I am sure he didn't sail only out of despair. I always have thought that Frodo had got too ... oh, "enlarged" I think was one of the words Tolkien used ... to remain. Not that he didn't love his land and his people, but Frodo really had seen and experienced so, so much -- wonderful and terrible -- things that even his much more illustrious companions on the Quest did not. It was bound to make him permanently out of sync with folks back in the Shire, even if Frodo hadn't had been plagued by his lingering malaise.
It was only reflecting on this manip, reading Jan's poem, reading the text, and writing this entry, though, that made me see the writing of the Red Book as helpful to him in quite the way I described -- letting him see that his story mattered when seen in its proper context of the greater story.
I've read fics in which Frodo finds the writing very cathartic, sort of, "getting it out of his system." But the idea of him being able to put what he did into perspective, to be able to see it as important - and yet at the same time see how his was one part in a vast network of individuals and groups working to further that one goal, the destroying of the Ring and the rescue of the lands - that had to stir Frodo very deeply.
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It was only reflecting on this manip, reading Jan's poem, reading the text, and writing this entry, though, that made me see the writing of the Red Book as helpful to him in quite the way I described -- letting him see that his story mattered when seen in its proper context of the greater story.
I've read fics in which Frodo finds the writing very cathartic, sort of, "getting it out of his system." But the idea of him being able to put what he did into perspective, to be able to see it as important - and yet at the same time see how his was one part in a vast network of individuals and groups working to further that one goal, the destroying of the Ring and the rescue of the lands - that had to stir Frodo very deeply.