Having not noticed this for many years and multiple re-readings; I have become increasingly aware of the ways in which Frodo's - illegitimate - use of the One Ring, and expectations of using the One Ring, prepared the ground for his inability to destroy The Ring when he arrived at the cracks of doom on March 25.
Significant was Frodo's first, and frivolous, use of The Ring in the House of Tom Bombadil.
But Frodo later begins to reveal that he is considering using the ring as an instrument of power, specifically against Gollum; and (as previously described) this recurs in the climactic scene on the slopes of Mount Doom, when Frodo actually claims the One Ring for the first time (i.e. even before the he stood beside the cracks of doom).
Knowing this, I have now become aware of clear instances of foreshadowing - incremental steps by which led towards Frodo claiming The Ring - that I had previously missed.
Outside the Black Gate on March 4, Frodo makes the following threat to Gollum:
"You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing.
"Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Sméagol, you said.
"Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end.
"You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command.
"So have a care, Sméagol!"
This is a very explicit and convincing threat to use the One Ring illegitimately; not merely to escape from danger, but to overpower the will of another.
Another clear but subtle sign of the way that Frodo had begun to think, happened a few days later on March 10, outside Minas Morgul - expressed in just two words.
I have added the italicized emphasis, but I had not noticed these words - or their significance - before my current re-reading:
Maybe it was the Ring that called to the Wraith-lord, and for a moment he was troubled, sensing some other power within his valley. This way and that turned the dark head helmed and crowned with fear, sweeping the shadows with its unseen eyes.
Frodo waited, like a bird at the approach of a snake, unable to move. And as he waited, he felt, more urgent than ever before, the command that he should put on the Ring. But great as the pressure was, he felt no inclination now to yield to it. He knew that the Ring would only betray him, and that he had not, even if he put it on, the power to face the Morgul-king - not yet.
There was no longer any answer to that command in his own will, dismayed by terror though it was, and he felt only the beating upon him of a great power from outside.
Those words "Not yet" seem to be revealing that at least part of Frodo was actually - even before he had entered Mordor - planning to achieve sufficient mastery over the power of The Ring; to be able, at some point in the future, to face the Morgul-King - most powerful of Sauron's servants.
From the above; it seems evident that the idea of becoming The Ring Lord was growing in Frodo's mind for about three weeks, before it reached the point of full domination over his will.
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