“You Must Choose Between Orders and The Life of Faramir.” Pippin Acts Against Orders and For What is Right and Good.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 807-809

After he dismisses Pippin from his service, Denethor gives orders for his funeral and for the funeral of Faramir. We are given a sombre and dignified description of a procession to Rath Dinen, the street of the dead, the resting place of the Stewards of Gondor.

But no-one has died.

The procession does not take place after death but before it. What Denethor has done is to order a ritual suicide. This is what he means by using the word, heathen. Tolkien would have known the description of a ship burial of a Viking lord in which the observer described the ritual murder of slaves who were then placed around the chieftain on the ship before it was set alight. The intention was that he should not make his journey into the afterlife alone and unattended.

But it is not slaves or servants that are to be ritually murdered in Rath Dinen but Denethor’s own son. And so Pippin runs from his lord in search of aid and thus finds Beregond. Pippin and Beregond have become friends in a very short time, the kind of friendship that can be forged in time of war. We saw this with Faramir and Frodo, perhaps most profoundly with Frodo and Sam; and now we see it with Pippin and Beregond. And perhaps what has bound them most closely together is their shared love for Faramir and it is this bond that now leads both of them to act in a way that is unthinkable for almost everyone else in Gondor. They choose deliberately to disobey an order that has been given by their lord.

“But the Lord of the City, Beregond, has fallen before his city is taken. He is fey and dangerous.”

And Pippin speaks of the orders that Denethor has given for his own suicide and the murder of his son, and bids Beregond to do what he can to prevent this crime from taking place. And when Beregond still speaks of orders that he must obey, Pippin declares:

“Well, you must choose between orders and the life of Faramir,” said Pippin. “And as for orders, I think you have a madman to deal with, not a lord.”

Those who have served in the military know how serious a matter it is to deliberately disobey an order, especially an order that has come from the very top, but in the world that Tolkien brings us into there is an added dimension of seriousness. For in the northern world to disobey your lord was to declare yourself to be a non-person.

In the classic Old English poem, The Wanderer, we are told of the sorrows of a man who has no lord, and so is doomed to wander from land to land in search of one who might “show me recognition in his mead-hall.” What Pippin calls upon Beregond to do is to become an exile, to become homeless by choice. And indeed, when later in the story Beregond has to stand before Aragorn and answer for what he has done, he is indeed sent into exile, never to return to Minas Tirith. The judgement of the king will indeed be tempered by a remarkable act of mercy but at no point does Aragorn seek to minimise the gravity of Beregond’s deed, nor does Beregond expect him to do so. The law has been broken and blood has been shed.

All of this takes place in a moment, as Pippin runs down to the heart of the battle in search of Gandalf, and Beregond runs up to the Street of the Dead in order to defend Faramir, if he can. Beregond’s choice is not made as a conclusion to an ethics seminar; and if it had, how much weight could we give to such a choice? Beregond’s decision to put his own body between Denethor’s servants and the lord that he loves and for whom he would happily die is a decision that can only be made when it is literally a decision made between life and death. And before such a choice those of us who read what Beregond does in the pages of Tolkien’s great story cannot sit in judgement either upon him or the men that he will kill. We must sit in silence, recognising as we do so the awfulness of what is about to take place.

And as we do so we recognise that awe is what we are called to. Awe in the face of the horror and beauty of life, and the moment at which life comes to its end, either in peace or in terror.

“But He is No Fool; And I Will Not Think of Dying Until He Despairs of Life.” Further Thoughts on Despair and Hope From Peregrin Took.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 806-807

In my title I speak of Pippin’s thoughts, but these are not really deep reflections offered in a leisurely symposium. Pippin is not really inclined to such a thing, and anyway, he doesn’t have the time. Denethor is about to kill both himself and Faramir and the city is under attack from the Enemy.

So, what we see here is the true Pippin. Pippin presented to us as an image created by just a few simple brushstrokes, by the bare essentials of his Pippin-ness. Pippin when he doesn’t have the time to try to be something.

We have noted that it is the task of a true captain to show us whether we are being faithful or not. And the true captain has discerned what we need to be faithful to, whether it is to what is good, or beautiful, or true, or whether it is merely to our self-interest, that is, what am I going to get out of this?

