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.