LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 05 - The Window on the West

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Stating the division made in lore is not condoning it - in fact he points out how meaningless it has become.

He does, but he points it out with regret - men have fallen from their height & have become less than they were. I bow to no-one in my admiration of Faramir, but my point is he is not without faults - I don't think Tolkien wouold have written a 'saint'. Numenor, by its end, had descended into what we might term 'fascism' (whether its a coincidence that Tolkien came up with the story of Numenor at the time of the rise of Fascism is another question), & Faramir speaks of the way even the decendants of the 'Faithful' in Middle earth fell into the ways of their 'Unfaithful' forefathers. For all his kinship with Eowyn he doesn't speak too highly of the Rohirrim, & sees Gondor's tendency to emulate their warlike ways as a failing of his own people.

Basically, Faramir is an idealist. As I said, his idealism is what enables him to reject what the Ring offers - he will not have Gondor Mistress of even willing slaves - but he has the faults of those virtues. Principal among those faults is a pessimism - 'It is long since we had any hope.' - about Mankind. All have fallen from grace. There is no hope even in the decendants of Numenor. So, he needs a lesson or two, not in humility as his brother did, but in hope. He too will fall under the spell of the Black Breath. He has lost hope & immersed himself in long lost ideals of the way things were.

I think seeing the desperate struggles & sacrifices of Frodo, Sam & later Eowyn enables him to redsicover his lost hope, which ultimately manifests in the Figure of Aragorn.