Re-reading the Lord of the Rings, Chapter 5

After Frodo made his first steps in a more dangerous world in the previous chapter, he learns in this one that he's not alone, but that his friends are pretty much his equals.

It is of course a common thing that, once you've heard the calling, you think you're someone special. Well, you might be special, but not that special. Obviously Tolkien extracts some fun out of his professoral experiences again:

‘Just this, my dear old Frodo: you are miserable, because you don’t know how to say good-bye. You meant to leave the Shire, of course. But danger has come on you sooner than you expected, and now you are making up your mind to go at once. And you don’t want to. We are very sorry for you.’

Frodo opened his mouth and shut it again. His look of surprise was so comical that they laughed.

Honestly, I don't think that Elijah Wood would have been able to pull this off, so it might be a good thing that none of this made it into the film. Anyway, Frodo is not free from smugness, he had his own delusions of grandeur, but he's adjusting.

‘After that I kept my eyes open. In fact, I confess that I spied. But you must admit that it was very intriguing, and I was only in my teens. I must be the only one in the Shire, besides you Frodo, that has ever seen the old fellow’s secret book.’

‘You have read his book!’ cried Frodo. ‘Good heavens above! Is nothing safe?’

‘Not too safe, I should say,’ said Merry.

There's some weighing of the options here as well, a good sleep and the light of day or some hours more? Frodo chooses the former, but if you think about it that choice hinges on something that has never clearly been emphasised, namely that the Ringwraiths don't know that Frodo knows that they follow him: Whenever he saw them, they didn't see him. They either didn't know how near they were or they came a little too late. Granted, they may have heard the Hobbits as the Elves appeared, but then again Elves have sharp ears and eyes and the Ringwraiths certainly wouldn't want to be noticed by them. And that the Hobbits would take the shortcut from the clearing might be attributed to their folly, considering how near the aim of their journey seemed from there.

So, the Ringwraiths have to weigh causing general alarm by open attack of the nothern gate against the Hobbits making use of some extra hours, i.e. we're in the so called fog of war, no side knows precisely what the other side is doing, and so both sides have to base their decisions on what appears to them to be the most rational decision by the opposing side.

The degree to which Frodo is conscious of this isn't exposed, but all the relevant arguments are there and he's making the right choice.