Disclaimer: Would it surprise anyone if I told them that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and I didn't? Would any fanfiction writer be amazed that I am not getting paid for corrupting someone else's brilliant ideas? No, didn't think so.
Author's Note (from the real author; this entire chapter is Frodo's "Author's Note"): The characterization of Frodo Baggins that you find in this fic might differ from the Frodo you have seen in the majority of Lord of the Rings-based fanfiction. As many writers' interpretations of characters are, this version of Frodo is, like the Tom Riddle/Voldemort of my Harry Potter fanfic (whom I should get patented), an extension of my own personality. He is witty and matter-of-fact, philosophical and anti-philosophical at once, with a dry sense of humor and irony and a delight in self-parody. Uncommon in the extensive genre of Hobbit-angst is his tendency to mock and admonish self-pity, and while these vignettes abound in angst and self-pity, it is countered with a wry side and thereby, I sincerely hope, kept from being bogged down in excessively self-occupied remorse and misery. A reviewer once commended me for giving Frodo a decently sophisticated vocabulary and not making him the whiny teenager of far too many fanfics. He is educated, after all, and not only "as hobbits go." No one wants a character who loudly demands sympathy; one who simply presents his case and allows the reader to choose to sympathize is much preferable. That is the Voldemort I consistently write, and it is the Frodo I strive to create in my interpretation of him and the kind of thoughts and Random Musings he might have.
The Random Musings of Frodo Baggins
In introduction of this little compilation, I must first assert that this is not a diary. I will not be opening the entries in these pages with such items as "I had porridge for breakfast today," for I am quite certain that posterity (or whatever unfortunate soul happens upon my inane ramblings) does not care.
Rather, this collection of writings is just that – a collection of written records of my most noteworthy ponderings and epiphanies while here in Minas Tirith, awaiting whatever wonderful occurrence Aragorn promises will make the delay of our homecoming worthwhile. I find myself doing a great deal of withdrawn musing these days; for I think I have been irrevocably changed by my odyssey through darkness, both for the worse and in a way for the better – or for the wiser, at any rate. I think also that perhaps I should like to keep a record of these musings in the event that one of them, at least, might prove valuable to my own recollection of these days, if not to anyone else. And it is amusing to imagine the historians of the future looking to these writings for a portrait of the famous Halfling Ring-bearer whose sacrifice, unlikely courage, finger, et cetera, bought the freedom of Middle-earth from the darkening Shadow of Mordor.
So here I begin my own book, not a cohesive story like Bilbo's There and Back Again or the account of my own adventures that Bilbo will no doubt force me to write, but a book of my disconnected, rambling, ranting, random innermost thoughts and musings. Read, O discoverer, if you desire a window into the mind of Frodo Baggins; I can guarantee that your desire will be more than sated before long.