Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Middle-earth Psychology: Case Study #3

The third installment to my miniseries on the psychology of major characters in The Lord of the Rings will focus on Samwise Gamgee, later called Sam Gardner, who is considered the deuteragonist or secondary main character in the text. Unlike Bilbo and Frodo Baggins who enjoyed an enormous amount of privilege as part of the wealthy, educated elite, Sam and his family were among the lowest in the social hierarchy. Because of this disparity in status, Sam’s apparent psychological conditions were treated differently by the community than those of Bilbo and Frodo. While the Bagginses were explicitly called “mad” and “queer” for their behavior, attitudes towards Sam were less harsh. Mocking the Bagginses may have been the one way the ‘rustic’ hobbits could have an advantage over their ‘betters’, while Sam seemed to be considered another one of the villagers despite his differences.

In this essay, I will discuss the historical treatment of people with intellectual disabilities in the Real World along with aligning descriptions of Sam’s behavior as reported in the text with modern diagnoses. This analysis will show how Sam’s treatment was likely better than many of his nonfictional counterparts, perhaps owing to the intervention of the Baggins clan. As always, I want to remind the readers that I am not a professional psychologist but have significant knowledge about the modern fields of disability and mental health through my work. This study is conducted in good faith with the intention of making psychiatric terminology easier to understand, along with helping the readers to empathize not only with the characters but also with people who have been labeled with similar conditions.

Historic Treatment of People with Intellectual Disabilities

As widely known by Tolkien scholars, the name Samwise was an Old English term literally meaning “halfwit” and a translation of the Westron word banazir. The term halfwit, also spelled half-wit, appeared in English with its current definition around 1755. Previously, during the 1670s, half-wits were people who tried to be funny and clever but did not have the talent for it. As a fun fictional linguistics aside, depending on your definition of “fun”, was that the suffix ban(a)- was used in other words found in Westron and its parent language Adûnaic. Conlangers have compiled an extensive list of words found across the legendarium, especially The History of Middle-earth Book 9: Sauron Defeated, along with constructing logical extensions of the language. The word ban could be used alone to mean “half” and banakil meant “halfling”. The word banâth meant “wife”, while conlangers believed the masculine form would be banâk meaning “husband”. Meanwhile, the word for “servant” was bên. A stranger hearing Frodo (Maura) call for Sam (Ban) could easily feel confused by the situation.

In any case, the name implied that the Hobbiton community believed Sam had what we now call an intellectual disability. However, the text proved he was “wiser” than most other characters in his ability to problem solve and remember complex information, refuting the newer definition of the word, and that he could make the other hobbits laugh with his silly songs like “The Troll Song” (“Flight to the Ford”, The Fellowship of the Ring), refuting the older definition of the word.

The treatment of people with intellectual disabilities has historically been bleak. The first mental institution in the English-speaking world was the Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, its first iteration constructed in London around 1247. The organization was originally intended to house patients with all illnesses and disabilities, but its role seemed to shift around the 1370s. Around that time, patients described as “lunatics” or exhibiting “madness” were kept in the facility. The name of the hospital was colloquially shortened to Bethlem or Bedlam, and this new word entered English as a noun meaning “scene of mad confusion” by the 1660s. Far from a place where people could recover, the building acted as a prison for neurodivergent people, especially after its poorly built reconstruction in 1676. The hospital was closed and torn down in 1815.

Across the water in the United States, the first mental institution was Publick Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds in Williamsburg, VA, which opened in 1773. The hospital accepted all free people regardless of gender or race. Method of payment varied depending on the funds available to the hospital, but it generally operated on a sliding scale, meaning wealthy patients paid more for their care to help out less wealthy patients. The attitudes around mental illness were not on par with what modern medical professionals use, and chaining up patients was considered an appropriate method of treatment. While attitudes began to shift in the 1840s, major legal changes did not occur until the 1970s after Ricky Wyatt, a teenager with no diagnosed mental health condition, was committed to Bryce Hospital in Alabama and later worked with a former hospital employee to sue the facility. Despite the availability of better outcomes for people with disabilities in the modern era, abuse and neglect continue due to federal laws not being enforced at the state and local levels.

With these potential scenarios in mind, Sam was remarkably lucky. Even though his community seemed to believe he had an intellectual disability, especially before the quest, he remained with his father Hamfast in his birth home. In fact, he was implied to be the only child out of six who was still in his father’s custody with his mother being absent from the home environment. Based on conversations between hobbits at the Ivy Bush (“The Long-Expected Party”, Fellowship) and between Sam and an unnamed elf at Lothlorien (“Farewell to Lórien”, Fellowship), the other children may have been apprenticed as ropemakers, while Sam seemingly failed his apprenticeship as his father had before him. By avoiding the trauma of a foster care setting much like what affected Frodo, Sam did not develop childhood posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and remarkably would not display any symptoms after the War of the Ring.

