Denethor's plunge

[Essex]

of course PJ's rath dinen could have been directly under where we see denethor run - and a little tunnel that brings him up just outside the sheer drop off the edge.

and what always amuses me is that we moan about things not being physically possible i.e. denethor's run / gandalf catching up with the balrog etc, but we don't mind the fact that wearing a ring can make you invisible!!!!

[Celegost]

I agree....who cares about the science? And yes, there could have been a tunnel/stairs/extra fast escalator....

[alatar]

Gandalf was in the vicinity with Narya, and do we know just how far a member of the Mearas can kick one of noble blood? Every little bit helps...

[Knight of Gondor]

Originally Posted by Essex

of course PJ's rath dinen could have been directly under where we see denethor run - and a little tunnel that brings him up just outside the sheer drop off the edge.

and what always amuses me is that we moan about things not being physically possible i.e. denethor's run / gandalf catching up with the balrog etc, but we don't mind the fact that wearing a ring can make you invisible!!!!

I have photographic proof that that would be, as the immortal Vizzini said, inconceivable, in fact that the entire run of Denethor would be completely and totally inconceivable!


Overhead shot of the pinnacle of Gondor.


Photo demonstration of the length of the across the courtyard.


Distance of the bridge Denethor would have needed to run.


Better shot showing the incredible length of the bridge to Rath Dínen, as well as showing Denethor would have had to run up some flights of steps!


Final shot showing the path Denethor traversed to get to the tip and launch himself into a flaming oblivion.

From these pictures, IT IS CLEAR THAT DENETHOR COULD NOT HAVE MADE THIS LONG-DISTANCE SPRINT WHILE AFLAME. This dash would have taken him at least three minutes to make, counting his trip back through the hallways leading back to the Silent Street, the long bridge, the flights of stairs and the courtyard.

Conclusion? The guy made it back to the courtyard and doused himself in the water by the tree. However, Shadowfax (having not yet fully exacted his equine vengance) chased him down with a torch and reignited him, leaving the sprightly Steward no choice but to vault himself over the edge.

Plan B Conclusion: Nazgul (not Witchking) picked Denethor up and carried him a piece before putting him down because its claws were getting scorched.

[davem]

Don't know if it helps, but using Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth, which is noted for its accuracy, the distance from the Hallows to the Minas Tirith 'Precipice Viewpoint' is approx 3 miles & involves a climb (as has been noted) from the fifth to the seventh levels. This being impossible one must suspect that it is not actually Denethor who is seen falling but one of his guards.

It seems that the most logical conclusion is that Denethor was grabbed by one of his guards just outside the Hallows, who attempted to extinguish the flames. Said guard, tragically, caught fire himself & in his panic left the dying Steward & fled looking for help. He in turn ran into another guard who attempted to put him out & suffered the same fate as his colleague. This event was repeated a number of times & left all Denethor's personal guard dead along the three miles distance. A kind of horrific 'relay', where the flames were passed along from guard to guard.

This tragic event was commemorated in later years by the famous 'Minas Tirith Relay Run' involving a flaming baton being passed by runners starting at Rath Dinen & culminating in the igniting of a Dummy at the edge of the 'Precipice Viewpoint' being set alight & catapulted off the edge, to fall into the great Courtyard before the gates at the First Level.

'The Fall of the 100th Guard Festival' as it came to be known was originally celebrated every ten years at midnight on the anniversary of Denethor's death & became so famous throughout Middle-earth that travellers of all races would come from across the length & breadth of Middle-earth to witness the spectacle, crowding the streets & spending lots of money.

Unfortunately, the popularity (& the resulting cash benefit for the city) lead first of all to the festival being increased to once in five years, then annually & finally to every Saturday night. Drunkenness & general rowdyness increased to the point that locals began to complain about the 'yobs invading our lovely city & making a nuissance of themselves' & many visitors who couldn't wait for the official event would sneak up to the Viewpoint & throw their own home made dummies off the top. This resulted in two main problems which eventually lead to the event being cancelled - first, flaming dummies would pile up in the courtyard, making access into the city a difficult thing, & secondly, the Burns Unit of the Houses of Healing found they couldn't cope with the numbers of locals & visitors who fund themselves on the receiving end of a flaming dummy hitting them from 5,000 feet. It became a bit of a sick joke among some of the locals, who began making & selling tunics emblazoned with the legend 'I went to Minas Tirith for the 'The Fall of the 100th Guard Festival' & all I got was these lousy third degree burns'. An attempt to make Dwarf sized tunics emblazoned with 'I was a burned Dwarf' failed miserably & lead to the violent murders of a number of tunic vendors at the hands of angry dwarves.

In the end it was decided that for the public good the event would cease & the 'official' version of events was declared to be that Denethor had burned to death in Rath Dinen, no guards had perished in flames & that none of the above had actually happened. Tourism in Gondor suffered but the locals bore it stoically (apart from the tunic printers, who raised a riot on hearing the official declaration of the end of the festival & attacked the local Civil Servants, dragging them from their offices (coincidentally on the Fifth level) all along the route to the edge of the Viewpoint, setting many of them on fire & hurling them off the edge, in a desperate attempt to start up another 'tradition'. The rioters claimed that this was a spontaneous outburst of anger, but the discovery of a batch of tunics emprinted with the legend '1st Weekly 'Fall of the Flaming Civil Servants' (who weren't set on fire & pushed over the edge by the Tunic Printers Guild of Minas Tirith & anyone who says they did it are liars because we were all somewhere else doing other stuff & it was most probably the pressure of the job which lead to a mass sucide on their part) Commemoration Festival' was seen as proof positive that the whole thing had been planned.

