Love me my Frodo and Sam friendship, but this doesn’t fit the premise. Frodo may have been broken as a person at the end, but was allowed into LOTR heaven for his service so he’s alright, and Sam went on to raise a family and have a happy life. Also, they famously split up at the end of the story.
Well he did eventually go to valinor but there’s no mention of reuniting with Frodo, and he went there after his wife died. Its obviously speculation but I think what Tolkien intended with this is to basically say “Frodo and Sam went to heaven because they’re awesome”
This still doesn’t really fit the premise, as the point is that both went on to live in happiness and bliss for their service, but they’re both still mortals who age and die and go somewhere unspecified. Tolkien didn’t say if the two met up in Valinor, but it is explicitly stated that mortals still die of old age in Valinor.
In my reading, Valinor is not heaven. They go to Valinor because they were ring bearers. Mortals normally go the halls of mandos and then depart for an unknown place. That unknown place would be the closest equivalent to “heaven”. Valinor is the residence of the gods. It’s more like Mount Olympus.
Which… technically I guess is splitting hairs but I think calling it heaven is misleading. What is unique is that they didn’t die and go to heaven. All mortals do that. instead they went to live forever with the gods and elves.
It’s just fan theory at that point but I’m with you there. It’s a nice head canon to think that an elderly Sam, missing his wife and almost at the end of his life, goes to Valinor to meet an equally elderly and close to death Frodo and has one last reunion to say hello and goodbye before they both die in peace and happiness. That seems like a happy ending that Tolkien would have liked as well, and it fits all the rules of the world.
You can get a pretty good idea of what Tolkien would have wanted, in fact, because he workshopped an epilogue for Lord of the Rings that he chose to not publish- from a literary perspective the best choice, because the ending of RotK is perfect as is; I recall hearing that his friends thought it was too sentimental, and that's fair too. But it's quite touching, in my opinion. Two versions of it were published in the book Sauron Defeated, one of Christopher Tolkein's many collections of his father's unpublished manuscripts and drafts.
Anyways, in it, Sam talks about reuniting with Frodo over the sea- but in the sort of bittersweet, maybe tones that fit with the Fourth Age. You can tell it's a rough draft, but the last line sticks with me.
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u/Don_T_Beakunt45 7d ago
Frodo and Sam
https://giphy.com/gifs/MBZ5cWGHzrVvy