In 1943, the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a deep reflection on this question that he sent to two friends and co-workers in the resistance to the Nazi regime just before he was arrested and then imprisoned in a military prison in Berlin. Later on, after his death at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945, these thoughts were published as After Ten Years (Nach Zehn Jahre). It is a short essay full of profound wisdom, and perhaps its heart is expressed in a simple question that he posed.

“The ultimate question for one who lives responsibly to ask is not how are we to extricate ourselves heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live.”

Now, as I said, Pippin is not a philosopher. We would not go to him to ask ourselves what the really important questions are that we should ask. But Pippin wants to know that his captains have thought about the important questions and that the answers they have found are good ones. And what I mean by good answers is not that they are clever answers but that the world that such answers is able to describe is good, that it is a world in which my children and all the children of the world will be able to live life in all its fulness.

And so, while Pippin offered his service to Denethor because he wanted to offer some act of grateful thanks to Boromir, his heart is given in service to Gandalf, to Aragorn and to Faramir, because he trusts them, because they call him to the best version of himself, to a faithful Peregrin Took.

This is what he tries to say to Denethor when the Lord of the City tells him to “die in what way seems best to you”.

“I will not say farewell, my lord,” said Pippin kneeling. And then suddenly hobbit-like once more, he stood up and looked the old man in the eyes. “I will take your leave, sir,” he said; “for I want to see Gandalf very much indeed. But he is no fool; and I will not think of dying until he despairs of life.”

For Pippin has already seen Gandalf in a moment of extreme peril. He has seen Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm standing before Durin’s Bane and denying him passage. He has seen the wizard fall into the abyss of Moria beneath the bridge and heard him cry, Fly you fools! He knows that at the moment of extreme peril Gandalf was not thinking of himself but of the mission that he was prepared to give his life to. Gandalf did not despair as he fell from the bridge and so Pippin is sure that he will not despair now. Soon we will see Gandalf as he seeks to deny the Morgul Lord, the Chief of the Nazgûl, entry into the city, and we will know that at this critical moment it will be the Gandalf who pities even the slaves of Sauron and desires their welfare who will be standing there immoveable. This is the captain that Pippin wants to see now, the leader who calls him to his very best, one who can give him something worth dying and living for, one in whose service even the last moment would be to live life in all its fulness.

“We Will Burn Like Heathen Kings Before Ever a Ship Sailed Hither From The West.” The Despair of Denethor and the Faithfulness of Faramir.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 806-807

As the Morgul host draws nearer to the defences of Minas Tirith and the siege engines draw ever closer to its walls we find two distinctly contrasting stories taking place. For as Gandalf and the Prince of Dol Amroth stride about the walls lifting the hearts of its defenders for a time at least, so we find the Steward of Gondor withdrawing to a private chamber in preparation for his suicide and for the ritual killing of his son.

Some of his men plead with Denethor to give guidance to the defence of the city, telling him that not all will follow Gandalf who they do not know, but need the Lord of the City to lead and direct them. We are reminded of the defenders of Helm’s Deep when Éomer rides up to them in order to announce that their king has come to aid them.

“That is good tidings beyond hope,” declares the sentinel. It is only when the one recognised as the true king (and Denethor is a king even though he does not bear the title) comes that his people find strength once again. So we are reminded once more of the words of the 16th century Anglican divine, Richard Hooker, “How are the people to know they are faithful unless their captains tell them?”

Denethor has nothing to say to his people anymore except for the word that he has for himself.

Burn.

“Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must.”

Denethor has given in to despair. “We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn!”

And so the work of Sauron is complete in the Steward of Gondor, the work that Sauron has been doing through the Palantir, the Stone of Osgiliath. Sauron is the serpent, the accuser of the brethren, whose work is to lead us to despair through his whispering in the ears of those who have sought to stand against him. Saruman was lured into his snare at first through his study of the Rings of Power and so came to believe that it would only be through the achievement of power, of total power, that victory could be won. So, through the Palantir, the Stone of Orthanc, Sauron displayed his power to Saruman and so convinced him that his victory was inevitable. Saruman came to believe that only by becoming an ally to that power could he survive, and just possibly become the lord of the West himself, if only he were to gain the power of the Ring himself. And Denethor, through the Stone of Osgiliath, saw also the overwhelming power of his enemy and the inevitable victory of darkness. Denethor too saw hope only through the possession of power, through possession of the Ring, and in his loss of that possibility and the loss of the son who he had loved lost all hope.

