Life or Honor?

[doug*platypus]

Interesting point about Beregond there, Galadriel. At the start of this thread I would have automatically responded to the question posed by saying that in Gondor at least, honour is regarded even more highly than life. But I see what you are saying about Beregond potentially putting aside his honour in order to save the life of Faramir. At the same time, however, is there not a certain, important type of honour in this? Risking everything, including his own life, for Faramir that is.

I interpret lmp's original question as asking whether individuals within the story place their own life higher than their honour, or vice versa. To which I would say that all the heroes of the story place their honour over their lives, and most of the villains prefer to hold onto their life however they may!

The various societies we encounter in the story emphasise honour to differing degrees, and to a certain extent they also define it differently, or at least practice it differently. To a soldier of Gondor or a rider of Rohan, honour is gained by risking your life in battle for your lord and your country. Faramir alludes to the fact that warriors in Minas Tirith are esteemed over all other professions, and Beregond explains that even a man of arms of the Citadel Guard is held in honour. To a hobbit, however, honour of a different form is found through fostering a large family, obeying the laws and customs of the land, or being an acknowledged authority on potatoes like the Gaffer is.

Within the confines of the different cultures our heroes spring from, there are a number of examples where honour is chosen over life. Frodo not fleeing the barrow, Gandalf confronting the Balrog, Boromir defending Merry and Pippin, the three hunters following the Uruk Hai, Faramir rejecting the Ring, Gimli entering the Paths of the Dead. Although not all of these choices led to each of these characters laying down their life, there was always a very real potential, and a good deal of uncertainty over safety at the time the decision was made.

On the flip side of the coin, we have those characters who elected to choose their life over their honour. Wormtongue is the most obvious for his weaselling out of fighting for Theoden, but Gollum also pleads for his life a number of times, which is something we do not see any of the heroes doing, and the Mouth of Sauron quails when Aragorn stares him down.

I think we can definitely see the moral code of Tolkien himself, of the time and place where the story was formed and written, and perhaps also of the literary traditions which he harks back to, in the distinction between the heroes who choose honour over life, and the villains who choose life over honour.