Frodo, Buffy, and Why I Intend to Move Away From the Chosen One

Jennifer R. Povey
6 min readJan 26, 2022
Photo by Anh Henry Nguyen on Unsplash

It’s a staple of western literature.

Luke, the farm boy, is driven to heroism by the death of his family, turns out to be the bad guy’s son. He’s the hero because The Force Says So.

Frodo, our hobbit friend, inherits heroism from an uncle who was a hero because Gandalf Said So. (It really is all Gandalf’s fault).

Buffy is the one girl in each generation.

Superman is the guy with the powers. Spider-Man is the hero because The Radioactive Spider Says So.

It’s so embedded in our way of storytelling that we can’t escape it. Arthur was the hero because The Sword Said So.

Either our heroes are chosen by some kind of external power…whether it’s the field that holds the universe together, a powerful wizard or…a spider. Or they are Driven To Heroism by hardship.

In Luke Skywalker’s case it’s both.

Frodo and Sam

I recently read a social media post that made this argument, and I think quite legitimately.

The protagonist of Lord of the Rings isn’t Frodo.

It’s Sam.

It’s Samwise Gamgee.

Because there is a key difference between Frodo and Sam.

Frodo becomes the ringbearer because he inherits the ring. Bilbo chooses him as Gandalf chose Bilbo.

Sam becomes the ringbearer because he loves Frodo and chooses to go with him.

(Note, I don’t ship Sam and Frodo. But they clearly do love each other).

Ergo, Sam is the one with the true agency. Ergo, Sam is the protagonist.

I’m not necessarily saying that this person was right. (I’d give credit, but I managed to forget who said it. Maybe somebody on my feed can help).

But this person had a point.

The chosen one inherently and absolutely lacks agency.

Photo by Luc Bercoth on Unsplash

Buffy, the One in a Generation

--

--

Jennifer R. Povey

I write about fantasy, science fiction and horror, LGBT issues, travel, and social issues.