What do you fight for?

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Just a brief note here (going shopping soon):

Not to beat up on PJ again (oh, who am I kidding, it is ) Denethor and his sons are interesting cases of various motivations. While Denethor is more complex then PJ and friends portray, a wise philologist once observed:

Denethor was tainted with mere politics: hence his failure, and his mistrust of Faramir [note: not the cartoonish movie Faramir] It had become for him [Denethor] a prime motive to preserve the polity of Gondor, as it was, against another potentate, who had made himself stronger and was to be feared and opposed for that reason rather than because he was ruthless and wicked....If he had survived as victor, even without use of the Ring, he would have taken a long stride towards becoming himself a tyrant

Faramir, while motivation is generally seen as uncorrupted, battling evil, also seems to be afflicted with a bit of elvish regret for passing time and past times. Perhaps motivation includes a similar wish to hold time back.

However, Gandalf seems to suggest younger Denethor (before the loss of his wife) was more idealistic, at least relatively.