Sam Symptom: Stumbling

The community had several reasons for classifying Sam as a “half-wit”. He was prone to stumbling or dropping objects, he had a speech impediment or stutter that worsened whenever he was nervous, and he was highly emotional, often blushing from embarrassment or weeping from sadness or anger. This primitive diagnostic process indicated a misunderstanding about the connection between neurological conditions and intelligence, one that is unfortunately still held by modern people who have not received education on the topic. Modern psychologists now diagnose their patients with the disclaimer “not better explained by a Disorder of Intellectual Development”. Bilbo Baggins was a modern figure in his ability to realize Sam could learn how to read, but even this unusual skill of literacy was seemingly not enough to persuade the community of Sam’s intelligence.

The concept of a developmental motor coordination disorder, also called dyspraxia, appeared in the early 20^th century with the label “congenital maladroitness” British neurologist James Stansfield Collier, who lectured on neurology at the latest iteration of Bethlem Royal Hospital during his career, was first to describe the disorder but did not seem to conduct in-depth research on it, as he preferred to touch on a wide range of interests.

The disorder was not studied thoroughly until 1972 when American occupational therapist Anna Jean Ayres decided to support children with developmental disorders and published the book Sensory Integration and Learning Disorders. She coined the term dyspraxia and identified it as a “type of sensory integrative dysfunction”, meaning that the brains of people with dyspraxia cannot evaluate their interaction with the physical world in the same way that brains of neurotypical people do. While her system of sensory integration therapy to help people with dyspraxia and similar conditions has since been found to be less effective than originally believed, her work was essential to modernizing special education practices.

Besides the widely recognized symptoms of dyspraxia, which include the increased likelihood to “drop things, stumble, bump into obstacles, or fall more frequently”, the disorder cooccurs with other neurodevelopmental conditions, including speech disorders. Additionally, it tends to be diagnosed more often in males than females although the ratio of diagnosis is unclear with reports varying from 2:1 to 7:1. Since girls are more likely to be socialized to act “appropriately” indoors and less likely to be encouraged to play sports, this may contribute to the lower rate of diagnosis in girls compared to boys.

Sam Symptom: Stuttering

Sam matched the criteria for comorbid disorders when he showed signs of a developmental speech fluency disorder, specifically childhood onset stuttering. Up to ten percent of children may stutter as they learn spoken language, but adult stuttering impacts under one percent of people, with the current ration of males to females being 4:1. In fact, nearly all famous stutterers in the English-speaking world are politically powerful men. In Judeo-Christian tradition, Moses famously described what sounded like a speech impediment, calling himself “slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10). He would later act as the leader of the Israelites. The speech impediment of King George VI of the British Empire was featured in the 2010 biopic The King’s Speech, while his fellow leader Winston Churchill had a lisp and some hesitation while finding the right word. Perhaps this inspired Tolkien to write a speech impediment for the elf leader Fëanor and his descendants, the Fëanorians. Churchill pronounced “s” as “sh”, and the Fëanorians pronounced “s” as “th”.

For the history of everyday people with speech impediments, the ancient population relied on oral speech for communication even more than people in the present day, so they were keenly aware of speech disorders but did not know what caused them. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who lived during the 4^th century BC, thought being too cold caused stuttering. Later, the ancient Roman physician Claudius Galenus, also known as Galen of Pergamon thought too much or too little moisture on the tongue caused stuttering. One of his solutions was wrapping the tongue in a rag soaked with lettuce juice, which was likely ineffective. By the time of the European Middle Ages, the English saint of speech pathology was John of Beverley, who had lived during the 7^th and early 8^th century. He was credited with miraculously giving hearing to a deaf man and then teaching the man to speak.

Speech therapy became more scientific and standardized in the modern era. In the United States, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) was originally founded in 1925 as the National Association of Teachers of Speech (NATS). Speech and language therapy was standardized in Great Britain beginning in 1945 with the organization of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists forming right after the end of World War II. A final note on the topic is that this sector of education has largely been created by women despite most people with speech impediments being men, perhaps due to the prevalence of women in elementary education.

Sam Symptom: Sensitive

If dyspraxia and a speech disorder were not enough, poor old Sam exhibited severe emotional dysregulation, hypersensitivity, and struggles with impulse control. He was prone to “weeping and cursing” whenever something did not go his way. Even if an adverse reaction was merited, his response often went beyond what was appropriate for the situation. This included when Old Man Willow ate Merry and Pippin while in the Old Forest, Gandalf announced that Bill the Pony could not enter the Mines of Moria, later in the scene when the Watcher in the Water attacked Frodo, and when the hobbits returned to Hobbiton to find the Party Tree had been cut down.