Initially there was a demand by the survivng colleagues of the dead Civil Servants that the Tunic Printers should suffer the same fate as their own colleagues & be dragged up to the Viewpoint & ignited & catapulted from the edge (they were working on their own tunic designs but took so long to come up with a legend they could all agree on, submitting various versions, in triplicate, to their immediate & senior managers, bringing in third party consultants to 'think outside the box', advertising managers to choose the most effective colours & fonts for the lettering, that in the end nothing came of it, & the whole thing faded into blessed obscurity & everyone went back to what they had done before the whole thing had gotten so far out of hand.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Ah, cynicality is the spice of life, is it not, Davem?

'Cause Boromir is the man.

Okay, but Denethor is his father, thus Denethor having two children would inevitably split the man-ness (albiet in Boromir's favour) between the two. So Denethor's wife (who's name escapes me at this moment in time) had a significant contribution to the manliness. This raises some questions about her!

Perhaps instead of being born the-man, Boromir achieved the-man, or indeed had the-man thrust upon him?

I'm rambling here people..

[Knight of Gondor]

Originally Posted by davem

This being impossible one must suspect that it is not actually Denethor who is seen falling but one of his guards.

So what you're saying is, Elvis could still be alive???

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

So Denethor's wife (who's name escapes me at this moment in time) had a significant contribution to the manliness. This raises some questions about her!

Finduilas.

[alatar]

Have we considered that fire may have not even been real?

When Gandalf begged Saruman for information outside Orthanc, Saruman sent down a fireball to the new White Wizard. Gandalf astride Shadowfax was unharmed by the blast, and so:

• Gandalf is able to create a cloak of sorts that protects those so covered from fire, yet permits the fire to burn as it would on the outside, or

• Gandalf saw the fire for what it was, just another mind trick. Saruman's voice did not fool Gandalf, and though the others saw the flames, Gandalf did not and so was unharmed. There is precedent in at least two Star Trek episodes (original and NextGen), as well as in the 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' movie, and so I feel that I'm on solid ground here.

So were the flames that burned Denethor real? Did Gandalf cloak him, to protect the Steward in his madness, but the Steward ran off before Gandalf could continue to thump him senseless? Or, did Gandalf, a quick study, learn the spell from Saruman and decide that the Steward needed a lesson, thinking that the burned hand teaches best? Again, Gandalf may have started it off with good intentions, yet did not think that Denethor would take so long a dive.

[Beanamir of Gondor]

Honestly? Before RotK:EE, I thought the Movie!Hallows were situated right behind the Steward's chair in the Hall, or thereabouts.
Then EE came along, and the guards carried Faramir for about a mile back to the Hallows, and I thought... Wait a minute... The Leap of the Flaming Steward is totally impossible! Any of the above situations (Nazgul, Shadowfax, guard aid) seem more plausible than Denethor doing a three-minute mile while aflame.

And honestly? again? I thought the Leap of the Flaming Steward was cheezy. After the beautiful father-son moment in the Hallows, Denny had to go and ruin it all by getting us yet another long pan-out of Minas Tirith.
As if we hadn't gotten enough with Gandalf/Pippin's ride in.

[Knight of Gondor]

Originally Posted by alatar

Have we considered that fire may have not even been real?

I do not think this is plausible. The fire brought by the (senseless) guards was real enough. Pippin feared for Faramir's life because of the flames. And Denethor's groaning in pain couldn't be just put on.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Have we considered that fire may have not even been real?

When Gandalf begged Saruman for information outside Orthanc, Saruman sent down a fireball to the new White Wizard. Gandalf astride Shadowfax was unharmed by the blast, and so:

• Gandalf is able to create a cloak of sorts that protects those so covered from fire, yet permits the fire to burn as it would on the outside, or

• Gandalf saw the fire for what it was, just another mind trick. Saruman's voice did not fool Gandalf, and though the others saw the flames, Gandalf did not and so was unharmed. There is precedent in at least two Star Trek episodes (original and NextGen), as well as in the 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' movie, and so I feel that I'm on solid ground here.

So were the flames that burned Denethor real? Did Gandalf cloak him, to protect the Steward in his madness, but the Steward ran off before Gandalf could continue to thump him senseless? Or, did Gandalf, a quick study, learn the spell from Saruman and decide that the Steward needed a lesson, thinking that the burned hand teaches best? Again, Gandalf may have started it off with good intentions, yet did not think that Denethor would take so long a dive.

Oh, gosh, I've just thought of something that might relate to fire things. I think we have a precedent of some sort here.

Moses is reported as seeing the Lord speaking to him out of a burning bush. I seem to recall that the bush was not consumed. So, I'm not sure if the bush or the fire was actually doing the speaking, but something along the lines of imperishable was part of the story.

So, in the hands of lesser writers than those of Holy Writ, we could have the Steward speaking to us out of flames and not being consumed. Thus we would be able to conjecture a very long run on the part of Denethor (whoops, almost wrote Denimthor there) unhampered by the flames.

This would suggest that PJ and the other filmic writers have a unique understanding of Flame Imperishable in Tolkien's works. Or else they are suggesting something about Denethor's sense of himself as having proportions almost approaching that of a deity.