It's also like... listen, guys. "If Sam had taken the Ring-" the quest would have failed because he would have killed Gollum. I feel like people don't understand that this is a severe flaw of Sam's. He's a nice boy with a good heart but he just does not have pity in his heart until it's too late. Sam's inability to understand why Gollum acts the way he does dooms Gollum's redemption to failure. Unlike Frodo, who perseveres in the (vain) hope that Gollum can be redeemed, Sam does not until near the end of the book - when Gollum attacks the pair on the mountainside, he spares Gollum because, having carried the Ring now, he "dimly" grasps at what it would really mean to be Gollum. It's too late, though, because his earlier mistrust of Gollum has already set him against the hobbits for good.
And I know, the scene where the Ring tempts Sam with being "Lord of the Garden" is funny and awesome, but people forget that A) Sam had been wearing the ring for all of a couple days (compared to Frodo's 17 years in the book), and the Ring was clearly desperate and at the end of its tempting rope. Tolkien himself said that "no-one", not even Sauron himself (if he were inclined to do so), could destroy the ring at Mount Doom. The temptation at the ultimate moment would be too great. In fact, in the initial draft, this is exactly what happens to Frodo - the Ring shows him a vision of him using it to protect and save the hobbits from Sauron, and that's what causes him to finally put it on. (Presumably, Tolkien cut this because it didn't make sense for Frodo to narrate this moment.) So Sam's vision doesn't seem so ridiculous or out there now.
And ultimately, the whole point is that Frodo fails. He gives up everything on this quest he knows he is never going to come back from. He keeps going when it's obvious to him that they're all going to die. He keeps going when it's obvious he's not up to the task and never was. The fact that he only stumbles at the very end should be seen as a testament to his mental fortitude, not a failing. Frodo is all of us. We all love to think we would be Sam, or maybe Bilbo, or maybe Faramir wisely saying "I would not take it if it lay by the roadside" (note how Faramir, the smart guy, refuses to even look at the thing - in fact, notice how all the people who best "resist" the Ring's temptation do it by simply removing themselves as far away as possible from it!). But in reality, we would be Frodo. We wouldn't be up to the task, because who would? Instead, what saves Frodo is not his heroic willpower, but his mercy. Because he took it in his heart to have pity on Gollum, a fellow hobbit corrupted and twisted by the Ring's power (just like Frodo), the creature is there at just the right moment to destroy the ring. That's the message of Lord of the Rings. You have to understand that, right?
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