We might want to be reminded here that Denethor’s words about the failure of the West have also been spoken by Faramir in his meeting with Frodo. “For the Enemy increases and we decrease. We are a failing people, a springless autumn.”

A failing people. A springless autumn.

Faramir can see all that his father can. The growing strength of his enemy and the decline of his own people, but he does not give way to despair. He does not give way to despair because he has a faith that goes deeper than a belief in power. He makes it clear to Frodo that he has no desire to possess power if that were to mean the power of darkness, that if he were to find the weapon of the Enemy, the Ring, lying by the roadside, that he would not wish to make it his own, not even for the good of Gondor or for his personal glory. Faramir’s longing is for goodness, for beauty and for truth, and so his roots go deeper by far than they do for Saruman or for Denethor. It is his sadness that this longing only wins for him the scorn of his father, the accusation that he is a “wizard’s pupil” and that he only wishes to appear lordly, that his longing is merely performance; but his roots go deeper even than a natural longing for his father’s approval.

That Faramir’s kingly nature is both recognised and loved by the people of Gondor surely tells us that in all of us, if we think of ourselves as being the ordinary folk as are those people, is a desire for the same goodness, beauty and truth as Faramir has. Faramir does not need to make speeches in order to tell his people that they are faithful. He only needs to live out that faithfulness himself.

“Nay, Nay, Whatever May Now Betide in War, My Line Too is Ending, Even The House of The Stewards Has Failed.” Some Thoughts on Hope and Expectation in The Lord of the Rings.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 799-806

I am grateful to one of my regular correspondents, Kate Splieth, for thoughts that have led to this reflection as we continue to think about the siege of Minas Tirith before the arrival of the Riders of Rohan, one of the darkest moments in The Lord of the Rings. In a comment on my last reflection upon eucatastrophe, she writes this,
“Is there a difference between hope and expectation?”

It is in the tragic character of Denethor that we see that difference most clearly expressed. From the moment that Denethor first receives the sign that his son, Boromir, has been killed, he begins his fall into despair. When Gandalf and Pippin first meet him, seated upon the Steward’s chair in the throne room of Gondor, they see this sign in his hand. He holds aloft the horn of Boromir that was cloven in two as he made the brave defence of Merry and Pippin at Parth Galen that led to his death.

From that time onwards Denethor’s spirit is broken even though he continues to direct the defence of the city against the Morgul host. But at the last the Prince of Dol Amroth carries the body of Faramir from the failed defence of the fords of Osgiliath to his father, and whatever strength Denethor had to continue resistance is lost.

“I sent my son forth, unthanked, unblessed, out into needless peril, and here he lies with poison in his veins. Nay, nay, whatever may now betide in war, my line is ending, even the House of Stewards has failed. Mean folk shall rule the last remnant of the Kings of Men, lurking in the hills until all are hounded out.”

We may note here that Denethor has reduced the story of his people to the story of his family, of his line. He is convinced, wrongly as we shall see, that Faramir is dying, and unlike Sam Gamgee, kneeling beside what he believed to be the corpse of Frodo in Shelob’s Lair, Denethor sees no reason to carry on, “whatever now may betide in war.” To him there is no future, even if victory should ultimately be achieved over the forces of Mordor. His line is ending, just as the line of the Kings of Gondor failed.

Here we see the difference between hope and expectation, or at least expectation as it has become. In the Latin text of the Nicene Creed we read et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, and I await the resurrection of the dead. The word, exspecto, that has become expect in modern English is associated with specto, to look out for, to wait for, to hope for. This kind of expectation is to Denethor, a fool’s hope, and when men call for guidance from their lord, Denethor answers, “Follow whom you will, even the Grey Fool, though his hope has failed.”

