This week (and probably next) I want to talk a bit more Tolkien, but in a somewhat different vein from normal. Rather than discussing the historicity of Tolkien’s world or adaptations of it, I want to take a moment to discuss some of the themes of Tolkien’s work, which express themselves in the metaphysical architecture of Arda itself. In particular, I wanted to do this because it struck me how badly Rings of Power had fumbled the core story of its second season, the Fall of Celebrimbor, seemingly failing to understand the underlying moral themes of Tolkien’s legendarium and thus not understanding which elements of Celebrimbor’s story were ‘load bearing’ and why.
That said, for those who are just here for the history, this isn’t entirely a ‘skip week!’ As historians, we don’t simply document events, but also seek to understand past societies and the unique, often quite alien, ways that they understood themselves and their worlds. In short, the historian tries to, in a way, inhabit the worldview of people long gone and to communicate those values and assumptions to a modern audience. One of the ways we do that is reading the things those past people wrote carefully for exactly that: values, morals, assumptions about the world, mentalités as the Annales school would phrase it or Weltanschauung (‘worldview’) as German would express it. When you find the same idea or assumption about the world appear multiple types through a work or body of work, we call that single strand of worldview a ‘theme,’ and so in a sense when we read a work for its themes, what we’re really asking is, “in what ways do the worldview or mentalities of the person-or-society that produced this work ‘poke through’ the page?”
So we’re going to do a bit of that with Tolkien, looking at the way his legendarium treats sin and redemption, through the lens of two ambiguous characters: Celebrimbor and Boromir. I think the comparison of these characters is especially useful, in my view, because of what their contrast reveals in what Tolkien thinks is valuable and important. Both figures die fighting against Sauron and evil, but equally display character flaws that make them vulnerable at key points to the manipulations and machinations of Sauron. In terms of achievement, we would almost certainly regard Celebrimbor as the greater of the two: a king of the Elves and the maker of the Rings, the greatest of Elven craftsmen apart, perhaps, from his own ancestor Fëanor.
Yet the verdict of the text is quite different: whereas Celebrimbor fails quite completely, Boromir is redeemed and conquers, even in defeat.
But first, as always, if you want to help support this project you can do so on Patreon! And if you want updates whenever a new post appears, you can click below for email updates or following me on twitter (@BretDevereaux) and Bluesky (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) and (less frequently) Mastodon(@bretdevereaux@historians.social) for updates when posts go live and my general musings; I have largely shifted over to Bluesky (I maintain some de minimis presence on Twitter), given that it has become a much better place for historical discussion than Twitter.
The Fall of Celebrimbor
Our main points of reference for Celebrimbor’s fall are a few short paragraphs in “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” (as part of the Silmarillion, henceforth in citation as Sil.) and a few equally short pages in “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn” (as part of Unfinished Tales, henceforth Tales). It’s not a lot to go on, but I think we can get a broad sketch of Celebrimbor’s character. What I think we see is a character who is not evil, per se, but who is overwhelmed by his character failings and as a result fails in his role. Celebrimbor is not, I would argue, a tragic hero redeemed in sacrifice, but more akin to Denethor: a flawed ruler who at some times tried to do the right thing, but whose own moral shortcomings lead to the sins that led to the failure of his rule. Rings of Power, I think, got this character quite wrong, attempting to portray Celebrimbor as a good man (well, elf), undone in part by his pride but chiefly by his gullibility and compassion.
The best way to show this is simply to move through Celebrimbor’s arc in both the legendarium and Rings of Power in parallel, to show both Tolkien’s moral vision and how Rings of Power fumbles its execution by pulling out some of the load-bearing components of his character.
We begin with Celebrimbor’s motivation for making the rings in the first place. Put frankly Rings of Power reframed Celebrimbor’s motivation, from something arrogant and transgressive in the books to something compassionate and altruistic in the show. I found when I pointed this out on social media, some folks were confused, but there really isn’t much doubt in the text. In the Silmarillion, we get both Sauron’s arguments and the Elves own reasoning for accepting them. Sauron, as Annatar, presents his case thusly:1
Alas for the weakness of the great! For a mighty king is Gil-galad, and wise in all lore is Master Elrond, and yet they will not aid me in my labours. Can it be that they do not desire to see other lands become as blissful as their own? But wherefore should Middle-earth remain for ever desolate and dark, whereas the Elves could make it as fair as Eressëa, nay even as Valinor? And since you have not returned thither, as you might, I percieve that you love this Middle-earth, as do I. Is it not then our task to labour together for its enrichment, and for the raising of all the Elven-kindreds that wander here untaught to the height of that power and knowledge which those have who are beyond the Sea? (Sil. 287; emphasis mine)
I want to pull out a few things from this argument. First, it is a call, however pleasantly worded, for something approaching blasphemy: an effort by the Elves, under their own power, to craft what is effectively a heaven on earth and to reverse the grand plan and will of Eru Ilúvatar (the singular creator god) that the Elves should come to dwell in Valinor and Middle-earth pass to Men. But note also how it is ‘sales pitch’ that aims to play off of the ambition and arrogance of the listener, rather than their compassion or generosity, bidding them to raise their greatness (that of the Elven-kindreds) to match those “who are beyond the Sea” (which could mean the Elves in Valinor, but equally the Valar themselves).
And the Elves of Eregion (chiefly, we find out in the Unfinished Tales, the smiths of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, the “people of the jewel-smiths”), understand the appeal in basically those terms:
It was in Eregion that the counsels of Sauron were most gladly recieved, for in that land the Noldor desired ever to increase the skill and subtlety of their works. Moreover they were not at peace in their hearts, since they had refused to return into the West, and they desired both to stay in Middle-earth, which indeed they loved, and yet to enjoy the bliss of those that had departed. (Sil. 287; emphasis mine).
Note again the twin strains of ambition – to increase the skill and subtlety of their works – twisted with a desire for something that contravenes the will and plan of Eru – to have the bliss of Valinor while still living in Middle-earth. I should note, this temptation – that the immortality of Valinor could be seized by art or craft, outside of the planned will of Eru – is also exactly the temptation Sauron will use to lure the Númenóreans to their destruction under Ar-Pharazôn (Sil. 274-5). Indeed, this temptation is at the root is effectively all evil in Tolkien’s legendarium: the beginning of evil is in Melkor’s decision to try to bend the Song of creation to his own tune.
In Tolkien’s distinctly Christian worldview, both the real world and his created secondary world are ordered to the will of divinity and that will is fundamentally Good; choice is given to Men and Elves but defiance of that overarching plan is the most fundamental act of rebellion, the very root of sin. And it is what Celebrimbor is contemplating in his creation of the rings. Moreover, let us note that this motivation is wholly and entirely selfish: the purpose of these rings is to make the ageless, unending bliss of Valinor available for the Celebrimbor and the Elves. There is no intent to share it with anyone else. The motivation here is understandable – immortal beings grieved that the world changes even as they do not – but Tolkien’s morality says, in essence, ‘thems the breaks.’ Or, to put it in the rather more eloquent words of Gandalf, “but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Rings of Power fumbles this element almost completely, substituting new and different motivations. Whereas in the legendarium, Gil-galad, Elrond and Galadriel all want nothing to do with Annatar!Sauron (Sil. 287; Tales 227), in RoP, Gil-galad in particular is consumed with worry about the fading of the Elves and in particular that it will leave the rest of Middle-earth vulnerable to Sauron. Lest the audience think this is simply a rationalization, we are treated to a ‘ticking clock’ in the form of a sacred tree and repeated insistence that when the last leaf falls, the Elves will be compelled to sail for Valinor. Suddenly, rather than embracing the rings as an act of revolt against the will of Eru, the Elves are seeking a way to divert their decline – no longer presented as part of the divine plan – in order to shepherd and safeguard the other peoples.
That change in motivation extends to Celebrimbor and here it is worth noting that Rings of Power has changed the order in which the rings are made. In the legendarium it is explicit (e.g. Sil. 287, Tales 227-8, RotK 415) that the lesser rings were created first, the Three Elven Rings second and the One Ring last; RoP inverts the first two, having the Three created before the Seven and Nine. Moreover, it changes the motivation: in RoP the first three Elven rings are sufficient to avert the decline of the Elves, which would of course remove the original motivation for making them. So the show has Sauron, in disguise, suggest Celebrimbor make the other rings of power for the purpose of giving them to Men and Dwarves. Now on the one hand, I would argue this is not a deception Sauron would actually use: Sauron understands power and domination, not altruism and he does not tempt Men or Elves with the better angels of their nature. Even when the One Ring – a shadow of Sauron’s own corrupting power – tries to tempt Boromir or Sam, it tempts them not with altruism but with greatness and adulation, with “great alliances and glorious victories….and he cast down Mordor and became himself a mighty king” (FotR 469; RotK 195-6). ‘Thankless service’ is not a language Sauron speaks and so not a temptation he would use.
But more broadly, this shifting plot point, which seems to me to have been a product of the show shifting around events and characters to try to make its multi-threaded structure work, fundamentally alters Celebrimbor’s motivation: rather than a bad end (overturning the will of Eru) which turns out badly it becomes a good end (aiding the other Peoples of Middle-earth) turned to evil.
The next disconnect in the two stories is broadly in culpability. Rings of Power does quite a lot to limit Celebrimbor’s guilt (if not his broader responsibility) for the fall of his kingdom, in part because the writers of Rings of Power have not quite grasped the sorts of arguments Sauron uses – and thus the sort of arguments Tolkien imagines would be persuasive to figures like Celebrimbor. As mentioned already, the show has Sauron, disguised as Annatar and presenting himself as an emissary of the Valar, encourages Celebrimbor to make the lesser rings in order to aid Dwarves and Men. Rather than preying on Celebrimbor’s pride, he preys on his compassion, an emotion Sauron ought not consider or understand.
But the larger break comes once Adar’s siege arrives. In order to keep Celebrimbor working on the rings, in the show, Sauron alters Celebrimbor’s sense perception, causing him to see his city at peace and flourishing even when it is under attack and burning and I do not think the writers and showrunners quite realized what giving Sauron direct mind control powers does to the moral arc of Tolkien’s universe. In a later scene (s2e7 at 58:05) Sauron seizes direct and total control over a group of Elf warriors, compelling them to kill each other over their apparent struggles. The show’s excuse is that in allowing Sauron in, the Elves of Eregion put themselves ‘under his power,’ but this makes little moral sense for soldiers who had no idea who ‘Annatar’ was and no say in letting him in regardless. Instead, giving Sauron straight-up mind control – the ability to make Celebrimbor see whatever he wants, to make other Elves do whatever he wants – obliterates Celebrimbor’s moral responsibility for his own actions. Celebrimbor doesn’t respond incorrectly because of his moral failings but because he is prevented by force majeure from seeing the world as it really is. Indeed, the moment he does see the world as it is, he responds correctly – trying to organize the defense – but is prevented because Sauron uses magic to make it seem like Celebrimbor has callously murdered one of his smiths.
