Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Middle-earth Psychology: Case Study #2

For the second installment to my miniseries connecting psychology with history and The Lord of the Rings, I turn my focus to Frodo Baggins. As the protagonist and in-universe editor of Tolkien’s most famous work, along with one of his most polarizing characters, Frodo’s enigmatic writing style not only brought ambiguity to his unreliable narration but also indicated severe and untreated mental illness. While a diagnosis of PTSD has been applied to the character, I have not seen a more in-depth psychological profile. I wanted to present a comprehensive picture of what I think Frodo was experiencing based on my research of medieval folklore, 19^th through early 20^th century medicine, and modern diagnostic tools.

As mentioned in my first essay of this miniseries, this is not a medical blog, and I am not a professional psychologist. I do have significant knowledge about the modern fields of disability and mental health through my work as a Disability Circle Employee Resource Group leader at my job, and as the historian-in-residence at the National Museum of Mental Health Project. All evaluations of the sometimes beloved, sometimes hated character are conducted in good faith with the intention of educating the public on how these disabilities might appear in a person from the Real World.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Like his ‘uncle’, Frodo exhibited atypical behaviors throughout the text, but the symptoms seem to be frequently missed by readers. This may be since significant sections of the books take place from Frodo’s perspective, and he seems to not always realize the oddity of his behavior. The most obvious symptoms indicated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to his experience during the War of the Ring, which has been discussed at length by many other readers. But even before traveling to Mordor, he likely had a form of PTSD, perhaps complex PTSD (C-PTSD) from the stress of early parental death, foster care, a physical assault that triggered a pathological fear of dogs, and alienation from most of the hobbit community.

While the modern diagnosis of C-PTSD has existed only since 2015, instances of this condition have been recorded even in the earliest surviving literature, with some scholars arguing that the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh showed signs of the condition after the death of his best friend Enkidu. Perhaps the first known account from Europe comes from the writings of Jean Froissart, a French medieval writer who traveled around western Europe seemingly as a celebrity and wrote about local history and legends. He described the condition of Sir Pierre de Béarn, the half-brother of his friend Gaston III, comte de Foix, who began sleepwalking with his sword after he killed a large bear. His wife, Florence of Aragon the Countess of Vizcaya, ended up leaving him and taking the children for their own safety. The Christian medieval people genuinely appeared to believe the bear may have been a cursed knight transformed by a god or goddess as a punishment, and killing the bear had transferred the curse to Sir Pierre.

Among the earliest descriptions with medical merit came from the 1798 book Nosographie Philosophique by Philippe Pinel, where he described a man named Pascal who suffered from flashbacks after an accident while traveling and cited several cases of soldiers who survived the French Revolution but underwent extreme personality changes in a condition he labeled “idiotismé”, translated literally into English as “idiotism”. This was considered the technically correct diagnosis at the time, although the term is frowned upon today.

Just before World War I, the German term Kriegsneurose or “war neurosis” appeared in 1907. The diagnosis is attributed to a doctor with the German-Jewish surname Honigman, but no other information is widely available. With the outbreak of war seven years later, French doctor Gaston Milian coined the term hypnose des batailles or “battle hypnosis”. Tolkien cited his experience during World War I as the contribution to this aspect of the text. At this time, PTSD was known as shell shock. British doctor Captain Charles S. Myers conducted the first study of shell shock in 1915 and published his findings in The Lancet. More terms emerged during World War II, including the American term “physioneurosis” and Russian term affeklivno-shokovye reaktsii or “affective shock reactions”. By the time DSM-I came out in 1968, the term had shifted to “gross stress reaction”. Our modern understanding of PTSD did not arrive until DSM-III was published in 1980.

How does Frodo’s condition compare to official diagnostic materials? According to ICD-11, a person with any form of PTSD “re-experiences the traumatic event… flashbacks, or nightmares”. Frodo annually relived being stabbed by a Ringwraith at Weathertop and attacked by Shelob. More interestingly, a poem in the legendarium found in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil but not included in the original text of The Lord of the Rings had a title translated to “The Sea-bell: Frodos Dreme”. Tolkien expert Verlyn Flieger, who presented during the Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference, compared the poem in spirit to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, a veteran’s account of World War I whose memories were altered by his wartime trauma.