Denethor has given in to despair which is the ultimate consequence of his expectation. All his gathering of intelligence has convinced him of the overwhelming power of his enemy and the utter inadequacy of his own resources. His one hope, if we can call it that, was to gain control of the Ring of Power and so have a weapon that he could use of sufficient power to stand against that enemy. In this manner he resembles Saruman who also hoped to gain control of the Ring, although unlike Saruman, Denethor never considered the possibility of becoming an ally of Sauron. Saruman’s intention was to ally himself to Sauron while seeking either to gain control of the Ring or to create his own ring of power. Denethor was never a traitor unlike Saruman.

But neither Denethor, nor Saruman, had hope. Both gave way to despair. Saruman did so cynically, choosing to ally himself with darkness believing that darkness would have the last word in everything. Denethor also came to believe in the final victory of darkness but refused to ally himself with that darkness. In that sense there is still a heroism in Denethor, a heroism that he shows in the breastplate that he wears under his robes.

And what of hope? Gandalf chooses hope, the decision to believe that at the end the good, the true and the beautiful will prevail even though all that can be seen is darkness and the power of evil. In the Council of Elrond the choice was made to send the Ring to the Fire, not because it was felt to be a good idea but because it was the right thing to do, the only thing that could be done without giving way to the ultimate power of all the Ring represented which is the power of power itself.

“Though the Darkness Had Reached Its Full and Grew No Deeper, It Weighed Heavier on Men’s Hearts, And a Great Dread Was On Them.” Tolkien Describes The Darkest Moments of The Siege of Minas Tirith.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 799-803

There are many dark moments in The Lord of the Rings, and I do not wish to take part in one of those polls that seem to be popular in social media. You know the kind that I mean; what are the ten darkest moments in this story? Is it Sam Gamgee kneeling beside the body of Frodo after his friend has received what seems to be a deadly sting from Shelob, or is it this moment when it seems that Minas Tirith will fall to the assault of the Morgul Host under their deadly captain, the Witch-King of Angmar? I do not wish to compare them. At the very least it would be a terrible slight upon the anguish that Sam feels as he looks upon Frodo and feels that the whole world has come to an end. But although Gandalf has been right to call Denethor to think of more than Gondor, Denethor has also been right to say that if Gondor falls the fall of the rest of Middle-earth will inevitably follow.

There is a word that serious readers of Tolkien’s work eventually come to know and that is the word, eucatastrophe. In his famous essay On Fairy Stories, Tolkien defined this word as “the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argue is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce)”. And so he thinks of the moment when the prince awakens the Sleeping Beauty from her hundred years sleep, or, in the Christian story, the moment of the incarnation, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, the moment that is heralded in Isaiah 9.2 by the words, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” The essential contrast here is between darkness, the shadow of death and the great light that suddenly and entirely unexpectedly breaks in upon them in their utter hopelessness.

We will, of course, come back to the eucatastrophic moments in the telling of the story of the breaking of the siege of Minas Tirith later in this series of reflections, and we will see that not one of these moments is able to lift Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, from his deep despair. But what I wish to reflect upon here is that the essential feature of a true eucatastrophe is that it is entirely unlooked for. If we were to expect the “sudden happy turn” in our stories, then what such an expectation would create in us would be complacency. Unlike Pippin, who stands “alone and sleepless” on the walls of Minas Tirith looking eastward through the night we would sleep comfortably in our beds even through the greatest disaster. Don’t worry, we would say to one another, something will turn up, it always does.

And not all the sudden happy turns that have happened either in our own experience or in the telling of stories that we love the most are able to assure us that this time, in this present darkness, there will be an inbreaking of light. Like Pippin we wait, robbed of sleep, and asking, as we thought of a few weeks ago, “Is there any hope?”

And therein we see the action that we can take. There is the anxious waiting that Pippin shows us. There is the courageous if hopeless action of Faramir going out to the fords of Osgiliath even though he knows that he will not be able to hold them. Or there is the steady and indomitable spirit of Gandalf who remains in the darkest places so that those who are lost in them will not be utterly abandoned.

None of these actions can bring about the eucatastrophic events that will deliver Minas Tirith from the siege of the Morgul host, but without them, without the faithful perseverance that each of these actions represents, there can be no “joy that brings tears”, the tears that will later fall at the Field of Cormallen when Sam will cry out, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

“You Will Be Needed Here, For Other Things Than War.” Gandalf Speaks to Faramir of a Bigger Story Than The War of the Ring.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 797-799

On the day that follows the counsel that took place in Denethor’s chambers, a counsel that included Denethor himself, Gandalf and Faramir, and which was observed by Pippin, the Lord of the City meets with his captains to discuss the defences of the city. Denethor is in a dark mood, perhaps one created by the debate of the previous day when he had clashed with Gandalf and in which Faramir had seemed to side with the wizard against his father, and so he asks that one of his captains should go out to the outer defences near Osgiliath in order to re-enforce them.

