If Denethor hadn't committed suicide

[Faramir Jones]

Some interesting points here, Inziladun!

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Interesting way to characterise Denethor's perception of his struggle with Mordor. Did Sauron actually...void himself? Never mind. I don't want to know.
The Professor said, I think in one of the Letters, that Denethor had become too 'political'. He was opposed to Sauron not in a right / wrong or black / white way, but merely because Mordor stood in opposition to the state he served, Gondor. Denethor as a politician was not up to the strain of the War: lacking a moral imperative to resist Sauron, his unwillingness to listen to counsel, and his readiness to kill himself and leave his people leaderless in their darkest times seem to me even more explicable.

I was discussing with a friend whether Gondorian soldiers shouted abuse at the Witch-king and the rest of the Ringwraiths, asking when they were last sexually active. Also, whether they asked if Sauron had sexual organs and if he ever used them or if they were just there for decoration.

She made an excellent point that such things would probably not have happened; because Sauron was not the equivalent of Der Führer Adolf Hitler or German Emperor William II, but of Satan. She reminded me of the phrase 'Speak of the devil', which was derived from the medieval phrase 'Speak of the Devil and he doth appear'.

This was a prohibition against speaking directly about Satan or about evil in general. If one did, Satan might actually appear, with very serious consequences for the person who spoke his name. Certainly, Sauron was spoken of indirectly by Gondorians; and even Mordor was also referred to by euphemisms, such as 'Nameless Land' and 'yonder realm'.

To be fair about Denethor, he did have a moral imperative to resist Sauron: the fact that he was the ruler of Gondor and therefore had an obligation to defend his kingdom and his people. Tolkien talks a little about this in his essay on the Stones in Unfinished Tales:

He [Denethor] was proud, but this was by no means merely personal: he loved Gondor and its people, and deemed himself appointed by destiny to lead them in this desperate time. (Unfinished Tales, p. 408)

Previously, Tolkien pointed out that the effects on Saruman and Denethor of them using the Stones were different:

Saruman fell under the domination of Sauron and desired his victory, or no longer opposed it, Denethor remained steadfast in his rejection of Sauron, but was made to believe that his victory was inevitable, and so fell into despair. The reasons for this difference were no doubt that in the first place Denethor was a man of great strength of will, and maintained the integrity of his personality until the final blow of the (apparently) mortal wound of his only surviving son. (Ibid.)

That said, I agree that Denethor's refusal to continue to fight Sauron even if he so despaired - something which Boromir, for all his faults, would have done - in favour of killing himself, and his attempted murder of Faramir, was inexcusable and a gross breach of his duty as a ruler.