[Lyta_Underhill]

davem: But this seems to be the case almost across the board - how many oaths are sworn & accepted in full knowledge of what is involved. I keep coming back to Elrond's words of warning. Oaths do break many hearts & it seems that they are broken as much through ignorance of what was involved as by willfullness.

Fordim (original thesis of thread):
2) They all are rather unwitting players in a larger drama that they do not fully understand.

3) They are motivated, if not defined by, desire.

4) Their failures to fulfil their desires are integral parts of the successful completion of the Quest and of Aragorn’s Return.

It is interesting to relate the nature of the oath and the relation to the desire of the oath-taker. It is when the oaths taken by Boromir, Eowyn and Gollum do conflict with their personal desires and their placing of their personal desire above their sworn oath that they come into conflict with the quest and with those to whom the oath was sworn. But this is elementary. Thus, #4 above being an equation of the failure of their desires and thus the fulfillment of their oaths would suggest the oaths were righteously taken and not so righteously broken (although grace intervenes in the cases in which the oath-breaking is repented). Perhaps they even took the oaths against their conscious or subconscious wishes, but, for either reason of recognition of its righteousness or expedience, they took the oath anyway. Their actions from thenceforward would be motivated by the conflict between their oath and their desire (#3). The interesting fact that they fulfill their oaths in an almost lefthanded way, without their knowledge, or sometimes their consent, would seem to validate #2. (Of course, I think #2 applies to pretty much everyone in the story, Gandalf included. )

davem's quote above interested me as well, especially in relation to those who did not break their oaths, namely my pet foil, Arwen. I realize that she has pledged everything for Aragorn and his future, and while reading the Tale of Arwen and Aragorn once again, the above quote resonated and proved that Elrond's words were indeed incisive and must have haunted Arwen at her end.

'"I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world. The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men."
'"Nay, dear lord," she said, "that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."

Arwen's loss of hope is indeed the breaking of her heart occasioned at the last by her own oath, and she had little idea of the reality inherent in the fate of Men until it befell her. I never get the feeling that she regretted her choice, but rather that she is finally beset with desire that she never expressed during the War of the Ring and the Reign of Aragorn, during which her faith did not waver. When all that she had gained is lost, she indeed pines for it and feels the personal desire that can now never be fulfilled. Perhaps this is a reflection of a yet nameless idea I have had from time to time that suggests this tendency of Tolkien's melancholy tone is the fact that all in the world must be given up, and all ties severed in the end. It puts me in mind of the "Sea Bell," which is dangerous territory indeed...but somehow, as Fordim as well as Lennon/McCartney said, the "All you need is love" idea applies as the only possible way to connect souls and build delicate structures that must fall in the end...it seems to be a colossal "I don't know" directed at the hereafter, not a hope but a black nothingness that can't be illuminated until the other side is reached. But somehow is this the "final test?" I think the glimmer of hope appears in Aragorn's last words:

So it seems," he said. "But let me not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!

The final test...more than memory...it is suggestive, isn't it? But this is WAY off topic so I'll stop here!

And now, I hope that didn't cast any shadows on the discussion or stray too far. Thanks for your indulgence!

Cheers!
Lyta