The silence with which this request is received by the captains shows what they think of what Denethor has asked. Already Faramir has argued that to attempt to hold the outer defences would be unwise:

“Today we may make the Enemy pay ten times our loss at the passage and yet rue the exchange. For he can afford to lose a host than we to lose a company. And the retreat of those that we put our far afield will be perilous, if he wins across in force.”

All these are wise words, and none of the other captains argue against them or support what Denethor has asked for, but Denethor has used words that make it clear that he does not intend to be contradicted.

“It is at Osgiliath that he will put his weight, as before when Boromir denied him the passage.”

Boromir has become a sacred totem, a fallen hero, a martyr in the cause, and when Denethor invokes his memory, remembering how he was the captain of the defenders of the crossing of the Anduin at Osgiliath, he expects that the invocation of the sacred memory should be honoured. And, of course, it is the brother of the sacred hero, Faramir, who responds.

“I do not oppose your will, sire. Since you are robbed of Boromir, I will go and do what I can in his stead- if you command it.”

This is a dark moment in the story and Gandalf correctly guesses the mood with which Faramir goes out on this hopeless mission.

“Do not throw your life away rashly, or in bitterness,” he says to Denethor’s son, for at this moment Faramir does not believe that his is a life worth very much. He is unloved by his father, of no worth compared to his Boromir’s, going out on a mission that has no chance of success, in which precious lives will be cast away.

But Gandalf has a bigger story in mind, even now, a story that transcends the story of the war, of the immediate requirements of the defence of the city. Gandalf is thinking of a world that will be beyond the war, a world in which Faramir will be needed for other things that soldiery.

“You will be needed here, for other things than war.”

We know already that Faramir believes this to be true because he said this to Frodo when they met in Ithilien. We remember how he told Frodo that “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend”.

And it is what the men of Gondor defend that he will ultimately give his life to. For Faramir will not be a warrior forever but the Prince of Ithilien, the garden of Gondor in which he carried out his missions in the run up to the war. His task, alongside the bride that he will marry, will be the restoration of that land, which, although marred by the forces of Mordor, remained a place of beauty. Like Sam Gamgee in the Shire, his task as lord of that land will be to be its gardener. In other words, his role will be to restore the Garden of Eden as best he can, to make Ithilien a living witness to that land, just as Sam will do all he can to make the Shire the same in the north. Faramir may not receive a gift from the Lady of the Golden Wood to aid him in his task, but he will do the same work so that the peoples of Middle-earth will have places of beauty that will inspire them in their task of building their own lands. Indeed, Faramir will be needed for other things than war, things that will last.

“Yet My Heart Guessed That Frodo and Gollum Would Meet Before the End. For Good or For Evil.” Gandalf Speaks of the Weaving Together of Frodo and Gollum’s Fates.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 796-797

Those who have journeyed with Gandalf from the opening chapters of The Lord of the Rings know that this intuition, that the fates of Frodo, Bilbo, Gollum and the Ring are intimately woven together, has been with Gandalf at least since his conversation with Frodo in Bag End in the chapter entitled, The Shadow of the Past, if not before. It was in that chapter that we learnt of Gandalf’s suspicions regarding the nature of Bilbo’s ring and how those suspicions were confirmed when he cast the Ring into the fire and so was able to read the fateful words:

One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Gandalf told Frodo of how Gollum had come into possession of the Ring through the murder of his friend, Déagol, and how he had come to know of the name of Baggins simply because Bilbo had told him his name. I wonder if Tolkien had the story of Odysseus and Polyphemus in mind as he wrote this. If so did he contrast the hubris displayed by Odysseus when he boastfully declared his name as he escaped his captor with the simple honesty that Bilbo displays in telling his name to Gollum? We will return to this later.