In short, Sauron’s ability to control perceptions and minds substantially reduces – if it doesn’t entirely remove – Celebrimbor and his smith’s agency in the story, which in turn reframes them are relatively more innocent victims of Sauron’s power.
Which is very much not how the appear in the legendarium! As noted above, in the Silmarillion, we get a direct report of the arguments Sauron, as Annatar, uses to persuade the Elves and there is nothing of compassion for Men or Dwarves in it, but an open invitation to attempt to build heaven on earth, to achieve “the height of that power and knowledge which those have who are beyond the Sea?” which is accepted because “in that land [Eregion] the Noldor desired ever to increase the skill and subtlety of their works” (Sil. 287). In short, Sauron is from the beginning asking the smiths of Eregion to do something wrong, which they know is wrong (as it defies the order set by Eru), his trickery which they do not know is that he intends to betray them, but that they do wrong, they know at the outset.
As the narrative continues in the Unfinished Tales, we see that not only the business begun wrongly, it continues wrongly. Sauron, as Annatar, convinces the brotherhood of Elven crafters under Celebrimbor, the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, to join his plan and they and Celebrimbor begin working under him “in secret, unknown to Galadriel and Celeborn” who were, at the time, the rulers of both Eregion and Lórinand (later to be Lothlórien; Tales 228). They’re working in secret because while Galadriel and Celeborn don’t seem to know that Annatar is Sauron, they can tell something is up with him and refuse to treat with him – after all, he keeps suggesting people do a bad thing, as noted above. Sauron, however, is able then to persuade the Gwaith-i-Mírdain “to revolt against Galadriel and Celeborn and seize power in Eregion” at which point Galadriel flees to Lórinand, while Celeborn remains in Eregion but “disregarded by Celebrimbor” (Tales 228).
Which is to say that when the rightful rulers of the kingdom, Galadriel and Celeborn, correctly point out, “hey, this Annatar guy is sketchy and seems to be asking you to do something that at least shades into evil,” Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain respond by launching a coup, forcing Galadriel out of the kingdom and excluding Celeborn from the government. Having already begun a task at the advice of Annatar which is, at the very least, morally dubious, they have then taken an action – revolt against lawful authority – which is clearly morally wrong in its pursuit.
Celebrimbor only repents of this choice once the One Ring is made and the trap revealed, not before (Tales 228; Sil. 288), which again means that Celebrimbor only turns against Annatar!Sauron when it becomes clear it will be bad for Celebrimbor if Sauron achieves his aims; he was fine when it was merely an evil against Galadriel, Celeborn and the order of creation set out by Eru Ilúvatar. In this sense, I would note, Celebrimbor’s arrogance and pride in a way neatly mirror that of Denethor’s: both characters are notionally on the side of Good against Evil and that’s certainly what they’d tell you if you asked them, but equally both characters are, in their pride, rebelling against rightful authority (“I will not step down to be the dotard chamberlain of an upstart…I will not bow to such a one, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity” RotK 142). Indeed, Gandalf’s rebuke to Denethor, “authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death” (RotK, 141) could equally have been given to the Elves seeking to recreate in Middle-earth the deathless, eternity of Valinor.
Likewise, I do not think in the books that Celebrimbor is redeemed in his death. In Rings of Power, a great deal is made of Celebrimbor’s resistance to Sauron at the end and his unwillingness to give up the locations of any of the rings, as well as his desperate efforts, as things come crashing down, to do the right thing: he tries to organize the defense, but is prevented by Sauron’s trickery, he tries to attack Sauron, but is prevented when Sauron mind-controls his guards, and he refuses to tell Sauron anything even under torture.
By contrast, the portrait in the Unfinished Tales is not so flattering. When Sauron’s assault falls on Eregion, it is the disregarded Celeborn who makes the initial sortie. Celebrimbor only appears after the attackers breach Eregion, defending “the chief object of Sauron’s assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures” (Tales 228). While this is after the “repentance and revolt [against Sauron] of Celebrimbor” (Tales 228), I think it is revealing that Celebrimbor is taken defending the thing he fundamentally cares about this most: the works of his hands and those of the Mírdain, their treasures. It is instead Elrond who takes care for those who survive the fall of Eregion (Tales 229): so while Elrond and Celeborn seek to save people, Celebrimbor, in his last acts, seeks to save things. According to the Tales, the Nine Rings were there in the House of the Mírdain and Celebrimbor, tortured, revealed the locations of the Seven “because neither the Seven nor the Nine did he value as he valued the Three…the Three were made by Celebrimbor alone” (Tales 229). Note of course, those Seven rings were “bestowed” to people (Tales 229) whom Celebrimbor is giving up instead of the Three not because he cares about the people but because he cares about the things and in particular he values the Three not for who holds them but because they were the works of his hands.
To summarize then, Rings of Power‘s Celebrimbor was a basically good Elf, who sought to solve a real and pressing problem (the fading of the Elves, which might leave Middle-earth defenseless), unknowingly enlisted the aid of a bad fellow in solving it, who – once he discovered that fact – immediately set about trying to right his mistakes, albeit failing in the process, because Sauron has Magic Mind Control Powers.
By contrast, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Celebrimbor is not an evil Elf, in that he does not desire domination – which is the sine qua non of capital-E Evil in Tolkien’s legendarium. Tolkien writes, after all, “Celebrimbor was not corrupted in heart or faith, but had accepted Sauron as what he posed to be” (Tales 228). But Celebrimbor is an arrogant and proud Elf who does much wrong and is undone by his wrongdoing. For reasons we’ll get into in a subsequent post, the cause and effect here is direct: the moral universe (the Unseen) of Arda has a direct, causal impact on the physical universe (the Seen); Celebrimbor is undone by his wrongdoing – that is, had he done right he would not have been undone. This version of Celebrimbor pursues an aim that was wrong in its conception, attempting to turn aside the plan of Eru for how the world would change (demanding heaven on earth instead of Heaven and Earth, as it were), then executed wrongly with a coup. And in his final moments, Celebrimbor reveals what always mattered to him most as he defends not his people but his things, the products of his hands that he valued most, a sort of love I have no doubt Tolkien would view as inordinate – in a literal sense ‘out of order,’ and thus inappropriate.
Consequently, while Celebrimbor revolts against Sauron, he never really changes his character, remaining prideful and ambitious to the end and unwilling to see his prized creations destroyed – as the text notes, “they should have destroyed all the Rings of Power at this time [before the fall of Eregion], ‘but they failed to find the strength.'” (Tales 228); another indicator, by the by, that the rings of power themselves ought not to have been made under any circumstances. Celebrimbor doesn’t redeem himself and fall heroically, but rather is, at last, consumed by his folly.
The contrast with Boromir is marked: where Celebrimbor, for all of his artifice and greatness fell, Boromir, we are told, conquered.
Why Boromir Conquered
First, I think we ought to get the facts of the narrative out of the way. In a straight reading of events of the Breaking of the Fellowship, Boromir does not come off tremendously well. When Frodo splits off from the group at Nen Hithoel, Boromir follows him and falls to the Ring’s temptation, first trying to persuade Frodo and then eventually trying to take the Ring by force. He recovers himself once Frodo vanishes and flees, but then wanders for at least half an hour (FotR, 476) before returning to the rest of the Fellowship, where he then refuses to be entirely truthful, though he does not lie (FotR, 475-6) and then, as if the full import of the moment has finally hit him, just sort of breaks down, “put his head in his hands, and sat as if bowed with grief” (FotR, 476) while the Fellowship begins to scatter.
As an aside, I think this is one point where I think the notion that Peter Jackson’s films are a bit more favorable to Boromir than the books deserves some credit. First, this returning scene – where Boromir wastes time and breaks down, is gone entirely, but I think more importantly, whereas in the books Aragorn, heading off, never finds Frodo in the film he does. And we see Aragorn tempted by the Ring too, something we do not get in the books. The edge in Viggo Mortensen’s voice and the threatening way he is shot in the scene is not just, I think, a fake out, but rather we are to understand that Aragorn here too is struggling to resist the Ring and succeeds only with difficulty, which is why he sends Frodo away. There was real peril in this moment and Aragorn, in his wisdom, realizes the answer to Frodo’s question, “Can you protect me from yourself?” is “no.” I think that moment does a lot to humanize Boromir’s failure – he wasn’t the only member of the Fellowship to be broken by the Ring, merely the first; the others would have fallen, one by one, given time (which I think, for what it is worth is the correct reading of the text: the Ring would have destroyed all of them, given the time, just as it eventually, in the very last instance, claims Frodo).
In any case, Aragorn bids Boromir keep the other hobbits safe while he searches (FotR, 476). Boromir meets this charge, attempting to protect Merry and Pippin even to the cost of his life. Here, of course, he fights and apparently fails utterly: he is mortally wounded and both hobbits in his care are taken bound by his enemies once he is too wounded to fight back. The orcs focus on what they think is their objective (no, I will not let Saruman live down this bit of terrible operational planning, thank you) – capturing hobbits – but do not (in the book) bother to finish Boromir off; they simply leave him to bleed out (TT, 18).
In short, then, we might say Boromir succumbed to temptation, then lost his head at a critical moment, then tried to accomplish something in battle, failed entirely and was slain. That sounds a lot like Celebrimbor, but whereas the basic facts of the two more or less match, what is in their hearts does not and that makes all the difference.
Boromir’s verdict on himself is sharply negative, focusing on those facts: “I have tried to take the Ring from Frodo,” he said, “I am sorry. I have paid…Farewell Aragorn! Go to Minas Tirith and save my people! I have failed” (TT, 18). Except of course, that is Boromir speaking and one thing we’ve learned is that Boromir, whatever his virtues – and he has them – is not among the wise. One of the key things for understanding The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s broader legendarium is that statements should be evaluated by the speaker; words from the wisest characters, like Gandalf, are often deeply true to the point of being prophetic, but less wise or even foolish characters, like Saruman, frequently err or say more than they mean. Critically, what makes one wise is not an understanding of the Seen world (the physical, ‘real’ world) but an understanding of the Unseen world and its deeper, more profound moral realities. Boromir cannot see that while he has failed in the Seen world, he has triumphed in the Unseen world.
