Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee

Heroes are still people, they just happen to accomplish things that most people deem "impossible" or "too hard". Heroes can come from every background and anything. Heroes can be people that fight fires or catch criminals. These heroes put themselves in harm's way every day. The particular hero that I have chosen to talk about in this essay is Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Frodo, along with his good friend Sam, travel past the gates of hell and into Mordor to save the world from eminent doom.

The mission of Frodo and Sam start with Frodo's uncle, Bilbo. Bilbo has entrusted a ring to Frodo and then vanished to a life of travel. Little does Frodo know, this ring is the Ring of Power which is needed by the dark lord, Sauron, to rule the world. Frodo and Sam go on this exhilarating journey to try to destroy the Ring, all the while getting chased by a plethora of enemies, from Orcs to ring wraiths. The only way to fully destroy the ring is to throw it into the fires of Mount Doom, which is where the ring was made.

This is the eye of the malevolent Sauron.

Frodo and Sam show unimaginable strength and courage on their way to destroy the ring. The ring itself is practically alive. It wants to find its master, Sauron, which is why enemies chase him. Every time Frodo puts the ring on, two things happen. One, he turns invisible to the naked eye. This helps him escape potential danger, but at the same time, Sauron's men can see him and chase after him from far distances. The ring is an extreme burden to Frodo and takes its toll on him. It seems that his mind was being ripped apart from the clutches of the ring and its dark powers. The ring tried to take advantage of Frodo and Sam's diminished minds and tried to separate them. This would ultimately prove too hard for the ring.

Sam picking up Frodo to try and make it to the pyre

Not only does the mind of Frodo and Sam diminish, but so does their energy. They literally get so exhausted by their journey with nothing to eat and drink; they almost fail the mission because of it. They have to crawl up the jagged rocks all the while Sauron's eye is staring into their souls telling them to turn back and give up. Every variable that plagued Frodo and Sam would look to equal the impossible. Every fiber of their being told them that the mission would fail and that they should give up and die. Only the will of Frodo and Sam would keep them going and even that wasn't quite enough for Frodo. The unbearable burden of the ring, along with utter exhaustion, proved too much for Frodo and only the help of his most faithful companion, Sam, was his mission accomplished to the end.

"I can't carry it for you... but I can carry you." This is a famous quote by Sam when he sympathetically pleaded to Frodo when Frodo fell to the ground from pure exhaustion while crawling up the jagged rocks to the pyre of Mount Doom. This is how determined Sam is to help Frodo to complete his mission, and he did. This is why Frodo and Sam are true movie heroes. Even though they are only three feet tall, they quite literally did the impossible. They saved the world from the rule of the dark lord, Sauron, when no one else could. They confronted the nearly impossible challenge and conquered it through pure determination and willpower. This is what true heroes are and this can correlate to any type of hero.