But now we will return to Gandalf’s intuition that he speaks of to Pippin here, that “Frodo and Gollum would meet before the end. For good or for evil.” What Gandalf said to Frodo of his intuition was this:

“I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that time comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many- yours not least.”

This is one of the most quoted passages in the whole Lord of the Rings, and one that when cited often focusses upon the word, pity, and rightly so, because when Frodo finally meets Gollum he announces, as if to an unseen listener, that now he has seen Gollum he does pity him. The pity of Bilbo and then of Frodo does play a central role in the story and we will think about this on other occasions, but now I wish to think about the part that fate plays in the story, and then to think about the part it plays in all stories, not least our own.

It is easy, maybe too easy, to link the manner in which Gollum first obtained the Ring with his ultimate fate, to fall into the fires of Mount Doom still holding it. We might argue that Gollum deserved his fate, but then we have to ask in what way Frodo deserved his. For Frodo is wounded by the Morgul blade below Weathertop, stung by Shelob in her lair, has his finger bitten off from his hand just as Sauron lost a finger to the broken blade of Narsil when he lost the Ring to Isildur. And in all this we must think of the way he had to bear a burden whose malevolent power gradually overcame his brave heart until he had no freedom left to choose. Did Frodo deserve this as Gollum deserved his fate? I find it hard to argue that he did. Of course, Frodo had his weaknesses just as we all do, but he would not have suffered this fate if he had not made the heroic choice to bear the burden to Mount Doom, a choice that Elrond declared made him worthy, not to be punished, but to stand alongside the Elf-friends, such as Beren, who were his mighty ancestors.

Frodo’s fate must remain a mystery to us, and so too must Gollum’s. It is not for us to determine the ultimate fate of anyone. Gandalf himself declared to Frodo that “Many that die deserve death. And some that die deserve life.” Perhaps Tolkien was thinking of his closest friends who fell in the battles of the First World War and of his own survival in that conflict when he wrote this. Fate is not something that lies within our ability to understand. We only are given the task either to bear our fate bravely and to struggle to do the good we can within our fate or we can try to fight against it. There is heroic courage in the latter choice and like Odysseus we might be shaped for good in the struggle. He was a sadder and a wiser man than the one who boasted of his name before Polyphemus when he finally returned to Ithaca many years later.

“Cirith Ungol!” He Muttered. “Why That Way, I Wonder?” Did Gandalf Have a Better Way in Mind For Frodo and Sam?

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 796-797

As Gandalf and Pippin take a few moments for reflection after their meeting with Denethor and Faramir Gandalf ponders what he has learnt from what Faramir had brought from his mission in Ithilien and most especially what he has learnt of Frodo and Sam.

“Cirith Ungol!” he muttered. “Why that way, I wonder?” He turned. “Just now, Pippin, my heart almost failed me, hearing that name.”

Faramir too felt nothing but horror when he first learnt that this was the way that Gollum was going to lead Frodo and Sam into Mordor and even now Pippin can see that Faramir “did not like the place [Gollum] was taking them any more than [Gandalf]” did. Gandalf knows far more than Faramir knows of Cirith Ungol, the pass of the spider, but we must ask the question, if Gandalf’s heart failed him on hearing that name did he have an alternative in mind that would have been better for Frodo and Sam to follow? Did he have a plan for entering Mordor that he had not had the chance to speak of to Frodo before his fall in Moria?

Of course, the answer to this question is that we do not know. Gandalf did not speak of plans to the members of the Fellowship. His initial plan to cross the Misty Mountains by the Redhorn Gate below Caradhras was no more than one step on the journey towards Mordor, a way that he hoped would be passable because the journey that Boromir had taken north through the Gap of Rohan was not available to them because of Saruman’s treachery. Gandalf did not even speak of his intention to go by way of Lothlórien let alone the way the Fellowship should go after staying there.

So we can say with certainty that if Gandalf did have a plan to enter Mordor by a particular way then he never spoke of it, not even to Frodo. This leaves us only with speculation and this we will attempt to do here.

We know that Frodo first tried to enter Mordor by way of the Morannon, the Black Gate, and we know that this was clearly impassable. It was the way that Sauron expected an invasion from his foes and so it was more fortified than any other way into his land. And so if it was not to be that way or by way of the Morgul Vale and Cirith Ungol what other way could Frodo take?