But Aragorn, Aragorn is one of the relatively wise characters, even though he is not without fault (indeed, he spends much of the chapter “The Departure of Boromir” reminding the reader that “All that I have done today has gone amiss.” (TT 19)), and so we can put a fair bit more stock in Aragorn’s judgement. And Aragorn immediately corrects Boromir, with a judgement that gives us the title of this post:
“No!’ said Aragorn, taking his hand and kissing his brow. “You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace! Minas Tirith shall not fall!”
Boromir smiled. (TT 18; emphasis mine)
First I want to note the use of the word ‘conquered’ here, which may strike readers as strange. In modern English, we generally use ‘conquer’ to mean the capture of territory (that is, conquest), but Tolkien was a classically trained philologist and so, like many Latin and Greek students before and after him, he will have used ‘conquer’ frequently to translate Latin vincere and Greek νικᾷν both of which have a sense of winning a victory or prevailing in a contest in a much broader sense (for instance winning in an athletic contest).
Note that Aragorn at this point no longer merely suspects that Boromir tried to take the Ring, but knows it, as Boromir has told him. He likewise knows that the hobbits have been taken, though he does not yet know for certain it is just Merry and Pippin (he’ll realize Frodo and Sam went elsewhere in a couple of pages). In short, Aragorn has encompassed the full magnitude of Boromir’s folly and failure and fears yet more besides. And yet he declares “You have conquered.”
If you were somewhat unfamiliar with the way Tolkien’s characters work, you might read Aragorn’s statement as merely a comforting lie told to a dying man, but I think that would be profoundly out of character for Aragorn, who does not lie casually. You might also read it as Aragorn merely commenting on how many orcs Boromir slew – at least twenty before he fell – but that too would be surprising for Aragorn, who you may note does not take part in Gimli and Legolas’ game at Helm’s Deep.2
But then of course Gandalf returns later in the book and offers his own judgement:
Poor Boromir! I could not see what happened to him. It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake. (TT 118)
And we should remember here that Gandalf is, in fact, Olórin, the wisest of the Maiar. He isn’t all-knowing and indeed in this passage admits to gaps in his knowledge, but his moral intuition and understanding of the spiritual structure of Arda is unsurpassed by any character we meet or really could meet in the context of the narrative. We may take his judgement here as essentially axiomatically true. He too, knows Boromir’s folly (right before this sentence, he essentially tells Aragorn this, without revealing it to Gimli and Legolas) and is a bit more reserved than Aragorn, framing Boromir’s death as an escape from the peril he was in, which Galadriel perceived – and he chalks up the hobbits having more than a little role in this escape, declaring himself glad of it.
I think the “young hobbits” role in this is our key to understand why Boromor “escapes” and “conquers” whereas Celebrimbor fails and falls: evidently Gandalf would have us understand the presence of the “young hobbits” accomplished something “for Boromir’s sake.” They certainly didn’t change the ‘facts on the ground,’ as it were: their presence changed nothing for Boromir in the Seen world. But they changed everything for Boromir in the Unseen world, which is, I hope we’re coming to understand, the more important one.
We see Boromir, like Celebrimbor, succumb to a moment of temptation – he tries, by his own admission, to take the ring, a grievous failure. In the period that follows, I think we should understand his sullen silence as a wrestling with what that moment means. Boromir recognizes his failure and regrets it, instantly, after all, but then has to sit with the guilt; it would be all too easy for him to rationalize away his failure – to say it wasn’t a failure at all, but that Frodo was the fool – or to fall into despair. But Aragorn bids him to do something and that seems to snap Boromir out of his sullen state.
More to the point, the thing Aragorn bids Boromir to do requires the rejection of his false thinking and the embrace of something selfless. Whereas Celebrimbor, at the last, fell defending the very things that had been his sin and ruin – his pride in his craftsmanship, made manifest and tangible in the Rings – Boromir does not rush to defend his ambition or the glory of Gondor, or his dreams of conquest. He does not seek a grand audience and indeed when the deed is done, requests scorn, not praise, for it. Instead, otherwise alone, unwatched and unnoticed, he fights a battle he must know is hopeless to answer his charge and defend two young hobbits who are entirely superfluous to the quest as he understands it. They don’t matter in the Seen world, which is part of why they matter so much: Boromir isn’t doing this for glory or praise, but merely because it is the right thing to do.
I think Boromir must have had something of a crisis of identity in those sullen minutes. Boromir had imagined himself as the great hero of Gondor and it was this false pride that the ring had used to wedge itself in his mind; in accepting his failure, that false image has to fall away. Boromir has to become someone different and Aragorn, perhaps unknowingly, gives him the opportunity by charging him to do something good with no promise of glory or renown or power, a chance to take the new Boromir forming in the soul and make him real in the world. I think we see a hint of this new Boromir in his dying words, where he bids Aragorn, “Go to Minas Tirith and save my people!” – the old Boromir would not easily have yielded the glory of saving his people to another, but the new Boromir, a wiser Boromir, recognizes this task was not the one allotted to him; his task was to defend the young hobbits, a task with little hope of glory or power (TT, 18). It did not matter if Boromir succeeded or failed in that task, because the outcome of the battle was less important than the moral choice to fight it.
The hobbits matter for Boromir’s sake because they provided the opportunity for him to take his moral transformation and make it real by putting real sacrifice behind it. This is the thing Celebrimbor, defending his rings to the last, does not do. It is necessary to note, of course, that this is a very Christian worldview that Tolkien is advancing: what matters is Boromir’s soul, which is influenced by his decision to sacrifice even if the battle is not. Celebrimbor’s actions have the same influence on the battle, but not the same impact on his soul, for he does not abandon his vain ambition, even at the end.
Of course, in Tolkien’s legendarium, the moral force of actions has its own logic to it and bears out its consequences in the Seen world in its own way. Boromir has, after all, in his stout – if forlorn – defense of the hobbits, helped to save Gondor, though he knows it not. For the hobbits will now go to the Ents and so help topple Saruman, and from there to Gondor, where Pippin will help to save Faramir from Denethor’s pyre and Merry will help to fell the Witch King on the field of battle. As we’ll see next week, we ought not dismiss that chain of events as ‘mere chance.’ In Tolkien’s world it is the moral universe, the spiritual value of our choices, that matter most, far more than the physical results those choices produce. It is the choice to fight for the good rather than victory in battle, that matters to Tolkien and to his world. Yet at the same time, Tolkien exudes a confidence that if we choose to do right, things will be right, even if we do not live to see it.
On Borormir then, I think it is best to give Pippin the last word, “But I honor his memory, for he was very valiant. He died to save us, my kinsman Meriadoc and myself, waylaid in the woods by the soldiery of the Dark Lord; and though he fell and failed, my gratitude is none the less.” (TT, 29).
And so Celebrimbor fell, but Boromir conquered.
- And yes, I know that the Rings of Power team couldn’t use this chunk of text, but they could have at least attempted to replicate Tolkien’s moral vision, even if they didn’t have the exact words.
- Another chance to remind you that it is Gimli who is probably the most lethal individual fighter in the Fellowship.
A very lovely analysis.
I think your last aside in the caption below the picture of Boromir is very important and should not be glossed over.
Celebrimbor is made into a banner for Sauron’s forces, but Boromir is given a dignified funeral by his companions and even a funeral dirge.
I think the contrast in their treatment after the end really encapsulates and highlights the distinction in their character.
Bravo. There are many things I could say in response to this, and I might write them later. But right now I just want to say bravo for something very well written.
First line:
but in a someone different vein -> but in a somewhat different vein
Fixed!
I think Tolkien would have enjoyed the symbolism of publishing this post on Good Friday.
Celebrimbor is a continuation of the story of the original sin of the Noldor – love not too much the works of your hands. Feanor is our pre-eminent example, but even Galadriel needs a long maturation and much loss to get there.
It’s really sad to me that VS debaters on scifi forums have a better grasp of how Tolkein’s legendarium works than professional script writers do.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/union-troops-defend-minas-tirith-against-saurons-army.7754/page-3#post-1802244
Yes, I’ve posted this before, but it somehow remains yet relevant.
I was just thinking about this reading the article.
Reading through this assessment of Celebrimbor’s character, its striking that the more faithful adaptation of him comes from the Shadow of Mordor games, where rather than attempt to stop Sauron’s plan, he instead seeks to usurp it as “The Bright Lord.” Still not 100% mind, but clearly a guy comfortable playing god.
Not that that series is known for its accuracy, mind. Stupid sexy Shelob
I just now looked up “shadow of mordor shelob” and found an article where the developer explains why he made her a woman, and also he thinks that Shelob and Gollum are the real heroes? Weird stuff.
I’d say that deserves reposting.
It doesn’t surprise me that a fan of Tolkein’s legendarium might have a better understanding of it than most professional script writers. But you might have expected that professional script writers adapting Tolkein’s legendarium would do better.
Clearly our host is correct: It is hard to understand an alien mindset.
If I understand correctly, the copyright situation means they aren’t allowed to adapt the legendarium, and could be sued if they stray too close to it. So there would be an incentive to pick writers who knew nothing about it.
That doesn’t excuse the many other problems. As our host noted, the moral underpinnings are right there on the pages they’re allowed to use.
“pick writers who knew nothing about it.”
I guess the ideal would be to hire people who knew nothing about Tolkien, but could get excited about reading LotR including combing the Appendices (and maybe the Hobbit?), and working with the details found there. It could be an entertaining piece of extrapolative fanfic.
As RoP violates many of the details in the appendices, it is not that fanfic…
Surely there are plenty of writers who have read LotR but not the Silmarillion.
Hi Bret, I am not commenting on this article.
I do have a question about Ancient Rome.
Anything in the historical record that tells us or hints at the success rates of the various types of gladiator weapons in contests with each other?
I am sorry I am not a contributor to Patreon, I would be if I had any money.
Thank you
Not that I know of.
> “I will not step down to be the dotard chamberlain of an upstart…I will not bow to such a one, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity” RotK 142
I think that in the general sense, Denethor’s stance has some merit. He and his predecessors have been taking care of Gondor, while the “rightful” heirs have been somewhere far away and not doing anything for it.
