100 THE FAITHFUL READER A Valley of Shadow In the climax of the Lord of Rings, Frodo and his companion, Samwise, must traverse the desolate wasteland of Mordor to reach Mount Doom. Utterly exhausted from months of treacherous journeying, it will take all the strength that is left within them to complete the task. A sea of Orcs, monstrous servants of the Dark Lord, stand between these two hobbits and the belching fires that will destroy the Ring. In Mordor, Frodo and Sam find themselves in a literal and metaphorical valley of shadow. As Frodo moves deeper into Sauron’s domain, “the growing weight of the Ring,” writes Tolkien, becomes “a burden on the body and a torment to his mind.” In their struggles, even the ever-hopeful Sam begins to realize that even if they destroy the Ring, they will not survive the quest or ever return home to the Shire. As Frodo and Sam reach the heart of Mount Doom, all hope seems to fail. Just as Frodo is about to destroy the Ring, he succumbs to its seductive power and claims the Ring as his own. At that same moment, the miserable creature Gollum, who once served as a guide to Frodo and Sam but then betrayed them in an attempt to take the Ring for himself, reappears. Driven by his unquenchable desire for the Ring, he had stalked the hobbits across Mordor and finally caught them in this most vulnerable moment. An intense struggle between Frodo and Gollum ensues, culminating in Gollum biting the Ring from Frodo’s finger. As Gollum pauses for a moment to admire his precious prize, he slips and falls into the flames below. The Ring is destroyed! An unexpected turn of events in a moment of utter darkness leads to the unmaking of the Ring and the undoing of Sauron. Relief and Rescue The Ring now gone, Sauron’s power crumbles. His armies flee in terror, his high towers topple, and his mighty ramparts fall. For a moment, Sam and Frodo feel “only joy, great joy” at the lifting of this terrible burden and the relief of knowing their quest is at long last finished. But their joy is diminished as they seek shelter on imploding slopes of Mount Doom.
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