The northern and western and southern marches of Mordor were impassable mountain ranges apart from the two passes of which we have spoken so this leaves us with the east of his land. The way into Mordor from that direction was more open than any other although all the lands east of that border were Sauron’s allies, but it might have been possible to go that way. Why then did Frodo not consider it? The reason is simple. It was because of time. Frodo knew that he did not have the luxury of time to complete his mission, that if he took too long, even if he were to succeed, all would be too late. The forces of evil would have destroyed much that was good, true and beautiful in the world, perhaps even rendering the world unhabitable except for that which was nasty and vicious.

Even at the beginning of the journey that Frodo made with Sam after the breaking of the Fellowship and his journey through the Emyn Muil, Frodo resented any delay.

“What hope we had was in speed,” he said to Sam. “Delay plays into the Enemy’s hands- and here I am: delayed.”

So we are left with the strongest sense that Gandalf had no better alternative than the one that caused his heart to fail, unless we go back to that ridiculous meme that is popular with some fans of the story that Gandalf meant Frodo to be flown to the Cracks of Doom by the Eagles of Manwë and if that was the case we might just expect him to mention this just once in the story or that he would have taken the route west to the eyries of the Eagles out of Rivendell, the way that Thorin’s party took in The Hobbit, instead of going south to the Redhorn Gate.

No, I think we must at last come to the conclusion that Gandalf had no plan, even that whatever news he received of any way into Mordor would have caused his heart to fail. Of course, he is right to fear that Gollum’s intentions are treacherous, “But so it must be. Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend. It can be so, sometimes.”

“Is There Any Hope? For Frodo, I Mean; Or at Least Mostly for Frodo.” Pippin Wonders if There is Any Hope Remaining.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 796-797

After the counsel in the chamber of the Lord of the City all go to their rest and Gandalf and Pippin to the chamber that they share together. And there in the privacy of that room Pippin speaks at last, asking the question that is closest to his heart.

“Tell me,” he said, “is there any hope? For Frodo, I mean; or at least mostly for Frodo.”

Of course, when Pippin says “mostly for Frodo”, what he implies is an unspoken question.

Is there any hope for me? For any of us? And we do not blame him for this. We would all ask the same question. Pippin’s love for Frodo is not diminished in any way by his asking it.

And in his reply Gandalf acknowledges what we have been thinking about in the last few posts. He acknowledges that Denethor is right. He acknowledges that any hope that there has ever been that Frodo will succeed in his mission was foolish. But we will not go back to the alternative that Denethor says could and should have been done, that the Ring should have been brought to Minas Tirith by Faramir and that it should have been hidden there until “the uttermost end of need”. We have considered this and recognised that this too would have been foolish, even wicked, that if the Ring had come to Denethor it would have overthrown his considerable mind and almost certainly would not have prevented Sauron’s inevitable victory.

And so all the alternative there is is two forms of foolishness. So is there any hope?

Gandalf ponders Pippin’s question and, as he does so, he begins to find reasons to go on hoping, reasons that may be smaller than the biggest reason of all, that the Divine Power does not will that Frodo should fail, but big enough to give reason not to give in but to resist.

Sauron has launched his assault upon Minas Tirith before he is ready and while Frodo is still free. Now his attention will not be solely upon the borders of his own land, defending them against any attack, but upon Minas Tirith.

And Gandalf wonders why he is doing this now, and so he thinks back to the Stone of Orthanc that Pippin looked into and which he gave to Aragorn to keep.

“Ah! I wonder. Aragorn? His time draws near. And he is strong and stern underneath, Pippin; bold and determined, able to take his own counsel and dare great risks at need. That may be it. He may have used the Stone and shown himself to the Enemy, challenging him, for this very purpose.”

Indeed, we know that this is precisely what Aragorn has done, and why he has taken the Paths of the Dead, bringing with him the host of Oath Breakers to the port of Pelargir to relieve its defenders from the siege of the Corsairs of Umbar and to bring the fleet at anchor there up the Anduin to aid the defenders of Minas Tirith. This would indeed be a reason for hope but even if Aragorn were to succeed it would only bring a little hope, perhaps very little hope as Denethor will later assert.

