Ultimately, the greatest strength of Tolkien’s Hobbits in their epic struggle against all odds is their basic human decency It is their essential humanity, their simple but pure human spirits, which allowed them to triumph in the end And it is this human element, combined with the grandeur and pomp of a magnificently conceived mythic world that has been the key to Tolkien’s continued popularity Characteristically, however, Frodo Baggins the Hobbit actually does live up to the classic “hero” image at the time of the ultimate test At the last moment, on the edge of the Crack of Doom, the Hobbit’s resolve fails and he refuses to destroy the One Ring Virtuous though Frodo is, it is not the strength of his will that allows the One Ring to be destroyed and Middle-earth to be saved, it is Frodo’s unprovoked and almost foolish charity toward an undeserving enemy Out of a sense of mercy, the Hobbit allows the treacherous Gollum to live Reason should tell Frodo that Gollum will betray him again, but the Hobbit chooses to obey his heart In the end, the One Ring is destroyed exactly because Frodo takes pity on his enemy, and Gollum survives long enough to betray him again On the edge of the Crack of Doom, Gollum wrestles with the Hobbit Finally, he overcomes the weakened Frodo He viciously bites off the Hobbit’s ring finger Then, seizing the One Ring, Gollum topples backward into the fiery abyss The One Ring is destroyed In Frodo the Hobbit, Tolkien found a twentieth-century Everyman who has, and will continue to have in the twenty-first century, universal appeal to people of any time and any place In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings the Hobbit teaches us that “attempting to conquer Sauron with the ring” is no longer the goal of the quest In the end, it is not the power of the mind, nor the strength of the body, but the instincts of the human heart that save the world It is the simple human capacity for mercy that finally allows evil to be overthrown