In Tolkien’s The Two Towers, each member of the Fellowship, the group of allies endeavoring to destroy the Ring, takes on a great responsibility to their quest, to each other, and to Middle-earth at large. Occasionally, however, these responsibilities change and conflict, forcing characters (in particular, Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam) to make difficult decisions about which duties to prioritize. When faced with an obstacle, Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam are each compelled to make an often-agonizing sacrifice of one responsibility in favor of another. Aragorn has the horrible choice of which pair of hobbits to follow when the Fellowship is separated and must reconcile himself to the idea of abandoning Sam and Frodo to save Merry and Pippin. Later, Frodo, exhausted, unsure of himself, and bearing his duty unwillingly, must decide between two equally dangerous paths into Mordor. Near the end of the novel, Sam, believing Frodo to be dead, has to reorient his priorities entirely and prepare himself to bear the Ring after having only ever had one duty—to protect and care for Frodo. He can’t fulfill either his duty or Frodo’s until he decides which is more important, and he “must make up [his] own mind”—there’s no one left to advise him. Duty often leads to this sort of inner turmoil in The Two Towers as the characters each struggle to determine what their greatest responsibility is and what it means to them, characterizing duty as both burdensome and necessary, whether or not it is taken on willingly. Devotion to a just duty, despite the grief and difficulty that accompanies making the right decisions to adhere to it, is what fundamentally separates Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam from their enemies, who frequently abandon duty and change loyalty.
Aragorn’s first struggle, as he faces the dissolution of the Fellowship, is to determine what his duty is and who he has a duty to. In Gandalf’s absence, Aragorn took it upon himself to lead the Fellowship, the goal of which was to deliver Frodo and the Ring to Mordor. However, now that Frodo and Sam have run away on their own, and Merry and Pippin are in deadly danger, he must reconsider his priorities and responsibilities. There is no easy answer; Aragorn can’t pursue both pairs of hobbits and must choose between them. It is a painful, “evil” decision. Ultimately, Aragorn decides that his responsibility is to those who most need him. While his initial duty was bound to Frodo and the quest, he is forced to accept that Frodo is no longer his responsibility. Though Gandalf later assures him that it was the right and “just” choice, the choice itself and the doubt that follows are a heavy burden for Aragorn, especially when the chase after Merry and Pippin turns out to be a “vain pursuit.” Still, in the end, the choice leads him where he needs to be: reunited with Gandalf and joining the war in Rohan.
Frodo’s quest to carry the Ring into Mordor and destroy it is both the most vital duty in The Two Towers, essential for the survival of Middle-earth, and the most difficult to accomplish. Frodo is devoted to his duty, but suffers under it, faced with obstacles and dilemmas on the way to Mordor and finding himself faltering and lost. Just as Legolas and Gimli couldn’t advise Aragorn on his choice, Frodo is left without any counsel but Gollum on what path to take into Mordor. Both of his options seem pointless, leading to “terror and death” either way, and he agonizes over the choice. Still, he knows that it’s his responsibility to decide, since he took on the duty of carrying the Ring. Frodo spends some time sitting outside the Black Gate, paralyzed by fear, indecision, and the knowledge that his choice impacts the fate of Middle-earth. Despite his turmoil, and in a moment of levity with Sam, Frodo is able to make his decision. He trusts Gollum and follows him to Cirith Ungol, where Gollum plans to betray him. Had he chosen to try to enter the Black Gate, however, he would likely have been captured.
Sam, left directionless when he believes Frodo is dead, must similarly sort out his choices and determine which of his conflicting responsibilities is most important. He knows that he should take up the Ring and finish Frodo’s quest to save Middle-earth, but something in him is set against it. With Frodo gone, his duty changes suddenly and drastically. Now, it seems, he must assume Frodo’s responsibilities as the Ring-bearer, a monumental task that he never thought he would have to contend with. He doesn’t have time to return the Ring to the elves, and he can’t do what he wants and stay by Frodo’s body because he and the Ring would eventually be caught. Facing deep grief and internal conflict, Sam’s head wars with his heart as he attempts to reconcile Frodo’s duty to Middle-earth with his own devotion to Frodo. Reluctantly, knowing it’s the right choice but feeling that it’s the wrong one, he decides to take the Ring from Frodo’s body and carry on. His heart is quickly proven right when orcs appear and reveal that Frodo is alive after all—but, in his “wrong” decision, he inadvertently saves the Ring from capture.
Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam are compelled by their duty to face an inner struggle in deciding what their greatest duty is and how best to fulfill it. For each of them, duty is a great burden, despite the fact that none of the difficult decisions they make turn out as planned. Still, what separates them from their enemies, who frequently betray and abandon one another, is not the success of their endeavors, but their willingness to try. When faced with a difficult choice demanded by duty, there is nothing to do but contend with it or abandon duty and walk away. Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam each rise to the challenge, for better or worse.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Duty ThemeTracker
Duty Quotes in The Two Towers
‘Let me think!’ said Aragorn. ‘And now may I make a right choice, and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!’ He stood silent for a moment. ‘I will follow the Orcs,’ he said at last. ‘I would have guided Frodo into Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left. Come! We will go now. Leave all that can be spared behind! We will press on by day and dark!’
‘It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the Sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’
‘As he has ever judged,’ said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’
‘Of course, it is likely enough, my friends,’ he said slowly, ‘likely enough that we are going to our doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later. […] Now at least the last march of the Ents may be worth a song. Aye,’ he sighed, ‘we may help the other peoples before we pass away.’
‘You have not said what you know or guess, Aragorn, my friend,’ he said quietly. ‘Poor Boromir! I could not see what happened to him. It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake.’
I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.
Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.
‘Very well,’ he answered aloud, lowering his sword. ‘But still I am afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him.”
‘About the food,’ said Sam. ‘How long’s it going to take us to do this job?’
[…]
‘I don’t know how long we shall take to—to finish,’ said Frodo. ‘We were miserably delayed in the hills. But Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit—indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends—I do not think we need to give thought to what comes after that. To do the job as you put it—what hope is there that we ever shall? And if we do, who knows what will come of that? If the One goes into the Fire, and we are at hand? I ask you, Sam, are we ever likely to need bread again?’
‘It was an evil fate. But he had taken it on himself in his own sitting-room in the far-off spring of another year, so remote now that it was like a chapter in a story of the world’s youth, when the Trees of Silver and Gold were still in bloom. This was an evil choice. Which way should he choose? And if both led to terror and death, what good lay in choice?’
Gollum disappeared. He was away some time, and Frodo after a few mouthfuls of lembas settled deep into the brown fern and went to sleep. Sam looked at him. […] Frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiseling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: ‘I love him.’
‘I’m afraid our journey’s drawing to an end.’
‘Maybe,’ said Sam; ‘but where there’s life there’s hope, as my Gaffer used to say; and need of vittles, as he mostways used to add. You have a bite, Mr. Frodo, and then a bit of sleep.’
‘All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.’ Overcome with weakness he wept. And still the host of Morgul crossed the bridge.
Then, at a great distance, as if it came out of memories of the Shire, some sunlit early morning, when the day called and the doors were opening, he heard Sam’s voice speaking. ‘Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Wake up!’
[…]
Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else ever knew about it was beside the purpose.
‘Yes, that’s so,’ said Sam. ‘And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t.’
‘Why, Sam,’ he said, ‘to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. “I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?”’
‘No, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam, ‘you shouldn’t make fun. I was serious.’
‘So was I,’ said Frodo, ‘and so I am.’
Even as Sam himself crouched, looking at her, seeing his death in her eyes, a thought came to him, as if some remote voice had spoken, and he fumbled in his breast with his left hand, and found what he sought: cold and hard and solid it seemed to his touch in a phantom world of horror, the Phial of Galadriel.
[…]
As if his indomitable spirit had set its potency in motion, the glass blazed suddenly like a white torch in his hand.
‘What shall I do, what shall I do?’ he said. ‘Did I come all this way with him for nothing?’ And then he remembered his own voice speaking words that at the time he did not understand himself, at the beginning of their journey: I have something to do before the end. I must see it through, sir, if you understand.
He flung the Quest and all his decisions away, and fear and doubt with them. He knew now where his place was and had been: at his master’s side, though what he could do there was not clear. Back he ran down the steps, down the path towards Frodo.
[…]
‘I wonder if any song will ever mention it: How Samwise fell in the High Pass and made a wall of bodies round his master. No, no song. Of course not, for the Ring’ll be found, and there’ll be no more songs. I can’t help it. My place is by Mr. Frodo. They must understand that—Elrond and the Council, and the great Lords and Ladies with all their wisdom. Their plans have gone wrong. I can’t be their Ring-bearer. Not without Mr. Frodo.’