Two distinct types of disorders might account for his outbursts. One was oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) with chronic irritability-anger, also called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. While some people with this condition are “callous and unemotional”, Sam displayed “typical prosocial emotions” including “empathy [and] sensitivity to the feelings of others”. This condition is often comorbid with ADHD especially in males and is currently believed to be triggered by “harsh parenting practices”, some of which may constitute abuse. In the United States, a diagnosis of ODD is more likely to be given to African American and non-white Hispanic children. While this may point to cultural differences in parenting practices, it may also show prejudice against people of color. The disruptive behavior of a white child labeled as ADHD may be perceived as naughty, while the same actions by a Black child labeled as ODD may be considered criminal.

The diagnosis of ODD is relatively new, as it may have been first “identified” in 1966 and appeared in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) published in 1980. The details on who originally determined the diagnostic criteria for this disorder is much less clear than other conditions that I have previously researched. However, Lebanese-English Quaker professor Dr. Michael Llewellyn Rutter was considered the “father of child psychiatry” in the United Kingdom, and his name appeared as a co-author or source cited on many early articles on ODD. Rutter became a psychiatrist at Maudsley Hospital in London in 1966, the same year that ODD was first studied. The disorder may have a connection to Rutter’s best known contribution to pediatric psychiatry, maternal attachment theory, a belief that children unable to bond with their mothers will develop emotional disorders. Modern psychologists understand that a child can bond to any loving adult to have a healthy emotional outcome.

With this understanding of the diagnosis and its history, Sam did not appear to have ODD. Symptoms of the disorder must be “part of a pattern of chronic anger and irritability”. While Sam was known for becoming angry, as he warned local shirriff Robin Smallburrow upon returning to the Shire and finding it in disarray (“The Scouring of the Shire”, The Return of the King), he did not have an overall angry personality. In fact, Sam was happy and hopeful most of the time, often finding the best in a situation, and only having a breakdown when he seemingly felt overwhelmed and had no solutions. While Sam self-described his skin tone as “brown”, implying that he would be considered a person of color and therefore more likely to receive an ODD diagnosis, his father Hamfast appeared to be non-violent and kind, even lenient in discipline. Sam’s own method of discipline was scolding young hobbits who sneak into his orchard (“The Window on the West”, The Two Towers), a sharp contrast to Frodo’s experience of being beaten by Farmer Maggot for stealing mushrooms (“A Shortcut Through Mushrooms”, Fellowship).

A more likely condition was intermittent explosive disorder (IED), also known as episodic dyscontrol syndrome (EDS), as this is “not part of a pattern of chronic anger and irritability” and is given when no other diagnosis could possibly explain the person’s actions. Unlike Frodo, Sam did not have enough symptoms of other neurodivergent conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to be considered for a different diagnosis, although his extremely good long-term memory and ability to focus for extended periods did overlap with ADHD and ASD.

A version of this disorder has existed since DSM-I, which was published in 1952 and categorized the symptoms under passive-aggressive personality disorder (aggressive type). During the 1970s, psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Russell R Monroe conducted studies on EDS in “aggressive criminals” to better understand if it was related to psychopathy or treatable with medication. He also reviewed the letters of artist Vincent Van Gogh to connect a person from popular culture to the disorder and present a scientific explanation for his experiences, not so different from the methodology of my case studies. While the studies of this time use different language than what is considered appropriate today, these were modern in understanding that individuals with EDS could not control their actions, even comparing the disorder to dyslexia, as those with the learning disorder could not control their ability to read.

Conclusion

Sam occupied a precarious position in Hobbiton culture. Being labeled a halfwit while living in a postmedieval, protoindustrial society was a dangerous position to inhabit, especially when his brothers — older, male members of the immediate family with a higher status due to their occupations — seemed to no longer be present in the household. Even today, people with multiple comorbid diagnoses such as dyspraxia, childhood onset stuttering, and intermittent explosive disorder may erroneously be labeled as having intellectual disabilities and not receive adequate support for their conditions. While social integration and inclusion for people with disabilities has increased substantially in the past few decades, children with disabilities continue to receive suboptimal education, while adults are excluded from meaningful and appropriate work. The danger of institutionalization, which began during the European Middle Ages, continues to the present day, especially for people of color and individuals from low income families.

A pair of hobbits, a father and son, stand against a yellow background. The father is a head taller and stands in the back left looking down at his son with concern. The son stands in the front middle with his eyes closed and mouth open as if screaming.

Combining this knowledge of historic and current practice, the reader might realize Sam was incredibly lucky to remain in the custody of his father for most if not all of his childhood and continued to cohabit with his father as an independent adult. This may not have been possible without the support of the Baggins clan. Bilbo taught Sam to read, demonstrating to the community that Sam was capable of learning and complex thought, while Frodo did his best to protect Sam not only while at Bag End but also throughout their quest. Even though the Bagginses and Gamgees existed at opposite ends of the social strata, their solidarity as apparently neurodivergent people living in a community hostile towards their cognitive differences allowed the three to have fulfilling lives and close relationships to each other, ultimately allowing them to save Middle-earth from a greater enemy.

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