered just how Sam managed to resist, and it kind of boils down to him being a simple person with a love for Frodo.
When a fan asked of Reddit some time ago, readers of the books came to answer.
A passage in the book suggests that when Sam pictured taking the ring, he saw himself as Samwise the Strong, a version of Sam that Frodo imagines in folklore.
He momentarily sees how he could dominate Middle-Earth, however his love for Frodo overwhelms that feeling.
In the crucial paragraph, the detail is uncovered as saying, “In that hour of trial, it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm.”
As the top reply says, “Sam is almost instantly reminded of Master Frodo and gets his priorities straight.”
Another Redditor believes that Sam only wanted a simple life filled with love, and this overtook any ideas of power from the One Ring.
They say Sam wants “the simplest pleasures of life. A quiet life, a house, a garden, a wife and kids. He just didn't have any desire for power.”
One fan even considers Sam to be one of the strongest characters because of his will, saying, “he is able to brush off the temptation the ring offers him and do it so easily. At his core, he knows that this fantasy was foolish and that he had more important things to deal with (rescuing Frodo).”
He really is just the best boy.