[mark12_30]

Evisse the Blue ,

Challenging question! And it took me a bit of time to think how I might respond. I decided to look at the the challenges facing Aragorn and Arwen, and look at their "hopeful" responses to those challenges.

For instance, a simple example is that while Aragorn was off on the Ring Quest and Arwen was waiting at home, watching over him, she made for him a banner. That has met some derision on this board, but let's think about it for a minute. While her fiancee was a scruffy wanderer in the wilderness with nothing but a lineage, a sword, and lots & lots of enemies, she made him a (large) banner with the insignia of Gondor on it. She was standing in the hope that he would:

a. Survive (against terrifying odds)
b. Win ( against terrifying odds)
c. Be accepted as king (on the basis of his sword and his genes...)

Looking at it like that, the banner seems presumptious. Wouldn't a careful person have waited? See how the chips fall? She didn't. She made the doggone banner-- out of Mithril, no less.

That's hope. Hope that he won't just die; hope that he'll win the war; hope that the Ringbearer will get through behind all enemy lines, and that when he does, somehow it will all work out (her father , I think, knew how hard it would be to destroy the ring, just as Gandalf did, so I imagine Arwen knew too.)

"Either all hope cometh, or our hope's end."

Now... have I ever been through anything quite like that? Well, uh, not exactly... but it's sure food for thought.