[Formendacil]

Appropriately enough, considering its pivotal role, "Mount Doom" has seen more discussion in this thread about metaphysics and ethics than pretty much any other CbC thread--and scarcely any other discussion besides!

This chapter is almost brief--certainly the final, climactic moment in Orodruin is brief: mere paragraphs. This is not just appropriate, as suggested far above, because the story isn't about Frodo so much as it's also about the Return of the King, the passing of the Elves, and the scouring of the Shire--it's also true to life. Major moments in life can pass suddenly, how ever long they take in the anticipation and however wide their consequences ripple.

The "failure of Frodo," source of so much discussion above, is somehow surprising the first time you meet it, even though Tolkien basically tells us right back in "The Shadow of the Past" (and prefigures it the chapter before--the VERY FIRST CHAPTER) that Frodo couldn't do it. It simply isn't that common for the "hero" to fall AND for the story to have a happy ending (and in simplistic "good guy wins" terms this book has a happy ending). But once you've read it, it's nigh impossible to imagine an alternative resolution.