Tension between Rohan and Gondor in the fourth age

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

"Sworn oaths" lose their significance over time. They don't mean anything, because as you expertly put it Tolkien's view about "declining moral fibre."

I just don't see rifts/tensions/war between Rohan or Gondor occurring during Eomer and Eldarion's time, or Eldarion's and Elfwine's. It won't come until the point where Men's moral decline has fallen and sworn oaths mean nothing to Men. Such a time in unforeseeable, at least unforeseeable to happen during Eomer and Eldarion's time.

I would have to disagree with the opening here: one of the themes of Tolkien is that sworn oaths have incredible power, acting almost as agents in their own right. The Oath of Fëanor is arguably the driver for the whole of the Beleriand segment of the Legendarium; when it reawakens and comes into direct conflict with the oath of Finrod to Barahir, it leads to the death of King Felagund, the rescue of a Silmaril, the founding of the line of the half-elven, and - arguably - the falls of Doriath and Nargothrond. Even in extremis, the sons of Fëanor were completely incapable of breaking it - any more than Finrod could break his own oath, even though it led to his death. As Finrod himself says: "The Oath of Fëanor is again at work. For the Silmarils are cursed with an oath of hatred, and he that even names them in desire moves a great power from slumber."

Similarly, the oath of the Dead Men of Dunharrow was broken at first, and they were cursed to three thousand years of undeath for it. Given that Isildur isn't exactly noted for his magical powers, you could easily make a case for it being the oath itself that held them in the mountains.

Húrin (and Huor) swore an oath to Turgon never to reveal the secrets of Gondolin, and he kept it - not only from his wife, who he could trust implicitly not to tell, but also from Morgoth himself! The swearing of an oath is treated throughout the Silmarillion as utterly ironclad: Lúthien was happy to bring Beren to her father on the basis of an oath not to harm him, and Beren describes his hunt for the Silmaril as an oath (which he keeps even though literally everyone tells him how stupid he's being).

The Oath of Cirion and Eorl - the one under discussion here - was held to for five hundred years, and there is no hint (in the books, rather than the movies) of anyone even considering breaking it. "Say to Denethor that even if Rohan itself felt no peril, still we would come to his aid!" In our world, mortal men are capable of breaking their oaths all the time, absolutely - but in Tolkien's world, an oath is far more powerful, and indeed tangible, than it is in ours. To reach a point where the kings of Gondor and Rohan would consider breaking their Oath would mean transforming Middle-earth into a place where history and nobility mean nothing - which, while 'realistic', would be (I argue) a complete change from the world Tolkien created.

hS