For other symptoms common in PTSD, among the earliest indicators was Frodo displaying an “enhanced startle reaction to stimuli such as unexpected noises”. While asleep at the Prancing Pony in Bree, he was awakened “suddenly, as if some sound or presence had disturbed him”, which was implied to be the horns of Buckland (Fellowship, 200). Much later on the quest, Sam reported that Frodo showed “avoidance of thoughts and memories” while walking to the Crack of Doom, as Frodo might suddenly seem happier later in the day as if forgetting their problems. Gandalf noticed the same effect on the first anniversary of the stabbing at Weathertop: Frodo was in pain during the morning but seemed better later in the day.

Symptoms aligning with C-PTSD included “problems in affect regulation”, meaning difficulty in self-expression, especially concerning facial expression. In “The Breaking of the Fellowship”, Aragorn noted difficulty in understanding Frodo’s thoughts, but Sam had learned to perceive exactly what his master was thinking. Another striking symptom was Frodo’s “beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated… guilt or failure related to the traumatic event”. He blamed himself for having a “weak will” and putting on the Ring while at Weathertop, allowing the Ringwraith to stab him, and then “burdening” his friends by being too injured to walk. His belief that he failed in destroying the Ring, even though he had given more effort than any other person of Middle-earth could have done, permeated his text to the point that many readers misread him as a failure instead of recognizing Frodo as an unreliable narrator. Finally, he had “difficulty in sustaining relationships and feeling close to others”, likely developed after the death of his parents and the apparent neglect of his extended family while a foster child but compounded by his abandonment by Bilbo. Frodo left the Fellowship after a single incident with Boromir and ultimately left his family to sail across the Sea.

Neurodivergence and Masking

Even if C-PTSD was Frodo’s only mental health condition, he may have been prevented from integrating into a postmedieval, protoindustrial society. A modern psychologist could possibly diagnose him with other conditions, which would have further alienated him from his community. Like Bilbo, he had lapses in attention and impulsivity, indicators of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He abruptly asked Tom Bombadil about the Black Riders at bedtime despite protests from his friends (Fellowship, 143) attempted to stab a Black Rider (Fellowship, 221), blurted out the location of Nenya, the magical ring of Galadriel (Fellowship, 437), and tried to free solo climb down from a cliff in The Two Towers, to name a few of the many instances. Unlike his charismatic ‘uncle’, Frodo lacked Bilbo’s ability to read a room, or seemingly any ability to assess a social situation. While he did indicate an instance of “juvenile delinquency” when repeatedly stealing mushrooms from Farmer Maggot (Fellowship, 103), theft of food by a solitary adolescent while in foster care is more indicative of neglect or abuse in the home environment than a personality disorder. The other aspects of “food maintenance syndrome” include hoarding food and binging food to the point of obesity, which were standard features of Hobbit culture and would easily be overlooked or rewarded. This points to a different comorbid diagnosis.

I personally believe Frodo displays symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), specifically the variant without an intellectual development disorder and without impairment of functional language. In fact, Frodo was known to be “wiser” than most people and had “great ‘skill with foreign sounds’” (The Return of the King, 438), allowing him to quickly learn new languages. Those familiar only with pop culture representations of autism, such as the 1988 film Rainman featuring American actor Dustin Hoffman as an autistic savant, may be shocked and even annoyed by this suggestion. They may believe suggesting diagnosis for characters is a silly trend rather than an important step for allowing people of all abilities to feel included. However, “actually autistic” people have a wide range of personalities and are often adept at masking or blending in with their social setting, especially if they have above average intelligence and stereotypically feminine attributes.

The diagnosis of autism has a relatively brief history. Donald Gray Triplett was the first person diagnosed with autism, at that time called “autistic disturbance of affective contact”. Dr. Leo Kanner, a psychologist working at Johns Hopkins University, based his diagnosis not on observation but on notes sent by Triplett’s father, Oliver Beaman Triplett. Most interestingly, the elder Triplett was known for obsession with detail and mental breakdowns, an indicator to modern psychologists that he may also have been autistic and endured extreme stress from constant masking. The diagnosis occurred in 1943, while Triplett passed away in 2023. His story may never have been recognized if not for the journalists John Donvan and Caren Zucker who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book In a Different Key: The Story of Autism and narrated the history in more detail than I have the room to provide here. The best summary I can give is that this condition has less than a hundred years of medical research and continues to be poorly understood.

