[Aldarion Elf-Friend]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Boromir has his final words, in which he admits to his failing in trying to take the ring, giving him a final touch of honesty where he has not always seemingly been honest previously.

Boromir not honest? I'm surpirised no one else has pounced on this one, yet. Or maybe everyone's got a little bit of Boromir burnout (TM me) after the last several weeks.

Seriously, this observation gave me pause to think a bit. Obviously Boromir prides himself on being totally honest all of the time. Men of Minis Tirith do not lie. This implies a question to me, however - is it possible to be totally honest all of the time without being, on some level at least, dishonest with yourself. That is, the complete honesty becomes a sort of self-delusion.

I think that the pride issue is the answer in this case. Boromir did in fact lie to himself, every time he told himself that he could handle the ring. We could argue whether the ring was lying to him, or influencing what was already in him, or his own pride and the stories he knew of the ring caused it, but Boromir's greatest lie was to himself.

This line of thought has got me wondering about the possibility of living a completely truthfull life. Some truths hurts, such as "the dress you just spent $75 on makes you look fat," or "I cannot really handle the temptation of (the ring, pornography, alcoholism, insert your favorite addictive behavior here)." But all hard truths have a way of being dealt with without being purposely hurtfull.

Now that I've re-read my post, I think that the sort of complete honesty that I was refering to in my second paragraph isn't really honesty at all. It is seeing the world and yourself as you would like it to be, not as it really is. Boromir is presented as the ultimate pragmatist (at least in his own mind), wanting to take the ring and fininsh off the enemy, rather than send the ring to almost certain capture in the heart of enemy territory.

I would argue that, rather than the most pragmatic of the bunch, Boromir is the most idealistic of the company - an idealism that is not rooted in reality.

Chew on that...