Why was Boromir allowed to join the Fellowship?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin

Didn't Aragorn say that he had thought to go with Gimli and Sam with Frodo to Mordor, and have Boromir take the other hobbits to Minas Tirith. Not sure who Legolas would supposed to go with.

That was Aragorn's thought for the Company as the situation stood after Gandalf's "death", but I was musing on what they would have done if Gandalf had still been with them.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

That was Aragorn's thought for the Company as the situation stood after Gandalf's "death", but I was musing on what they would have done if Gandalf had still been with them.

Oh yeah. This has always puzzled me though. I mean, I can't understand his reasoning, why would he prefer Gimli to Legolas? Legolas has all these Elven superpowers, he can move without a sound, even dance across newly-fallen snowdrifts, he can discern individual faces from miles away, he barely needs food or sleep, he sees in the dark and shoots Nazgul from the sky. Whereas Gimli is noisy and afraid of ghosts. And he's short! It could be that Aragorn thinks Legolas a bit delicate and afraid to get his finger-nails dirty over in un-fashionable Mordor.

[Zigûr]

To be fair, Aragorn only states that he would have Legolas go with Boromir to Minas Tirith "if Legolas is not willing to leave us," by which I assume he would have been more or less fine with Legolas accompanying them to Mordor as well.

I always took his choice of Gimli as being due to the simple fact that he was a Dwarf and presumably the most likely of all of them to endure the hardships of Mordor - although as of course we've already discovered by this point Gimli is perhaps more delicate than might otherwise have been assumed: "Hard was my parting from Lothlórien."

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I always took his choice of Gimli as being due to the simple fact that he was a Dwarf and presumably the most likely of all of them to endure the hardships of Mordor - although as of course we've already discovered by this point Gimli is perhaps more delicate than might otherwise have been assumed: "Hard was my parting from Lothlórien."

But the parting from Lorien has nothing to do with physical toughness, and it is quite the emotional moment for a Dwarf like Gimli. I think he deserves some slack here.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

But the parting from Lorien has nothing to do with physical toughness, and it is quite the emotional moment for a Dwarf like Gimli. I think he deserves some slack here.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm fully pro-Gimli here. It was my intention to actually show that we have to separate Gimli's emotions, such as the previously mentioned terror in the Paths of the Dead, from his natural physical hardihood. So Aragorn already knows that Gimli is not unemotional, but that it's not important because he also knows that as a Dwarf he is enduring - as we later see in their long pursuit of the Uruk-hai, in battle at the Hornburg and elsewhere. As such I think Gimli was a valid choice. I would imagine that the horrors of the Dwimorberg affected him in a way that the more blunt adversity of Mordor might not.

[Nogrod]

Coming back to the original question I think you could also see it from the POV of the prof and what he was intending (aka. not only discuss it inside the logic of the story and the psychology of the characters).

It's easy to see that including Boromir is a smart move as it brings interesting tensions, conflicting loyalties, social and personal struggles etc. to the fellowship (and of course opening up the POV of the men of Minas Tirith to the whole mess) - great dramatic possibilities open up to the storyteller by adding a character like Boromir. And the prof really used those possibilities to the max.

But possibly even more importantly, I think, adding Boromir (and what he does) adds also to the general idea, or worldview, that things happen by a sort of providence where every act has it's role. Frodo would not have gone alone hadn't Boromir tried to take the ring - and with Aragorn, Gimli and maybe others with him the trip to Mordor would have been different and the Ring probably would not have been destroyed. Like with Gollum being still alive in the end securing the Ring gets destroyed as Frodo couldn't have done it - or Gandalf falling in Moria without which the two aforementioned things probably wouldn't have happened, Merry & Pip being taken captives and ending up in Fangorn pushing the ents into war with Saruman and thus enabling Rohan to join the fight at the Pelennor fields etc.

So even "bad" things serve a purpose.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Originally posted by Nogrod
I think, adding Boromir (and what he does) adds also to the general idea, or worldview, that things happen by a sort of providence where every act has it's role.

Which touches on the interesting dichotomy in ME between predestination/Iluvatar's will versus free will. For example, Frodo was "meant to have the Ring." But he could have refused it. And Isildur could have chosen to destroy the Ring (rather messing up the LOtR, but...

Gandalf says somewhere, I think, that he would not consider himself to have failed if even a (flower?) remains to eventually redeem ME from Sauron. There is free will, which can lead to failures against Morgoth, Sauron, etc. But eventually Eru will repair the situation. Or to quote the Silmarillion:

Then Iluvatar spoke, and he said: "Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shall see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but my instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."

Which really ticked off the bright boy in the class (Melkor).