Aligning with ICD-11, common autistic behaviors include “persistent deficits in initiating and sustaining social communication and reciprocal social interactions”, which Frodo displayed while speaking with other hobbits, often resorting to a repeated phrase or silently shrugging when he did not feel like responding. While in Bree at the Prancing Pony, he sat in a corner rather than interacting with other guests who were actively interested in him (“At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”, Fellowship) and initially ignored the people around him while feasting at Rivendell (“Many Meetings”, Fellowship). He seemed to struggle to understand “new experiences and circumstances”, causing Gandalf to take an extraordinarily long time to explain situations to him, seen in the twenty pages of explanatory dialogue in Book I “Chapter 2 The Shadow of the Past” (Fellowship, 50-69) and seven pages of dialogue in Book II “Chapter 1 Many Meetings” (Fellowship, 245-251). When Elrond worried that Pippin did not understand what was happening, Gandalf reminded him that Frodo did not understand either (Fellowship, 310).

His “inflexible adherence to particular routines” combined with “difficulty sustaining attention” from ADHD may have mentally paralyzed his decision making, causing him to linger in the Shire for about five months after Gandalf told him about the Ring, and then linger in Rivendell for about two months after Elrond formed the Fellowship. Conversely, he displayed another attribute of autism and ADHD: the ability to “hyperfocus”, shown when he single-mindedly insisted on destroying the Ring and as he wrote and edited a complex literary work in about a year and a half. He displayed “repetitive and stereotyped motor movement”, as he waved his arms happily in “A Conspiracy Unmasked” after Merry declared that he and Pippin would join the adventure (Fellowship, 119). Even before he was stabbed by a Black Rider’s blade, Frodo had “lifelong excessive and persistent hypersensitivity… which may include actual or anticipated sounds”, also described as an unusually keen sense of hearing, which in some cases has similarities to the enhanced startle response to noises found in PTSD. This ability to hear sounds differently than others is indicative of an auditory processor disorder, a common comorbid condition for neurodivergent people, or those with atypical brain development. While the ears of people with this condition are physically typical, their brains filter sounds differently, allowing them to hear noises that typical brains filter out. This may have allowed Frodo to perceive the horns of Buckland while in Bree.

Frodo initially struggled “to imagine and respond to the feelings, emotional states, and attitude of others”, becoming astonished when Sam demonstrated his ability to reason after encountering elves for the first time (“Three Is Company”, Fellowship). Research that has not yet been incorporated into ICD-11 describes the condition as “empathic disequilibrium”, meaning that while a person might not be able to imagine themselves in the situation of another person, they strongly sense pure emotions and can feel overwhelmed. This may explain Frodo’s insistence on helping Gollum despite the likelihood of the situation not ending well. The most noticeable of the symptoms might be “persistent preoccupation with one or more special interests… an unusually strong attachment to particular objects”. Frodo had an intense love of languages, world cultures, and literature that caused him to obsess over the concept of writing a book about his adventure, while his tendency to become attached to an object was evident in his growing obsession with the Ring.

Since the official diagnostic criteria for autism is behind widely understood knowledge of this skill, I will reference an “autism masking” list created by special education expert and Teachers Pay Teachers user Prof BerMed. “Mimicking social cues”, “following social rules”, and “overcompensating politeness” are a triad of ways autistic people attempt to make friends. Frodo memorized exactly how to greet Gildor and the High Elves wandering through the Shire (“Three Is Company”, Fellowship) and politely interacted with the dwarf leader Glóin while in Rivendell by bowing correctly and listening to his long-winded stories (“Many Meetings, Fellowship”). In fact, “feigning interest” due to a lack of self-advocacy skills is another common masking tool.

When Frodo was in the Shire, he seemed to use a different set of tools for dealing with unkind relatives. He repeated a short phrase or shrugged when fielding questions about Bilbo’s whereabouts after the disappearance of his ‘uncle’ at the long-expected party. This aligned with the masking techniques of “using scripts”, “avoiding certain topics”, and possibly “planning social interactions”. Frodo appeared to regularly avoid eye contact as shown throughout Book II when Boromir tried to look him in the eye, such as when discussing the test of Galadriel while in Caras Galadhon, Lothlorien. Granted, eye contact with powerful elves, half-elven, and maiar allowed them to read one’s mind, so this was a logical defense in Middle-earth. Frodo’s other masking techniques previously mentioned included “modifying speech” to perfectly mimic the accent of the other speaker and “concealing emotion” so that only his best friend could understand how he felt.

