You Must Go Back…For Them: Refusal of the Return

Once the hero has reaped the fruits of his struggles in the Special World, sometimes the desire to stay exerts such a strong force that he refuses to return to his Ordinary World. This can be because the hero finds a sense of meaning and purpose so compelling in the Special World, that returning home seems pointless. Other times, the hero feels that he has become corrupted and, in some sense, unworthy to return to his loved ones. Still other times he is simply too exhausted to make the trip back. The Refusal of the Return is a stage not always seen in stories, but one of the most stunning examples of it in recent times was in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

When Frodo was about to achieve the Ultimate Boon and fulfill his mission to cast the Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doom, Sauron’s sickening influence finally overtook him and he placed the ring on his finger, only to have it chewed off by Golam. Frodo then fights with the haggard little creature and he ends up falling into the lava along with the ring. Frodo is left hanging on to the cliff’s edge, exhausted from the journey, and shockingly aware of just how close he had come to failing in his mission. He resigns himself to falling when his faithful companion and conscience, Samwise Gamgee, reaches down and pleads with him to not give up. Inspired by his friend’s love, Frodo makes one…