And Pippin has one more question. Why have Frodo and Sam taken up with Gollum of all the creatures in the world, and why are they trying to enter Mordor by way of Cirith Ungol?

“And I could see that Faramir did not like the place he was taking them to any more than you do. What is wrong?”

And here at last Gandalf comes, in his response, closer to the greatest cause for hope of all. For even though he fears the way that Frodo and Sam have taken with their treacherous guide he must acknowledge that he does not know a better way. There is no better way. All ways into Mordor are defended and unassailable, or if they are less defended it would take so long to achieve as to render any success almost meaningless for there will be nothing to return to.

So, there is no hope except for the greatest hope of all, that a power greater than any upon Arda has willed that through the most unlikely of all means, by means of a treacherous guide, Frodo and Sam should achieve their task. But to desire this end is almost too much for anyone without falling into the most terrible pride or complacency. The best way remains to take one brave small step and then another.

“There are evil days ahead. To sleep while we may.”

“You Think, As is Your Wont, My Lord, of Gondor Only.” Gandalf Speaks of a Greater Vision, One That Denethor Does Not See.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 793-797

If Denethor had ever made an inaugural address on becoming the Steward of Gondor we could be fairly confident that at its heart would lie the idea, if not the words, Gondor First.

As Denethor and Gandalf debate together about what should have been done with the Ring of Power it becomes clear that Denethor believes that if Gondor were to fall, so too would the West. Indeed, in his mind, the West and Gondor are one thing. Gondor is the last outpost of Númenor, the “West-Land” that lay far to the geographical and spiritual west of Middle-earth, and from which Elendil and his followers first came and founded the kingdoms of Gondor and of Arnor. And so, to Denethor, if Gondor falls “the West is finished”.

To a man with such a vision there is only one thing that can be done with the Ring and that is to keep it and not to use it “unless at the uttermost end of need” when the victory of Mordor over Gondor becomes an inevitability.

Gandalf believes that even with the decision not to use the Ring except in such extreme circumstances the Ring would corrupt and finally overthrow the mind of Denethor, but there is a further point that he makes, one that offers an entirely different vision of reality to the one that Denethor holds.

“You think, as is your wont, my lord, of Gondor only,” said Gandalf. “Yet there are other men and other lives, and time still to be. And for me, I pity even his slaves.”

The word, his, refers of course to Sauron. The slaves of Sauron speak first of all of the people who live by the Sea of Núrnen in the southern and more habitable part of Mordor, and who grow the food that supplies the armies that Sauron stations in the northern parts of that land. Their master is the Gloom of Nurn, one of the Nazgûl who ruled them from his fortress of Thaurband. Tolkien speaks of the sad waters of the lake and so we can understand the life that these people must have led.

The first thing that is clear from what Gandalf says of the slaves of Sauron is that they are not enemies but prisoners to be liberated. And indeed, Aragorn did liberate them after the fall of Sauron and the land about the Sea of Núrnen was given to them as their own possession. But there is a further thing that Gandalf wants to make clear to Denethor, and that is that if his care extends as far as Sauron’s slaves then it extends to all peoples, to Elves and Men, to Dwarves and to Hobbits. For Gandalf there is no hierarchy of peoples and there is certainly no such thing as Gondor First! Yes, Gondor deserves honour because it holds within its memory all that was best about Númenor, the memory that Elendil brought with him to Middle-earth. And it deserves honour because, as Beregond put to Pippin, “we have this honour: ever we bear the brunt of the chief hatred of the Dark Lord, for that hatred comes out of the depths of time and over the deeps of the Sea”. But this honour is shared with all the foes of Sauron and all the peoples of Middle-earth are the creatures of Ilúvatar and are loved by him. As Gandalf says to Denethor, although the Steward of Gondor may believe that he only has one task and that is the welfare of his people, for Gandalf that concept of stewardship is too narrow. Gandalf is a steward of all the peoples of Middle-earth, indeed of all its creatures.

This does not mean that Gandalf has authority over Denethor even as he does not have authority over Aragorn, or Elrond, or Galadriel, or Théoden, or over Frodo for that matter. Gandalf as steward is the servant of all and not the master. His desire is for the welfare of all and so he knows that in many ways he will come into conflict with Denethor, for their interests are not the same.