He does not know whether this suddenly appearing “heir” is legitimate, or even if he is, that he will be a worthy ruler – so why should he voluntarily step down and hand over the power?
Perhaps, but Tolkien’s world operates under slightly different rules. And what’s more, Denethor knows this, or knew it once. You get this from Faramir talking to Frodo in TTT
‘And this I remember of Boromir as a boy, when we together learned the tale of our sires and the history of our city, that always it displeased him that his father was not king. “How many hundreds of years needs it to make a steward a king, if the king returns not? ” he asked. “Few years, maybe, in other places of less royalty,” my father answered. “In Gondor ten thousand years would not suffice.” Alas! poor Boromir. Does that not tell you something of him? ‘
Because even if they’re doing the same thing, there IS a difference between a Steward and a King, one that is not delineated by service.
That’s not how Tolkien’s extremely idealised version of medieval traditional legitimacy works, though. A steward may not usurp a king. Period. There are no apostrophes on rightful in the Tolkien legendarium. Denethor and his predecessors have acknowledged this by not taking the royal title, and in the last part of your quote he acknowledges that he does believe that Aragorn is of Elendil’s line. The rest is him trying to use 20th century Earth logic about legitimacy & power, which as per the Professor’s main point, is inherently sinful in Arda
The wording you used comes across a bit weird. There’s nothing sinful about logic.
The sinful part is betraying your oaths. And stewards are oathsworn to the rightful royal line.
That’s right on the secular side of medieval thought but in Catholic tradition wrong thought (pride, greed) can be equally sinful (this is one of the things that distinguished it from classical morality).
Worth remembering that this whole way of thinking is what doomed Númenor!: Ar-Pharazon was rationally *right* in thinking that pragmatically he was a greater, more skilled leader to fight Sauron than the royal family could offer and yet his taking the throne led the country on a one-way trip to literal hell, with only those who disagreed with him saved.
“There’s nothing sinful about logic.”
Christian theology has gone back and forth on this. It’s absolutely considered sinful in Christian theology to use logic to attempt to circumvent the will of God–it’s a form of Presumption, which is a mortal sin. Whether one can know the will of God through logic or not has been subject to debate, but pretty much everyone involved in the debate (at least as far as I’ve read) agrees that once God’s will is known it is inherently and intrinsically superior to human logic. The best argument for this that I’ve encountered (though not the only one) is that God CREATED logic, and that God knows more than any human has or possibly can; both mean that logic is, in this context, exceedingly limited.
Somewhat ironically, in as much as it relates to the point Bret is making, one of the most famous scenes of the Bible–Abraham arguing with God–shows that while logic can’t be used to thwart the will of God, compassion CAN. God decided to destroy Sodom and Gamora, but Abraham convinces him to spare the cities if a few righteous men can be found. It’s not logic or reason that causes the Divine Author of Creation to change His mind, but pity (a point I hope Bret gets to!). One can argue that God knew Abraham would do this, and set the whole thing up as a test–the concepts involved in the Christian view of the Divine can be endlessly argued (and have been, for two thousand years)–but a straight reading of the text is that God can be swayed, and it’s through compassion that one does so.
In the context of Middle-Earth, as far as this particular issue is concerned, logic is irrelevant. Aragorn is the divinely chosen king of Gondor and Arnor. This isn’t some trivial bit of legality, it’s a metaphysical fact that’s baked into reality–and it has very real-world consequences. Denethor II used the Seeing Stone to vie with Sauron and while he had some success, Sauron was able to use it against him, destroying Denethor in the end. Aragorn, in contrast, used the Seeing Stone and wrenched it from Sauron’s will. This is precisely because he’s the divinely chose king of Gondor and Arnor; that’s how the Seeing Stones work. The quote was something like “The right cannot be questioned. The will was enough–barely!” You also see it in Aragorn’s defiance of the Nazgul, his ability to use Kingsfoil to heal people, and his first encounter with Eomer, among other things.
Tolkien was not subtle about this!
One can doubt Aragorn’s claim; that’s fine. Sam is no worse off for thinking Strider was thief. But once you acknowledge that Aragorn is the rightful king, denying him his thrown is a sin–defiance of the will of Eru Iluvatar and the Music of the Ainur, no less so than what Morgoth was trying to do. Which is to say, sin, in this context. Doing so because you are unwilling to be subordinate, and only wish to rule or die trying, as Denethor did, makes the sin worse.
If you want to argue whether this should be the case or not, that’s fine. One thing about great stories is that they make you think. But we need to start with the fact that IN MIDDLE-EARTH denying Aragorn’s kingship and setting yourself in his place is inherently, metaphysically, wrong. Any disagreement needs to be with the author, not with how the world works.
It’s not logic or reason that causes the Divine Author of Creation to change His mind, but pity (a point I hope Bret gets to!). One can argue that God knew Abraham would do this, and set the whole thing up as a test–the concepts involved in the Christian view of the Divine can be endlessly argued (and have been, for two thousand years)–but a straight reading of the text is that God can be swayed, and it’s through compassion that one does so
Right, the “God knew all along, because He knows the future and is incapable of changing” is the “classical theist” view, drawing on neo-Platonists (I think) and then on Augustine and myriads of other thinkers since, and is probably the majority position in Christian history. The view that God, or the gods if you prefer, is/are personal beings with all the perfected attributes you’d expect a personal being to have, including the ability to change, adapt, interact, feel, have real relationships, etc., and yes, including the ability to change their mind, is the “open theist” view.
I’m sure open theism dates back as far as people have been thinking about the divine, in some form, but in a Christian context it seems to have revived in popularity in the 19th and then especially the late 20th century. I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian, so I’m not bound by any one particular religious tradition, but it goes without saying that I think open theism makes *much* more sense- on intuitive grounds, rational grounds, and biblical grounds as well- than classical theism does. As you correctly point out, it’s the plain reading of the story of Abraham, and there are numerous other passages, in the Old Testament and the New, which suggest that God doesn’t and can’t know the future in complete, exhaustive, perfect detail in the sense that classical theists believe.
Good summary in general, I just wanted to flesh it out a bit!
“It’s absolutely considered sinful in Christian theology to use logic to attempt to circumvent the will of God–it’s a form of Presumption, which is a mortal sin.”
I would not claim knowledge of Christian theology, but I can point out that logic takes you from premises to conclusions, and that if one of your premises is that it is sinful to disobey the will of God, no logically valid argument should lead to the conclusion that it is not sinful to disobey his will.
You could get into that position only if you had logically contradictory premises, and presumably Christian theologians would not claim that their premises are logically contradictory.
If they are, they could construct otherwise valid arguments that two plus two equals five hundred and seventeen. Once you accept logically contradictory premises, you can ‘prove’ anything.
I think the mainstream of Christian theology would argue that God is also truth, so that if someone’s logic leads them to a disagreement with God then either their premises were untrue or their application of logic was faulty. Some strains – Calvinism, some conservative Catholicism – will tend to emphasise that humans unaided by grace wilfully confuse sophistry with logic when it comes to religion; other Christian theologians play that down.
That’s not how Tolkien’s extremely idealised version of medieval traditional legitimacy works, though. A steward may not usurp a king. Period.
What did Tolkien think of Charlemagne and his dynasty, in that case?
That happened with the consent of the Papacy- who a Catholic considers God’s representative in Earth. Meaning that you can consider it that the Carolingian Dynasty overthrew a monarch that had already lost the right to the throne. Similar to how the monarchy of Gondor originally ended- none of the candidates from the rightful line were judged to be the rightful monarch. (There were a couple of candidates)
yea, on that note it is interesting (considering Tolkien’s Catholicism) that there is no equivalent of the Church in the books, as far as I can tell.
(though i’m by no means a Tolkien ‘aficionado’, so i might be wrong).
Well, no church, but Gandalf (and all the Istari) is kind of a pope.
” no equivalent of the Church ”
Correct. Hardly any religion. Footnote 33 of Letter 153:
> There are thus no temples or ‘churches’ or fanes in this ‘world’ among ‘good’ peoples. They had little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves). The Numenoreans… were pure monotheists. The top of the Mountain, the Meneltarma or Pillar of Heaven, was dedicated to Eru, the One, and there at any time privately, and at certain times publicly, God was invoked, praised, and adored: an imitation of the Valar and the Mountain of Aman. … Among the exiles, remnants of the Faithful who had not adopted the false religion nor taken part in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part; though a glimpse of it is caught in Faramir’s remark on ‘grace at meat’,
Though there’s also the Numenorean practice of putting a particular bough on ships, so that the powerful sea-Maia Uinen would protect their voyage.
@mindstalko,
Tolkien’s buddy C. S. Lewis, in his “adult” series (the Space Trilogy), also portrayed worlds with essentially no church or formal religion (unlike with Tolkien, I have actually read and reread that series exhaustively). In that context it was for a very specific reason though, Lewis was conceiving of what things would be like in an unfallen world (Venus) or an only partially and mildly fallen one (Mars) and so he imagined that the supernatural would interact directly with rational persons, with no need for the intermediary of a church. Tolkien’s imagined world does, of course, have its equivalents of the human and angelic Fall, so I don’t think the same rationale would apply.
“I don’t think the same rationale would apply.”
I think Tolkien just didn’t want to write pagan ‘good’ humans, and of course they couldn’t be Christian long before Christ, so he wrote them as something like Noahide Gentiles.
“supernatural would interact directly with rational persons, with no need for the intermediary of a church.”
There are a couple versions of that in Tolkien. Some elves have had direct contact with and instruction from the Ainur. And lots of people have foresight or “my heart tells me” moments, which seem to be guidance from the Valar or Eru himself. It’s a not a rational conversation, like Feanor talking with Aule about smithing techniques, but still.
At any rate, the Valar are not to be worshipped, and Eru at this point doesn’t seem to care about worship, and has nothing to say about human afterlife destinations other than that there is one, so voila, no worship among the ‘good’ peoples.
the merowingians had their own Issues and may have lost legitimacy with the sacral kingdom in that view as puppets
I mean, their official origin story was that their founder had been fathered by a supernatural, nonhuman being, so it probably wouldn’t be hard for a churchman to decide that they weren’t all that legitimate after all?
I always thought that exchange was subtle shade on the Carolingians, and the Stuarts. Their realms are, by implication, of less dignity than Gondor.
