LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 5 - The Steward and the King

[davem]

Originally Posted by Fordim

I find this most distressing with Eowyn, insofar as what she gives up is the very character and dynamic presence that has made her so interesting in the story.

Aren't you confusing what she does with why she does it? You seem to be implying that she was by nature & inclination a warrior, that she was happy & fullfilled in that role.

My reading is different. It seems to me she becomes a warrior because she cannot see any other way out of her situation. She ends up happily married to a man she loves, with a fulfilling, creative role. What is the alternative - would you prefer that she continued living on the battlefield, killing orcs & probably dying at the hands of one of them, bleeding her life away into the mud?

Eowyn the Shieldmaiden is a great character to read about, but if you put yourself in her place, what's so attractive about such a life?

She went to war not because she wanted to fight but because she wanted to die & win some renown in the process, to prove herself 'worthy' in terms of her culture.

What, exactly, does Eowyn 'give up' that's worth having?

Edit

The King

Faramir met Aragorn in the midst of those there assembled, and he knelt, and said: 'The last Steward of Gondor begs leave to surrender his office.' And he held out a white rod; but Aragorn took the rod and gave it back, saying: 'That office is not ended, and it shall be thine and thy heirs' as long as my line shall last. Do now thy office!'

This incident with the staff is interesting. In an earlier draft Faramir broke his white rod upon his knee in front of Aragorn, apparently in token of his surrendering of the Stewardship. It seems Tolkien had in mind that this was a ritual action, performed by all the Stewards (something suggested in a talk at Birmingham) - which sheds a certain light on Denethor’s action in Rath Dinen.

Then Aragorn took the crown and held it up and said:
Et Earello Endorenna utulien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!
And those were the words that Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea on the wings of the wind: 'Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.'

Its also interesting to consider the sub text here. Aragorn uses the words of Elendil to begin his kingship. Is this simply an appeal to tradition, or something more? Aragorn cannot claim the kingship by right of inheritance - he’s the heir of Isildur, not of Anarion. What he seems to be doing is to focus the people’s minds on the father of both Isildur & Anarion. This kind of sidelines Anarion, with Aragorn claiming descent not from Isildur but from Elendil - a subtle re-writing of history, perhaps?

In his time the City was made more fair than it had ever been, even in the days of its first glory; and it was filled with trees and with fountains, and its gates were wrought of mithril and steel, and its streets were paved with white marble; and the Folk of the Mountain laboured in it, and the Folk of the Wood rejoiced to come there; and all was healed and made good, and the houses were filled with men and women and the laughter of children, and no window was blind nor any courtyard empty; and after the ending of the Third Age of the world into the new age it preserved the memory and the glory of the years that were gone.

This is probably a later interpolation, depicting Elessar as the ideal king, almost a kind of ‘And the all lived happilly ever after’. It reads like the words of someone looking back nostalgically to a perfect time, long gone. We seem to have left behind the historical account & are being given the ‘fairytale’ It is ‘Camelot’.

Aragorn begins his rule with wisdom & compassion (who doesn’t shed a tear when they read his judgement of Beregond?). But he also shows a clever grasp of realpolitik in his treatment of his defeted enemies. Clearly his mind is on ensuring the safety & continuation of his realm, rather than in taking vengeance on his former foes.

The finding of the White Tree is the symbol of the resurgeance of Gondor, of the Numenorean Realms, but it plays another role, along with the Mallorn that Sam will plant in the Shire (interesting that both places come to have a tree as an object of ‘veneration’) The tree of Gondor is white or ‘silver’ that of the Shire is ‘golden’. The story of Middle-earth begins & ends with two trees, as if Middle-earth is itself redeemed & brought into alignment with the Blessed Realm, the Earthly Paradise. Melkor destroyed the Two Trees, but their images will now stand in Middle-earth, courtesy of Aragorn the king & Samwise the Gardener.

(One last thought: Gandalf told Denethor that he was also a 'Steward' - I wonder if the title of this chapter has a dual meaning, encompassing both Faramir & Aragorn and Gandalf & Aragorn?)