Changelings and Atavism

People of the past were keenly aware that some minds work differently than others. Much like Froissart’s explanation of PTSD as a curse of a bear-knight, neurodivergence was blamed on supernatural forces. In this folklore, elves or fairies were believed to switch out a child of men for a child of elves, not so unlike cowbirds laying eggs in the nests of other birds for this different species to raise. The concept of a changeling was popular in northwestern Europe, especially Germanic and Celtic cultures, until the mid-20^th century, especially among low-income families. In Ireland, parents spoke of children with mental illness or displaying atypical behavior as being “fairy-stricken”, being “(swept) away with the fairies”, and growing into “fairy men” or “fairy women”. Children who had not yet been baptized and those with golden hair were especially prone to replacement. In Scandinavia, these children were referred to as alfr, a word which arrived in English during the 1620s as “oaf”.

Stith Thompson’s Motif Index dedicated an entire section to changelings (F321.1), from differences in appearance and development (F321.2.1) to ways to dispose of a changeling (F321.1.4). Since any divergence from typical behavior could classify a child as a changeling, it seemed a convenient way to justify neglecting or killing a child with disabilities or an adult with a sudden onset mental health condition. Within Irish tradition, the most common methods included “beating, exposure, use of charms, herbs, and casting into rivers” along with burning. With Frodo seeming more elf-like in appearance than other hobbits, his intense interest in elf culture, and his rumored friendship with elves, he might have been considered a changeling even without his additional behaviors.

A final note for this case study relates not to Frodo’s own mental state but that of the other hobbits in his community. If Frodo did look as different from them as the text suggests and as I portray him, even if the other hobbits did not believe him to be a changeling, they might have suspected he had “fairy” ancestry, supported by the rumor that a member of the Took family had “taken a fairy wife” (The Hobbit, 2). While the family’s Fallohide ancestors lived among elves, making such a marriage possible, the return of such traits would have been startling.

In the Real World, some early evolutionary theorists believed they had the answer to this reemergence of traits and its social implications. Their branch of study was known as social Darwinism, and their term for such traits was “atavism” or “reversion”. The first term arrived in English from French in 1833 and was originally used by plant mutations expert Antoine Nicolas Duchesne to describe throwback traits in plants. The second word had been used since the late 14^th century as a legal term referring to the return of property to the descendants of its original owner.

Regardless of the origin of these words, this was not how Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso used them while writing his book L’Uomo delinquent [The Criminal Man] in 1876 where he described people with certain physical traits as being prone to criminality. This theory was similar to another pseudoscience, phrenology or the study of skull measurements. Both used a twisted version of the ideas presented by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, which turned the scientifically-backed theory of evolution into a political tool to support racism and eugenics.

Modern scientists have a solid grasp of genetics and now widely accept that the reappearance of traits is due to recessive genes that do not affect a person’s likelihood of committing crimes. For example, the popularly cited MC1R gene is carried by around twenty-percent of Europeans but only causes red hair in people who inherit the gene from both parents. Since hobbits seemed to have lived in a time period similar to the early to mid-19^th century, their views might have been more similar to Lombroso, albeit without any interest in scientific exploration. Since elves had become feared and mistrusted rather than revered in hobbit culture, Frodo’s seemingly elf-like traits might have been viewed with suspicion from a “scientific” basis.

Conclusion

Through careful analysis of Frodo’s characteristics in the original text combined with modern diagnostic tools and an understanding of the historic societies upon which the Shire was based, the protagonist’s mental health conditions can be better understood. While it is impossible to prove that Frodo had comorbid C-PTSD, ADHD, and ASD — which is entirely too many acronyms — this combined diagnosis is not only possible but frequent. A literature review study from February 2025 showed that between 28% and 36% of people with ADHD will develop PTSD, while an earlier review from 2022 revealed that 50% to 70% of people with ASD also have ADHD, also abbreviated as AuDHD.

A young hobbit, fairer than most with red checks, holds his left hand to his chin and looks pensively towards the ground. He wears a green bicorne hat with a yellow cockade and a matching green overcoat.

I hope interpreting the books through the lens of modern diagnoses will help readers to better understand the actions of the character and empathize with him, perhaps even extending this empathy to neurodivergent people in their own lives or recognizing such traits in themselves. My personal hypothesis is that many people drawn to The Lord of the Rings are neurodivergent, and seeing a character like themselves as the hero encourages them to enjoy the books again and again. Frodo’s obsessive tendencies to learn all he could about Middle-earth and perfect his communication with potential new friends from other cultures served as a blueprint for those in the “LOTR fandom”, a colloquial way of describing the community of those who appreciate Tolkien’s work. The books do come with a warning: becoming trapped in a cycle of obsession may lead one’s will to become subsumed by the object, whether this was Frodo falling to the power of the Ring at the Crack of Doom, or readers being able to discuss nothing but their favorite books.

Read past installments of Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical