So this is NOT my article, that's why the quotation marks - I just found this extremely great and thought this stands out better in this makala section than in the Links.
In upendo with Their Love
"The best prism to see Sam’s upendo for Frodo is through the words of a friend of mine who is not even familiar with the story, but has been told kwa Marafiki about it, who states, “It’s the purest kind of love. From soul to soul.” She echoes, all unknowingly, The Gospel According to Tolkien kwa Ralph C. Wood: “Sam and Frodo give incarnate life to what the Old Testament means when it describes a friend as a person ‘who is as your own soul.’ (Deut. 13:6). Their mutual regard is also akin to the friendship of Jonathan and David: ‘the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’ (1 Sam 18:1). So is their bond like that between [Paul and Timothy as Paul writes:] “I thank God...when I remember wewe constantly in my prayers. As I remember your tears, I long night and siku to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” (2 Tim 1:3-4).”
Knitted souls is the most beautiful descriptions of their love. There is no other way to zaidi accurately describe this wonderful friendship. Sam has always seen Frodo’s bright, shining soul and has loved it and him ever zaidi and more, even when that soul becomes a very troubled, anguished, tormented one. He’s loved it and him since he was 9, at the latest (when a certain tween moved into Bag End), he was still loving it ever zaidi at 109 if he lived that long. I would even dare say he was created to upendo it, since without that upendo Frodo would not have been able to accomplish what he was created to do. That is a rather profound (if I do say so myself) way of looking at it - that one person was specifically created to upendo another person. Of course, this upendo gets extended just as fiercely later to Rosie in a different way and to their many children and grandchildren and beforehand to Sam’s parents and siblings, but he was created first and foremost to upendo and take care of his Frodo. Sam’s behavior supports that he believes that too. He considers himself to belong to Frodo and Frodo to belong to him as someone who he is responsible for looking after. He will do whatever he needs to do to try to ease his dearest friend’s suffering. Frodo for his part enjoys possessing and being possessed kwa “my Sam”. In the Dead Marshes in the book, he calls Sam “...my dear hobbit, indeed Sam, my dearest hobbit, friend of friends...” A shabiki writer reassures the orphaned Frodo who never knew romantic upendo and hadn’t yet met Sam that he would still know “the greatest upendo that could be known.”
Indeed, Sam is upendo incarnate. He loves with God’s love. I ran across a quote from a rabbi that said, “Love is not blind. It sees more, not less but because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen talked about being able to kubeba and upendo the unbeautiful because one had already seen the beautiful. That is how Sam can go on loving with skipping a beat even when a sword is pressed at his throat, au he is accused of being a thief kwa the one he loves most in the world au he has to watch his beloved master be slowly consumed kwa the Ring.
“You are worth what your moyo is worth,” Pope John Paul II said. That makes Sam priceless.
Elijah Wood describes Frodo and Sam’s relationship as “Quite simply, it is love...It is that unconditional upendo that says, regardless of what wewe do au where wewe go, I will always be there for you.” He and Sean Astin grew very close on the set so it is that upendo also wewe see. Quoting Elijah again, “Every siku we get up, come into work, put our hobbit feet on and off we go together, side kwa side every step of the way.” “We upendo each other very much,” he alisema in another interview and they weren’t afraid to onyesha it either. Professor Tolkien called Sam “a jewel among hobbits.” Sean calls him “...the ultimate hobbit...he has an undying friendship with Frodo that is so strong, he’s willing to face the adventure of the unknown to help him.” He describes his relationship with Elijah to be one of brothers.
I read the vitabu after I saw the films and my inayopendelewa parts were the growing upendo of Sam for Frodo, especially in Book Four and Six. It was the tower scene that really sealed it for me. It is such a wonderful, tender, loving scene that shows the purity and beauty of their upendo so well. When I kusoma the story for the first time, I read parts of it aloud to my family and could barely form the words to say that Frodo was being whipped. It was almost too painful to say, after all he had already suffered. It always had confused me in the film that Sam alisema “You can’t be walking around in nothing but your skin.” I thought, “What are wewe saying, he’s got pants on.” Well, I found out why he alisema that in the book and Sam thinks he could be happy for the rest of his life just holding Frodo and due to our corrupt age, I’m thinking in the back of my mind, “You’re holding a naked man in your arms and wewe think that’s the greatest thing in the world.” (Well, not a man, but wewe know what I mean.). But of course, Sam doesn’t see it that way - he sees it the correct way, the way I did after the initial shock wore off quickly enough - he’s holding his beloved master and that’s the greatest thing in the world. It is the most beautiful scene in the entire story. There is nothing erotic au sexual about it. The other scenes in the Fellowship book - the bath at Crickhollow and running around in the fields after the barrow-wights nearly had them - onyesha how completely natural and unashamed the hobbits are around each other’s naked bodies. They think nothing of it. They are completely innocent and pure - one shabiki essay I read has it like Adam and Eve before the Fall. And that fits. And Tolkien was devoutly Catholic. He wouldn’t have written anything immoral. He already understood, 50 years ago, what Pope John Paul II taught about the Theology of the Body. It is only our society that has grown so corrupt that nakedness has to equal sexuality. It doesn’t and it didn’t in this story. So while Frodo was stretching his legs and I was shouting in my mind, “Put some clothes on!” I realized that I didn’t really have to do that. There was nothing there but complete upendo and trust on both parts.
Sam and Frodo passed through hell together and any sense that the Gaffer had drilled into Sam about his ‘place’ burned away in that purifying moto as Frodo became not Sam’s master, but zaidi best friend, brother and even child. Sam recognized fully that his ‘place’ was at Frodo’s side, that they were no longer servant and master, but closer than blood brothers, sharing the same moyo and soul.
Those many expressions of Sam’s upendo - kissing his beloved master’s brow au hands, promising to return to his body and never depart, nearly drowning in order to stay kwa Frodo’s side, fighting a buibui a heck of a lot taller than he is and entering and imba in the enemy’s tower, holding Frodo while he slept, just to name a few - are my inayopendelewa parts in the books. The power of that upendo and how sweet and beautiful and tender it is really stayed with me. I really wasn’t looking mbele to kusoma about the Grey Havens, knowing how badly Sam’s moyo was broken in the film, but I was relieved it wasn’t so bad and in the book and the appendices revealed that he left for the Undying Lands himself after Rosie died. I do so hope he and Frodo were reunited at last. Imagine having to live without half of your moyo and soul for over 60 years!
The movie showed their upendo very well too in all those tender smiles, words, embraces and looks throughout, especially in the tower and the Houses of Healing, that reverent farewell kiss. If we could all upendo and be loved that deeply and that purely (or as purely as Sam and Rose loved each other), then the world would be a much better place.
It is a great crime and sin that some ‘fans’ have written au drawn a total perversion of that completely pure and wonderful upendo and violate the innocence of these beautiful people, not to mention betraying the master storyteller himself and how he meant that upendo to be. Again quoting from The Gospel According to Tolkien: “Nor is Tolkien squeamish about having Sam express his upendo for Frodo physically, as he kisses Frodo’s hands, holds the sleeping Frodo’s head in his lap, and places his own hand on the somnolent Frodo’s breast. Whether in ancient hyper-masculine cultures au modern homoerotic cultures, such gestures are suspect. Not for Tolkien. Instead, he depicts Sam and Frodo’s friendship as a thing of exquisite beauty, even holiness. The most poignant account of their philia is found in the fair land of Ithilien...Sam beholds the sleeping Frodo as a friend whose worth is beyond all estimate.” And here he nukuu my inayopendelewa scene from Book Four, that I will abbreviate slightly: “He was reminded suddenly of Frodo as he had lain, asleep in the house of Elrond, after his deadly wound. Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful...[Sam] shook his head...and murmured: “I upendo him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I upendo him, whether au no.” “These sentiments, felt and spoken at the edge of Mordor, reveal the ultimate distance between the Fellowship and their enemies. None of Sauron’s slaves can be imagined as ever uttering such a simple sentence as ‘I upendo him.”
Sam loves Frodo, at least, if not more, fiercely as he loves Rosie, though of course in a different way. Rosie is half of Sam’s heart, but Frodo is the other half. One professional essay says Sam’s upendo approaches ‘religious devotion’ kwa the third book and after they return he ‘longs to stay with Frodo forever’ but he also wants to be with Rosie. (Marion Zimmer Bradley, from Understanding the Lord of the Rings). The editors of that collection of essays “devoutly wished” her essay would put to rest the misunderstandings regarding this relationship. Too bad it didn’t.
Some people can’t understand that Sam’s upendo for Frodo is just as strong as his for Rosie’s, but that I would say is Prof. Tolkien’s view of it and those shabiki writers who see the truth and the way I see things. I have up on the refrigerator a small picture of Frodo and Sam. Frodo is looking fearfully into the distance and Sam is, of course, looking protectively at him and wewe can hear them saying, “I’m afraid, Sam.” and his Sam replying, “Don’t be, dear. I am here. I am not going to leave you. I’m going to take care of you.” One shabiki calls Frodo, Sam’s heart’s “dearest treasure” and this she calls him after they’ve been separated physically, but not in their hearts, for over 60 years! Such is the strength of this cumulative, ever deepening, marvelous upendo story that is theirs that unfolds over the three books. One shabiki writer calls Frodo and Sam’s upendo the “most beautiful bond in literature.”
I think it’s wonderful that their story can be called a upendo story - what else could it be called? Yes, they are “more than friends” as the slashers upendo to say, but not the way they mean it. They are brothers, not lovers. The intensity of their upendo is the upendo that men sometimes form in combat, so strong that it even surpasses the upendo of women and anything else. One shabiki story I read has Sam never marrying, but devoting his life to taking care of his Frodo. Frodo never went West because he couldn’t kubeba to part from Sam. He still had his anniversary illnesses, but he knew he was loved and he was going to slowly heal that way. Oh, to be loved that much, to be the center of someone’s universe like that!
As wewe well know, I’m uandishi my own upendo stories and I am emulating the master as best I can. These are the most unusual upendo stories I have ever written, but I glory that I can do it. I rejoice to be among such wonderful kindred spirits I have discovered who have the same upendo for Frodo and Sam and their upendo that I do and it’s so satisfying to draw inspiration from them for my own uandishi as well from the master that we all draw from. I upendo the idea some have put forth that Frodo and Sam were very close even in childhood, that their upendo already had deep roots before the Quest made them even closer than brothers, such an essential part of each other’s moyo and soul that each needed the other to be completely whole. kusoma other people’s reverent interpretations of Frodo has aliyopewa zaidi a greater upendo for him, a greater heartache for all he suffered, a much deeper appreciation of all he sacrificed and what a gentle, loving moyo he had to give so much, everything really, for the Shire and its people. My moyo has been broken zaidi than once, tears have come to my eyes - it has been a long time since that has happened and it’s wonderful! The stories also remind me that Merry and Pippin upendo Frodo just as much as Sam does and he loves them just as dearly. Some of the stories have detailed how joyous and loving Frodo’s relationship with his younger cousins were and it is so sad that the Ring destroyed any zaidi possibility of such joy and light, though of course, the upendo remained. I am just so glad to have all of these writers so I can stay in Middle-earth that much longer with my beloved hobbits - all four of them! May their upendo live forever!
I have discovered though that it's a very personal thing to be able to handle au not this type of such openly demonstrative love. I had to get used to it myself. As I alisema I was thrown off when I first read the tower scene and in shabiki stories when Merry called Pippin “dearest” au Sam called Frodo “my love” au Pippin asked Merry if he could sleep with him. It is the pagan society that we are immersed in unfortunately that has us see things the wrong way at first, but now I consider it the most beautiful expression of upendo there is. Pippin asking Merry if he can share his kitanda is the same as one of my nieces asking her sister. It’s upendo for a beloved cousin, not lust, that is motivating that request. The three cousins have been doing it all their lives and are zaidi comfortable being together than apart. There is nothing they upendo zaidi than a good cuddle. They mean the world to each other and don’t mind inaonyesha it. It would be against their nature not to. It just pours out of them. One shabiki put it very well when she said, “They are adults but they upendo like children.” They aren’t afraid of holding each other au kissing each other on the head goodnight au saying “I upendo you” au whatever and during and after the Quest that extends to Sam and how he treats Frodo. The beauty and purity of this upendo is that it's between two males. When I'm uandishi it, I am celebrating in the back of my head that it can be done that way, but in front I don't think of them as males, but just two souls that dearly upendo each other. It's kinda like wewe didn't see Sulu and Chekov from the original Star Trek as Asian and Russian, wewe just saw Sulu and Chekov. That's a very weak analogy, but it's like wewe are seeing them as who they really are, not what race they were. The four hobbits see much deeper, they upendo the soul of their beloved. That is what I’m uandishi about. Our beloved hobbits don't suffer from the terrible affliction that boys and men in our society have in that they can't onyesha affection to other men without being thought of as sissies au worse except when they get the winning nyumbani run au something.
So I’ve decided based on very mixed reviews of this tolerance level within my family and a few Marafiki to take an informal survey to try to determine what is so special hobbity upendo and why some people can handle such a high level of affection between them and some can’t. I have a male friend who is married and thought “Worth Fighting For” showed the “purity and innocence” of their love. I have another male married friend who thinks Sam’s upendo is “too pure”. My family gags on it and you, dearest reviewers, upendo it. I have female friend who has known romantic upendo as well who alisema “I upendo hobbity love, especially yours.” I have another married friend who hasn’t had the time to read my stuff yet, but alisema that “Frodo and Sam upendo each other.” He placed a special emphasis on upendo and he had the correct understanding of it. I can’t figure out all these mixed reviews, hence this little survey.
So, dear readers and dearer reviewers, what is the best part about hobbity love? If wewe wouldn’t mind terribly, please tell me whether wewe are married au not and whether the fact that wewe know romantic upendo yourself colors the way wewe would see a upendo that is completely pure but it on the surface expressed in much the same way romantic upendo is. If I have any male readers, I’d like to know that too.
Hantanyel and Namarie,
God bless,
Antane :)"
PS.
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