It is a little more complicated in the books, as is Denethor himself. He personally knew and fought alongside Aragorn as comrades decades earlier. I think there’s no reason to think that his erratic behavior in his last days was necessarily indicative of his full character. He was a very old man, weighed down with immense toil, refusing himself any ease lest his slip into the kind of sloth that Theoden had. Meanwhile Sauron chipped away at Gondor’s defenses a little more every day – and Aragorn was nowhere during all this.
Even shortly before the sad and bitter end, Denethor evinced none of the madness that afflicted him in the last hours. I attribute this to two factors: the direct pressure of Sauron and the loss of his sons.
I have said elsewhere that I think Denethor is a reflection (not a direct symbol) of Tolkein’s own experiences in WW1. Not everyone made it out entirely “well”. Even those left on the home sometimes didn’t quite survive even they never came without a thousand miles of the battlefield. War exacts a mental and spiritual price on society.
In the specific of the narrative, Denethor contended with Sauron. We can look at this as pride, but alternatively it was the pure desperation of a man slowly running out of options and getting no help. He knew the Elves could not and would not offer further aid. Rohan stopped answering. Even Gandalf mostly offered platitudes instead of concrete plans. It got to the point where he stopped asking. So Denethor tried to get vital information, probably knowing it was a very risky move. He did so anyway, and unlike Saruman did not become a pawn of evil. He did start to slowly break down, however, and the loss of both his sons (even if Faramir wasn’t quite dead) shattered his sanity. But he was probably on the edge beforehand.
I would point out there that we already see some seeds of problems developing. This is from Appendix A, section 3, concerning Eriador, Arnor, and the heirs of Isildur.
There was dismay in the City at the departure of Thorongil, and to all men it seemed a great loss, unless it were to Denethor, the son of Ecthelion, a man now ripe for the Stewardship, to which after four years he succeeded on the death of his father Denethor II was a proud man, tall, valiant, and more kingly than any man that had appeared in Condor for many lives of men; and he was wise also, and far-sighted, and learned in lore. Indeed he was as like to Thorongil as to one of nearest kin, and yet was ever placed second to the stranger in the hearts of men and the esteem of his father. At the time many thought that Thorongil had departed before his rival became his master, though indeed Thorongil had never himself vied with Denethor, nor held himself higher than the servant of his father. And in one matter only were their counsels to the Steward at variance: Thorongil often warned Ecthelion not to put trust in Saruman the White in Isengard, but to welcome rather Gandalf the Grey. But there was little love between Denethor and Gandalf; and after the days of Ecthelion there was less welcome for the Grey Pilgrim in Minas Tirith. Therefore later, when all was made clear, many believed that Denethor, who was subtle in mind and looked further and deeper than other men of his day, had discovered who this stranger Thorongil in truth was, and suspected that he and Mithrandir designed to supplant him.
Which seems to indicate that even before messing around with the Palantir, he has suspicions about Aragorn and a feeling of insecurity about his position.
There’s also that the Denethor of the last day had been subjected to the Nazgul dive-bombing Minas Tirith with their magical fear-and-despair attacks. He was probably resistant to it, having more “mental powers” than any of Sauron’s servants (UT, “The Palantiri”), but still, it’s yet another pressure along with the sickness of his last son and his knowledge of the forces arrayed against him.
(Side note: the Tolkien who wrote “The Palantiri” is rather more sympathetic to Denethor than Gandalf was, saying Denethor started using the palantir earlier, by right and with profit.)
Denethor uses the Palantir one last time before his final descent into utter madness. I suspect his cracking had less to do with the Nazgul, and more to do with what he saw there. I can’t prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, but given his line about Gandalf’s hope failing, I think he saw Frodo’s capture at Cirith Ungol and assumed that Sauron had the ring, especially since absolutely everything (or so it seemed) was going the enemy’s way. That’s what breaks him, that misapprehension.
“given his line about Gandalf’s hope failing, I think he saw Frodo’s capture at Cirith Ungol and assumed that Sauron had the ring”
Agreed, I think that was a big part of it. But we shouldn’t forget the supernatural despair bombers, either…
By the way:
If Denethor saw Frodo captured, and if he was also in contact with Sauron that last night, then he avoided leaking the “destroy the Ring” plan, even in despair. So, kudos for not losing the war right then.
Denethor also saw, but misinterpreted, Aragorn’s fleet of captured enemy ships sailing toward Minas Tirith. Remember, he said to Gandalf:
> It is a little more complicated in the books, as is Denethor himself. He personally knew and fought alongside Aragorn as comrades decades earlier.
Decades earlier Denethor fought alongside a mysterious stranger named Thorongil. I don’t think he ever finds out that Thorongil was Aragorn.
It’s not 100% clearly established, but at the very least the appendix gives us this
“Therefore later, when all was made clear, many believed that Denethor, who was subtle in mind and looked further and deeper than other men of his day, had discovered who this stranger Thorongil in truth was, and suspected that he and Mithrandir designed to supplant him.”
desperation is a sin in catholic theology
The point is that it’s not Denethor’s choice. If Aragorn is legitimately the rightful King of Gondor (which he is) then Denethor does not have the right to strip him of it. As Denethor explains himself to Boromir at one point.
The stewards were given the right to rule on issues of succession by the Kings of Gondor. They had already ruled that the line of Isildur were not legitimate claimants, as Isildur had placed his nephew on the throne rather than one of his sons, and thus meant for the line of Anarion to rule Gondor. This ruling leads to Earnil II becoming king of Gondor. The Stewards were given the right to reject claimants, used that right to reject the line of Isildur and that was then legitimised by the Gondorian kings that came afterwards. Aragorn only becomes the rightful king when the Gondorian Steward (Faramir in this case) recognises him as such and creates a new precedent. Until then he is only a claimant, not the rightful king or heir. Denethor explains that his own dynasty are not kings and 10,000 years would not make them so, not that they do not have the right to rule in issues of succession, which they have had since Húrin of Emyn Arnen’s appointment ~1500 years earlier.
Denethor knew who did come. Thorongil and his deeds
This is frankly the part of the Lord of the Rings mentalité that grates me the most, that ancestry is considered one of the most important aspects of a person’s character. Aragorn doesn’t just somehow still have a claim to the throne after centuries of his family doing nothing for it, because of his heritage he is apparently better at it than the family of stewards (even though his training can hardly have included Gondorian statecraft).
Not to mention of course that Denethor and Faramir are better for the “blood of Westernesse” being strong in them, and that according to the “Concerning Hobbits” prologue, it’s the whitest hobbits that make the best leaders.
Perhaps not “Gondorian Statecraft”, but certainly Elrond knew who he was and what he was destined for during his education in Rivendell.
But, yes, aristocracy is generally antithetical to the modern mindset with good reason.
Nothing
you mean after Gondor broke the High Kingship and refused Isildurs heirs the crown, Aragorn fought in the forces of Rohan and Gondor before doing really long range operations behind enemy lines
Not so. Full blooded numenoreans fall. All hobbits are ‘white’.
Then please give me an alternative way to interpret the following two excerpts that isn’t “People of a superior heritage are superior”:
“He is not as other men of this time, Pippin, and whatever be his descent from father to son, by some chance the blood of Westernesse runs nearly true in him; as it does in his other son, Faramir, and yet did not in Boromir whom he loved best. He has long sight. He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men, even of those that dwell far off. It is difficult to deceive him, and dangerous to try.” (Gandalf about Denethor)
“Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. […] The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and of woodlands.
[…]
The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. […] In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors. Even in Bilbo’s time the strong Fallohidish strain could still be noted among the greater families, such as the Tooks and the Masters of Buckland.” (The Narrator about the descent of Hobbits)
It means Denethor has gifts of body and mind passed down from his ancestors. It says nothing about his moral worth. In fact the gradual deterioration of the numenorean bloodline and loss of their gifts seems linked to moral rather than genetic causes
Stoors and Harfoots also have their special knacks. Stoors are expert boatmen and Harfoots hole builders and farmers
“It means Denethor has gifts of body and mind passed down from his ancestors.”
Yes. That’s my point. This is Gandalf saying that people of Numenorean descent have abilities that make them superior to people without.
“In fact the gradual deterioration of the numenorean bloodline and loss of their gifts seems linked to moral rather than genetic causes.”
That is you putting a softening interpretation on very explicit words. Note please that this is Gandalf speaking, who does not lie or choose his words carelessly. He could have just as easily said “the wisdom of Westernesse” or “the art of Westernesse”, but that is not what he did. What he did was explicitly say “blood of Westernesse”, meaning this is not about morals, it’s about genetics.
“Stoors and Harfoots also have their special knacks.”
I did not claim they did not, but it’s missing the point. The narration is very clear that the Fallohides *due to their descent* have characteristics that make them suitable for positions of power. Whatever characteristics the Stoors and Harfoots have do not make them as suitable for power. In other words, people of one descent are put into positions of power over people of another descent, based on their ancestral characteristics. How much more explicit does this need to be?
@AlienSystem,
I’m not at all disagreeing with your general point, I think it’s pretty clear that Tolkien did see genetics, descent, ancestry etc. as extremely important, and in particular, affecting traits like leadership ability. I don’t see that as a problem, but that’s partly because I do think genetics and ancestry are an important part of who we are, and also partly because I don’t mind reading people whose politics I strongly disagree with (and that includes Tolkien).
That being said, I don’t think Tolkien is saying there that Fallohides made *better* leader, just that they were more likely to be found as leaders. I do think that boldness and adventurousness have a hereditary component (they do in other animals, so it would surprise me if they didn’t in humans), and I think that bold and adventurous people are more likely to end up as leaders, but I don’t think that’s a *good* thing (on the contrary, I think societies often suffer, sometimes in the most extreme ways, by having bold and adventurous people running things, instead of being governed by, say, shepherds or factory workers or hairdressers).
Denethor knew Aragorn as Thorongil, a servant and war leader of his father. Aragorn has done plenty for Gondor. Also Gondor’s rejection of the rightful king goes back to the death of Earnil.
It’s completely unrelated to the theme of this article, but the “Boromir smiled” line is quite infamous in Russian Tolkien fandom. This kind of beige prose was simply insufferable to the authors of the three most popular translations, and they all couldn’t stand the temptation to purple it up to match the importance of the moment.
A fascinating observation. It seems to me that English prose frequently prefers to capitalize on the sudden switch to a simple straightforward statement for the most significant of events. In particular when it’s fundamentally a simple thing that’s happening, given significance by its indirect implications. That way it seems that the impact is maximized by being communicated in just a few words, and the reader can comprehend what’s happening as immediately and as thoroughly as possible and thus feel its significance just as rapidly.
By way of example, if one were to imagine a prose version of the moment that Luke drops from the ledge instead of take Vader’s hand, it would feel slightly absurd for a writer to use more than maybe five words to describe that.
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” as the saying goes, and while it’s usually applied to humor I think it can apply more broadly.
Well, according to the comments in the link I included in my other comment, “Fly, you fools” is commonly translated as just “Flee” (“Begite”.) The reason given is apparently the idea that the important thing is to preserve the number of syllables, rather than words (at least when it’s something shouted in a hurry) and there are three syllables in both.
The same discussion also notes a dramatic example of brevity in the translation of one of Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga sci-fi novels*. I wonder if you’ll be pleased by this one:
> “Miles considered denying personal ownership of ImpSec and anyone in it, but recognized ruefully that he was now identified as the authority on ImpSec among the Auditors just as Vorthys was identified as the engineering expert. It’s an ImpSec problem, he pictured some future conclave of his colleagues concluding. Give it to Vorkosigan. “Right.”
> In translation:
> “You are right”, Miles replied laconically.
*As an aside, that series may actually be somewhat more popular in the Russian language space than their original one (even if the translators had to replace “Vorkosigan” with “Forkosigan” to do so, since “Vor”, intended as a noble title akin to “Sir” by Bujold, and attached to the front of every noble family’s last name once they are “knighted”, literally means “Thief” in Russian – all the more amusing considering that the planet where the protagonist is from, Barrayar, was meant to have been colonized by English-, French- and Russian-speakers in seemingly near-equivalent proportions**, so they definitely would have known of it before deciding to use that word.) Though, the advantage of novelty, of being brand-new in 1990s and so getting to suddenly flood onto the shelves while the earlier Western sci-fi was often doled out through specialist magazines IF it was even approved by the censors, likely contributed to its success.
The same phenomenon means many “pulp” Hollywood films from 1990s and early 2000s are often markedly more popular in Russia/Ukraine/etc. than at home, at least in relative terms (since a lot of earlier films are correspondingly not rated quite as high.) The archetypal example is probably the fandom of Equilibrium amongst those (men) who grew up in the 1990s, the intensity of which would likely surprise everyone else, but it’s far from the only one. The list of “top 500” films, as rated by users of the bilingual Russian/Ukrainian IMDB equivalent, Kinorium (biggest Russian one is blocked in Ukraine and vice versa, and that has been true even before 2022), is quite revealing.
https://en.kinorium.com/collections/kinorium/300/
While the top 20 or so positions there are very similar to top 20 in IMDB’s Top 250 (i.e., The Shawshank Redemption remains #1 in both – as it is on nearly every IMDB equivalent I’ve ever seen, from Czech CSFD to PRC’s Douban), it’s not hard to find examples of what I mean – i.e. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) is #27 on there, vs. #167 on IMDB; Catch Me If You Can (2002) is #33 vs. #173, the first Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) is #37 vs. #222, Home Alone (1990) and Shrek (2001) are #44 and #49 vs. not being featured on IMDB’s top 250 at all, etc.
**That is, we know the speakers of Russian (or English, or French, for that matter) are not a linguistic minority on Barrayar, because it does have an influential linguistic minority which actually perceives itself as a minority, to the point it is a politically explosive issue in one book when soldiers from it are mistreated by a sadistic general (with Russian last name). Said minority are…Greek speakers – that is, a group of fewer than 15 million as of today, and roughly as numerous as, say, Hungarian speakers, somehow was able to send enough members from Earth to that planet to form the 4th largest linguistic grouping there, ahead of Spanish or any Asian language. I am not sure if Bujold ever explained how that worked.
My impression is that the Firsters on Barrayar weren’t the main group of planned colonists, they were the preliminary crews of contractors doing prep work. So a Greek-speaking company was building the spaceport, a French-speaking company was doing the surveying, a Russian-speaking company was doing biological analysis, and an English-speaking company planning the settlements. Bujold also said somewhere that there were other languages present on Barrayar when the Time Of Isolation started, but only those four survived.
translators had to replace “Vorkosigan” with “Forkosigan”
Huh, how do they translate Galeni’s bitter exclamation (on learning of the emperor’s engagement to a woman he was going to propose to) that “Vor *does* mean thief!” (implicitly presented as a folk etymology for a word that has some other lineage)
(re: “fly, you fools”, not the rest of it) Although, according to this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3CsPnRGLTsE
featuring the clip of that line from the film in 11 languages, it seems that every single one (as far as I can tell) does translate the second word in some way. A majority seem to be clustered around five syllables, notwithstanding disagreement between languages as to just what counts as a syllable.
To be fair, I’d take Lock Stock over Inception (number 14!) any day (not that Inception was a bad film, far from it), so I’m with the Czechs on that one.
There was also something ineffable that disappointed me in Dune Part Two (ranked 52nd) that has left me baffled as to why it’s consistently held up as a masterpiece, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I think that’s just an issue with me though, so my ranking Lock Stock above that is likely an aberration.
I forgot all about this! For those readers who want more context:
https://sadtranslations.livejournal.com/981734.html
> “And Boromir, struggling against death, smiled” – V. Muraviev, A. Kistyakovsky
> “A shadow of a smile flickered across Boromir’s pale, bloodless face.” – N. Grigorieva, V. Grushetsky
“A faint smile touched Boromir’s lips.” – M. Kamenkovich, V. Karrick
> “Boromir smiled”, – some nobody named Tolkien.
Furthermore; commenters have probably picked up that this line, “the three most popular translations”, implies the existence of others. There were apparently more translations of Tolkien into Russian than into any other language – enough that Indiana University’s linguist Mark T. Hooker wrote a whole book, “Tolkien Through Russian Eyes”, devoted to this subject. To quote:
> There are 11 different translations of “Leaf by Niggle”, 10 translations of “The Lord of the Rings”; 9 translations of The Hobbit and six translations of “The Silmallirion”. Every translator uses a slightly different approach towards the text. Every translation presents a somewhat different interpretation of Tolkien. Every translator is telling a slightly different story. The majority of the existing translations are a mere approximation, rather than the real Tolkien. All of them are adapted towards the Russian mentality. As Vladimir Sviridov, one of the leaders of Tolkien Texts Translation (TTT) group had perceptively noted, “In Russia, translating Tolkien is, first and foremost, a way to express oneself, rather than the way to reach money and fame.” The purpose of this book is to uncover these divergences between the translations and the original.
(Technically, the above was my translation of a passage from the Russian translation of his book. How is that for a meta overload?)
P.S. Notably, the earliest LOTR translation, by Zinaida Bobyr’, translated that line fairly conservatively – “Boromir smiled, without opening his eyes.” This is in STARK contrast to the rest of her work, which is usually described as a “retelling” because it condenses so much that about 2/3rds of the text is removed (her version fits all three parts into a single regular-sized book) and other elements are introduced as connective tissue. (I.e. the reason why Aragorn cannot at the start be recognized as the true heir to Gondor and Elrond’s legacy and be worthy of Arwen’s hand in marriage is because he must be able to put on another Valar artefact, the Silver Diadem, which will grant unmatched wisdom and foresight to those who are worthy, but instantly annihilate those would-be wearers who are not. Not even Sauron would dare attempt this without the One Ring – so he doesn’t try even when it enters his forces’ possession with the capture of Osgiliath.)
(And in Bobyr’s defence, she was doing this in the 1960s, in the underground, samizdat conditions, since aspects in LOTR like the High Elves being of the West and its description of Southrons’ besieging Minas Tirith under the red banners* could hardly have endeared it to Soviet censors, and even in 1990, it was dismissed in an official encyclopedia as “a work which follows the pessimistic concept of an inevitable influence of evil on historical development” – as contrasted against the “socialist realist” conception of largely inexorable and unbroken march of progress and historical development, where the past was generally always worse than the present and the future would always be better. (Itself a remarkable contrast in perception with the “post-ASOIAF fantasy” treating LOTR as “not dark enough.”)
Having said that, the OTHER samizdat translation, by Alexander Gruzberg in 1975, has the reputation of being the most literal of all – to the point its main criticisms are for the comparative crudeness of its direct translations – i.e. he is the only one to use the direct, and somewhat phonetically “ugly” counterpart to “Ruling” (“Pravyaschee Kol’tso”) when translating “the Ruling Ring”, as opposed to “Ring of Omnipotent Power” (“Kol’tso Vsevlastiya”) used by everyone else. Some of Bobyr’s deviations from Tolkien’s text clearly reflect her own worldview rather than being based on expediency – i.e. she apparently found the master-servant relationship between Frodo and Sam distasteful and replaced every instance of either term with “a friend”.**)
*Which Hooker, for his part, argues WAS in fact political on the part of Tolkien, but wasn’t intended to point at the USSR as much as to jab at the British Labour Party, with its anthem The Red Flag (The people’s flag is deepest red/It shrouded oft our martyred dead/And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold/Their hearts’ blood dyed its every fold….So raise the scarlet standard high/Beneath its shade we’ll live and die/Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer/We’ll keep the red flag flying here…Tony Blair infamously “flinched”)
**Hooker also cites an interview given by Maria Kamenkovich (she of “a faint smile touched Boromir’s lips”) in 1995, according to which that attitude resonated amongst many readers, who retained “the Soviet rejection of aristocracy” – i.e. she compares the attitude of 1990s Russian readers to “a young boy in a Dostoevsky’s story, who is given a star map in the morning, and returns it with his own markings all over it in the evening… The young readers approach Tolkien with a certain arrogance…a desire to “debunk him” and bring him down to our level, for “we know what life is really like.” She claims that a “universally popular” pastime of contemporary Tolkien LARPers is to have “Galadriel” dry wet socks over a campfire as an apotheosis of this. Notably, she not only opposes this attitude as a translator, but goes as far as to describe Tolkien as “a necessary cure to the tendency to “simplify everything” that ought to be administered a spoonful [a day].” (When I translate her term “oproschenie” as “simplification”, this should be read not in the sense “to dumb down”, but in evoking Lev Tolstoy’s use of it for his anti-hierarchical beliefs – she is explicitly arguing Tolkien ought to be used to re-instil respect for social hierarchies.)
P.P.S. Another notable part of Hooker’s book is when he points out that the first translation cited above, the Muraviev-Kistyakovsky translation (eventually mostly Muraviev, since Kistyakovsky died before they could finish translating Two Towers together) describes Scouring of the Shire in explicitly Stalinist language – shiriffs describe their leader as Generalissimus (a term only ever used in Russian context by Stalin during WWII), they describe how arrest would occur with NKVD phrases like “konvoirovanie” (to keep under armed escort), the threat to arrest and lock up fifty hobbits is not qualified with a mere year and so appears much more indefinite, etc.
@YARD,
Thanks, that’s fascinating to learn about how Soviet translators, authorities and the general public “processed” Tolkien’s writings (which were of course written from a very different ideological viewpoint than anything they would have found acceptavble).
as contrasted against the “socialist realist” conception of largely inexorable and unbroken march of progress and historical development, where the past was generally always worse than the present and the future would always be bette
I didn’t realize their narrative of historical progress was as simplistic as that? Because I know there are lots of Marxists who have a more sophisticated and less “inexorable” view of progress (and it seems to me that it should have been obvious to any Soviet intellectual even in the 1960s, just looking at Russian history alone, that often things can move backward, and get worse, for long periods of time. Like with the installation of a particularly harsh version of serfdom in the 16th and 17thc.).
I find it amusing how you said last week that you were getting sick of Rings of Power analysis, and actually finished a series in the planned number of segments as a result, so that you could go and…do another Rings of Power essay this week.
Good essay though, and I did enjoy it.
Really enjoyed this. I must re-read both Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
To give the smallest grace to rings of power, they utterly fucked up battles and plotting and other issues, but trying to wrangle how and why the Rings work, and what purpose they were put too is a huge issue with the freedom of action aspect.
The arguments and nature of the Kingdom of God Versus the Kingdom of Man, and is it a Sin to make the Kingdom of Man better is a whole other…. monumental thing.
but still.
The fading of the Elves and that is a bad thing, we need weapons and tools against Sauron but our very own efforts empower The Dark lord works narratively for a story… Especially helps with the make Sauron tricksy. Intended Good Twisted to Evil Versus actual Good being a whole thing. The Theoretical Good versus the practical Real.
but the huge issue of big bad too strong instant win. Mind Control is always a Bitch of a thing to write around if you give your Big Those Powers, Free Will exists, but we all have Wills so if my Will is stronger then yours and ENFORCE it and actions upon you is a whole mess.
Especially when dealing with a plotline of a Rebelling Orc.
The how and why The Rings Dominate folks, and the Orcs being a evil Race supposedly born from willing converts and Slaves is a whole huge mess. Never handled well on the power of the Ring besides being a corruptor and Soul piece.
god am I bitter that they fucked up a Rebelling Doomed Slave Storyline here. Could have had a Rebel Orc group fighting against a Sauron loyal group, who tricks Elves into fighting one or the other, leading to everyone ruins. But NOOOOOO got to make it utterly stupid.
Even the fact of the Rings given to Human Leaders seeking to empower them, just weakens and turns them into Sauron protectorates or vassal kingdoms or other Great Power fuckery is a whole delightful thing for a Dark Lord to be messing with.
something I always wished folks talked about more is the Ironic Trap of the Ring of power from a logical Standpoint,
The fun of the 3 options of be Destroyed, turn a Enemy into a Servant, or if Strong enough they become the Dreaded THIRD DARK LORD. Heir To Sauron, to Morgoth. Even if Sauron has his own wishes, the irony of Evil Wins despite its current Greatest Servant is a whole thing.
its a bit funny that the Video Game Middle Earth Shadows of Mordor accidentally stumble into it with Ghost Celebrimbor and Talion, Rebelling and fighting Sauron for Supremacy of Mordor, and that they COULD win which would make the new BRIGHT LORD, 3rd of the Dark Lords so to speak, which the nice odd Spider Lady seeks to Stop.
much fun, silly, but lovely minion system.
“The arguments and nature of the Kingdom of God Versus the Kingdom of Man, and is it a Sin to make the Kingdom of Man better is a whole other…. monumental thing.”
I feel this would be solvable through a simple change of the wording used, belying a deep difference in intent.
If, instead, Celebrimbor had made the rings ‘to make Middle Earth as great of a kingdom as could be, outside of deathless Valinor’…that may well have been acceptable. It’s the sheer prideful hubris of attempting to make Middle Earth *the equal* of Valinor that was sinful. Without that, mere improvement is quite a noble cause.
My question, I suppose, is does this make Galadriel more of a morally grey character for using her ring to prolong the glory of the elves? Using it for its sinful original purpose. If the books treat her choice to go West similarly to the film (I can’t remember), then no wonder she sees that as having passed a test and gained salvation.
Given that Aragorn’s goal is in part to restore Gondor to its heights, and in a sense the goal of all the heroic characters of Lord of the Rings is to protect the peoples of Middle Earth from Sauron, the goal of improving the world within the limits of what can be done in the mortal realm is one that certainly has the risk of falling into destructive hubris, but not a guarantee of transgressing against Eru’s will. I think it is ultimately genuine compassion that is the one motivation that can never truly lead to destructive folly in the Legendarium. One can make mistakes in pursuit of goals motivated by compassion, but so long as you are motivated by it you can recognize your own mistakes and work to make them right.
I think the key element is compassion. One of Aragorn’s goals is to restore Gondor to its former heights, and the goal of all the heroic characters is to protect the peoples of Middle Earth from Sauron’s dominion. In both cases, it’s because at least in part that they genuinely care about the lives of the people involved and want to make them better to the best of their abilities. Seeking to make the greatest kingdom possible outside of Valinor is not a goal that inherently leads one to ruin, but the pride and ambition involved in it does make it a risky one that can certainly lead to one’s undoing. Genuine compassion means you’re willing to look at the effect your actions have on other people rather than blindly forge ahead with them. You may make mistakes, but so long as it’s compassion that guides you, you’ll be able to recognize them and work to make amends.
That is not to say you cannot become misguided in your compassion, only that truly damning mistakes can only come about as a consequence of abandoning it.
I think in the case of Lord of the rings, a motivation like creating the greatest kingdom possible outside Valinor while not inherently leading one onto a path of damnation is a risky one, because it’s based in pride and ambition, restrained perhaps, but still a risk. The key element I believe is compassion, as that’s ultimately the main driver for all the heroic characters. The quest to defeat Sauron is to protect the people of Middle Earth from Sauron’s dominion first and foremost, and Aragorn’s goal to restore Gondor is motivated be a desire to make things better for its people I think.
Compassion is the key virtue in Tolkien’s world not because it will make you immune to mistakes, but because so long as you are genuinely motivated by it you’ll acknowledge your mistakes and work to make amends. If your goal of making the greatest kingdom possible in the mortal world winds up putting you on a path where you begin treading on others, if compassion is the driving force you’ll step back and reevaluate your actions. You won’t attempt to match Valinor in splendor because you know that would hurt the people you seek to help. To commit a truly damning sin requires abandoning compassion.
Id argue the not trying to make it superior, just bring Hevan here is a whole thing to be argued, Gods, Sauron is around SHOW THE FUCK UP AND HELP DIRECTLY, NOT JUST THROUGH CHILDREN AND descendants and that like.
But to be clear I think a adapatation could have used that to soften, and work well with a Celebrimbor that we are going to get alot more of narratively in a actual show then the Simmilarion.
Hell especially if it starts with noble intentions of make the world better, then falls to arrogance of do even more.
Hell that could be a fun little thing on why he makes more and more Rings, the og intent of the first rings versus the later.
For Galadriel I imagine its the issue of use literally any Weapon you had on hand in the later Days, most of the other Great Kingdoms and Powers have been thrown down, Galadriel along with the Elf Ring is one of the Few possible contemporaries to Sauron, who just got all those nifty Nazgul’s as Servants as well.
While the hobbit movies were a touch silly the fight of the Big Goods fighting the Nazgul opens some questions, cause could you win, does the fact that they are seemingly eternal spirits and thus can just constantly renewal…. Barring Surprise Tom Bombadil.
Good ol Tom Bombadil deciding the fate of the world, Taking out Sauron Chief Vassal via Hobbit Assassin fuckery.
but the issue of the you are outgunned and outnumbered by the Big Evils left, use the Ring because you have too is a whole thing.
Tolkien’s handling of the Orcs was one of his regrets about how he wrote the Legendarium, so I think it’s understandable for any writer to try and come up with a way to handle them better, but given what I’ve seen of Rings of Power I’m not sure the writers were even aware Tolkien did regret how he handled them. It could lead into an exploration of how even the greatest and most virtuous characters of the Legendarium still have their failings.
I’d also say there’s a huge difference between ‘making the Kingdom of Men better’ and ‘attempting to build Heaven on Earth’. Tolkien would almost certainly agree that making the world better out of genuine compassion for its inhabitants is a noble goal. It is in essence the end goal of the protagonists of The Lord of the Rings, to protect the peoples of Middle Earth from Sauron’s dominion. The issue is assuming you can match or surpass the will of Eru/God as someone in the Kingdom of Men inherently means you’re putting your own ambition over your compassion, as your plan will fail and hurt those you supposedly intend to help. You should seek to make the Kingdom of Men better, but trying to surpass the Kingdom of God will fail, and you will drag down everyone around you in the effort.
Recalling the old theme of “Saruman is a dummy-wummy whose plans failed because they were bad” – Boromir’s stubborn last stand may have conveyed that those young hobbits were strategically important. It seems to me that the immediate consequence was convincing those poor, clueless orcs to declare the success of their fetch mission and go home, rather than doing anything that might somehow have salvaged Saruman’s brilliant plan.
As someone who doesn’t watch Rings of Power, I am struck by similarity to CK3 in the art style of the stills shown here. They all look like exactly like the art in CK3 to me. If you wrote an AAR of your latest CK3 run and included these stills, I’d be completely convinced that they came from your game.
This made me realize another parallel in LotR, this one between Boromir and Denethor, relating to the nature of despair. (Hopefully I’m not stepping on next week’s post!)
Boromir, in his crucial moment, realized he has done a grave wrong and his actions have likely doomed his quest (to save Gondor – Frodo now flees toward the enemy, casting aside all help, all but handing the Ring to Sauron). He despairs, enough that spending his life in a futile battle that will not materially help his quest seems acceptable, perhaps even preferable. He only comes out of his despair in his dying words, as Aragorn – wise enough to see that an act this noble cannot fail to impact the material world, even if he is not wise enough to see how – assures him he has done good and his quest will be accomplished.
