Me and my family watch the Lord of the Rings movies at least once a year around the Thanksgiving / Christmas season. We've seen it so many times that we often quote the lines with the actor, such as the Rohirrim charge speech.
One scene, however, always makes me tear up. Sam and Frodo had just escaped the claws of a felbeast and, as the final wave of orcs fall, the following is said:
FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.
SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?
SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for
Happy Thanksgiving, guys. God is good and our ancestors will be vindicated.
