What is your heroic ideal?

[Nogrod]

The one thing I have entertained in my mind sometimes is that is Boromir (the one whose every action is depicted in the books) true to "Boromir" (the "character" he is in the books before the last events) in the way Tolkien handles him in that death-scene of his?

There is a question to be made, whether a captain of Gondor so keen to save Minas Tirith with all costs, would go for the seemingly futile suicide trying to save two hobbits of no consequence or value to Minas Tirith? (And please note, it's not me and my values talking here, but how Tolkien had made Boromir to be, and the discrepancy one can see within the inner logic of him portrayed by the prof.!)

Also the fact that Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas decide to go after the two in that dreadful situation just feels odd and / or unbelivable to me. Why follow two insignificant hobbits when there is a real war pouring in? So either after the Ring-bearer or to muster a war... those would have been the choices laid in front of them. But no, they decide to just run after two hobbits taken by the Uruks? That makes no sense for a king to come. "Heh, I'll just avoid these big issues I should decide on and go for the side-track so that no one notices me..."

I mean yes, you can make fine points on how that was meant to happen - and it's clear that was the case looking at the basic storyline. But wasn't Tolkien here bending his characters in favour of the plot he had in mind? Boromir included? So he had to find room for providence (or fatalism) even if it twisted his characters?

And to come to the point, didn't he make Boromir a different kind of a hero he was? From the "mighty public hero of good" into the "private defender of the few close to him"?

I can see the Christian ramifications here and will not wish to bring them to the fore more than this: did Tolkien change Boromir in the end to allow him to become a Christian hero instead of the pagan hero he was before?