Denethor, in his crucial moment, realizes that he has done a grave wrong and his actions have likely doomed his quest, and he chooses not to go down fighting, not to do whatever good he can with what time he has left, but simply to accept his failure, even hasten his death. He busies his soldiers with ceremony while the city he is charged with protecting, is under assault.
Tolkien clearly understands the importance of hope. However dark things get, you must hope that things will get better, remind yourself of the good times you once had, and do whatever good things you can, no matter how small.
And as Boromir did – when you run out of hope, you do whatever good you can *anyway*. When all is lost and everything is doomed, you despair, and then pick up your sword and shield and fight the hopeless battle anyways.
If Denethor, rather than building a pyre, had taken his son’s armor and helmet, and sword in hand, positioned himself at the front gates, ready to do whatever fighting a frail old man could, he would have been redeemed. He would almost surely have died fighting, but in doing so inspired the soldiers to a valiant defense, or distracted the enemy at the vital moment of the Rohirrim’s charge, or some other miracle.
But he did not. He lost his hope and had not the courage to fight without hope, which both his sons had.
It’s part of Tolkien’s theology that even sin has within it seeds of the divine plan, though. Eru directly tells Morgoth this, so I think it’s pretty clear it’s something Tolkien intended us to consider. And I think it’s an important theme–if sometimes a really, really subtle one.
In this case Denethor went mad, killing himself and nearly killing his son, and betrayed everything his line stood for. But doing so made the guard Pippin befriended stand in defense of Faramir. The guard saved Faramir’s life, and was honored by becoming captain of Faramir’s personal guard. It allowed Pippin to show his worth as well–he may not have slain a Nazgul, but when the darkness was darkest Pippin did what needed done.
But there’s also pain and loss in such things. Despite ultimately bending towards the will of Eru Illuvatar, choices do matter. In this case, yes, there were downstream benefits of Denethor’s madness. But saving Faramir also pulled Gandalf away from the battlefield right as the Witch-King is swooping down on Theoden. He almost certainly bought Faramir’s life with the life of the king of Rohan.
“He almost certainly bought Faramir’s life with the life of the king of Rohan.”
Okay, sure. But what’s the alternative? Theoden dying old and toothless, a dotard, shamed by his own weakness–a fate that even Aragorn couldn’t face (as a Numenorian he could choose the hour of his own death) and which Arwen, the Elven-wise maiden, was terrified of. Theoden repeatedly stated that as far as HE was concerned, this was an optimal outcome–glorious death in battle, proving himself by the standards of his own ancestors, among who’s august company he would no longer be ashamed. Remember, this isn’t a theoretical problem for Theoden; he’s already seen where that road takes him. By the standards he and his people hold, he died a good death.
Plus his death is the spur to pull Eowen out of her death-seeking. Without Theoden’s heroic death Eowen would have committed what amounts to a complicated and painful form of suicide. As it was she was willing to listen to Faramir and abandon her self-destructive path. This directly led to the fairytale ending for Faramir, something Tolkien (the author of “On Fairy Stories”) would have been very aware of. (For my part I always thought this was the weakest part of the story–I’d take Eowen over Arwen every time–but it’s Tolkien’s story and his values we need to consider.)
Choices obviously matter. That’s a significant part of this. At every point the characters have to make a choice. Theoden CHOOSES to ride into battle–not once, but three times (even if he makes a strategic choice to not engage the army at the Fords). Eowen CHOOSES to turn away from battle. Just like Celebrimbor chooses to defend his stuff rather than his people, and Gollum chooses to betray Frodo. But what sets up those choices is the defiance of the will of Eru–a defiance that makes those choices more potent. The costs are high, obviously, but those stakes make the choices more significant. The darkness makes the light shine the brighter.
And I must again stress that Tolkien, in the first book of “The Silmarillion”, has Eru Iluvatar explain this to Melkor. Sam, the actual hero of it all (one of the only people to give up the Ring voluntarily), also says this (though he uses a lot more words to do so). This is something Tolkien clearly thought through and intended as part of his fictional universe, at multiple scales.
> (For my part I always thought this was the weakest part of the story–I’d take Eowen over Arwen every time–but it’s Tolkien’s story and his values we need to consider.)
I don’t think I understand you. Surely it’s not a weakness in the story that Aragorn’s taste in women is different from yours?
“Without Theoden’s heroic death Eowen would have committed what amounts to a complicated and painful form of suicide.”
Her determination to commit suicide by eldritch undying abomination is precisely what allows her to stand against the Witch-king. It predates Theodens death, and outlasts that of the Witch-king. Her immediate goal after the battle is to recover to the point at which she can again attempt suicide by eldritch undying abomination.
She remains death-seeking until she encounters Faramir, and Hope.
Ultimately in LOTR, the universe is made by a benevolent creator and wisdom is trusting in this fact. The universe is literally designed such that if you try to do the right thing, in the right way, things will work out. This doesn’t mean they’ll be easy, but they work. This is why Gandalf is wise to want to destory the ring. He knows it’s the right thing to do. This is why he tells frodo not to kill golum. It’s logical, but wrong. And because frodo does the right thing in the right way, he succeeds.
Denethor did the right thing in the right way for many decades. In the end, though, he committed the second greatest sin, giving into despair. That is, forgetting that the universe is just and good. Thus he burns. Even there, though, denethor has not totally abandoned the fight. Sauron, after all, burned the numenorians that would not serve him. By going to his death clutching one, he was sending Sauron a message. “you can kill my sons and break my walls, but I am worthy of my ancestors and like them I will burn before I serve you.”. Still, it would be been better had he spent his last hours making sure his enemies died well then that he did.
I mean, sure, I’m hardly saying that was how Jimmy Double-R *should* have written it. But I don’t think imparting that particular lesson, giving some character neither of us remember the name of a chance to win honor, giving Pippin a moment of worth (by calling someone else to handle it?), was Tolkien’s foremost concern here. He more likely wanted to contrast Boromir and Denethor, or even just to show that yes, evil wins sometimes; Denethor lost and had no redemption.
The guard’s name is Beregond, if it helps any.
“Denethor, in his crucial moment, realizes that he has done a grave wrong and his actions have likely doomed his quest”
Not sure what book Denethor did wrong (up until the pyre) or how it doomed his ‘quest’.
“He busies his soldiers with ceremony while the city he is charged with protecting, is under assault.”
Is this movie Denethor? I can’t think of any “busies his soldiers with ceremony” from the book.
The two Denethors are basically completely different characters.
Actually IIRC had Denethor not busied his soldiers with a funeral pyre for Faramir (who isn’t actually dead as it happens) then that would have freed Gandalf to save Theoden and it’s entirely possible Denethor would have survived long enough to see Aragorn’s flag over the approaching ships, which means he quite possibly could have survived long enough for Aragorn’s arrival and the salvation of Gondor. (I do suspect he would take enough injuries to die of said injuries, but it’s easy to see how a Denethor that redeems himself could get a scene where he knows that his sacrifice was not in vain- that Gondor was saved.)
Say Denethor doesn’t break. I dunno if he would have fought directly; his style was generally being the general at the back, directing, and maybe his active leadership would have kept defenders at the gate, rather than it being abandoned due to Nazgul.
Then we get a healthy, living, and proud Steward, vs. Aragorn saving the city by fleet. Would Denethor bend? Or would things get _really awkward_?
To be cynical, Denethor’s break conveniently cleared the way for Faramir to bow to Aragorn for a nice peaceful accession to power.
Going waaaaaay back, the ‘what-if’ scenario in Lord of the Rings that most fascinates me is what if Faramir had gone to Imladris instead of his brother. Given how he is the one who gets the prophetic dream first, more frequently, and more clearly; as well as being more emotionally suited to dealing with the seduction of the ring, I get a sense that Faramir is the one who was ‘supposed’ to go.
If Boromir isn’t in the Fellowship, the Fellowship doesn’t split up when it needs to. The orcs find Frodo because he’s with a larger group of people, and all is lost.
I think almost any change to the plot ends badly. Gandalf’s crazy plan requires all the dice to fall just right. He knows this, and does it anyway, because it’s the only plan with even a small chance to turn out well in the long run. (Denethor, lacking the virtue of Hope, thinks the best plan is to just delay Sauron’s victory by hiding the Ring somewhere.)
“with a larger group of people, and all is lost.”
I dunno; a larger group might fight off the orcs, or escape them. OTOH then Merry and Pippin don’t go taken off to end up rousing the Ents, unless they get peeled off.
If Aragorn goes with Frodo, well, lots of people have wondered. They don’t take Cirith Ungol; not clear how they _would_ get into Mordor, but if anyone would know it’d be Aragorn. But then he’s not going to pick up the Dead… of course, he’s not provoking Sauron via palantir, either. But then Mordor doesn’t empty itself of its armies…
There is an entire strain of christian thought where in a sense despair an (if not the) ultimate sin, in that it pridefully sets aside God’s promise and love. (significant here is that Judas in many traditions kills himself) and is part of why suicide is so loathed.
He commits suicide, in some form, in both Biblical traditions, although the details are described differently (though people have made efforts to harmonize them). There’s a third, early, nonbiblical tradition where he seems to have died from a particularly disgusting disease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis#Death_of_Judas
“Nonsense! There is no shame in defeat so long as the spirit is unconquered.”
As Fenix would put it.
That aside, I wonder why they changed it so much. The Stories’ Celebrimbor seems like a classical tragic figure, someone brought low by a critical flaw. You would think a writer adapting the story would love to translate that into a TV series. Even something as simple as Celembrimbor trying to guard the treasury/smithy when he wakes up from his hypnosis. Have him lead his men to defend the rings, rather than try to help the people.
I suspect that the writers were hired based on their skill at making big, spectacular battle scenes and regular twists to keep the social medias a-twitter, not subtle plot and character work – or if they did turn in something closer to Tolkien’s intent, they were told to go back and add more action and surprise reveals, by the executives who wanted a big tentpole fantasy-action series to attract viewers. This whole thing reeks of executive meddling, wanting to make the last hyper-popular fantasy TV epic (GoT) but with an even bigger budget and an even more well-known license (LotR), even though that square peg won’t go into the round hole without losing what makes it square.
Explaining how they don’t seem to have done a particularly good job at the battle scenes and all the twists are dumb, I shall leave as an exercise to the reader.
It might have helped if they hadn’t also managed to reduce all that spectacular fantasy action to a collection of disjointed events driven toward a nonsensical conclusion by the naked force of plot necessity, and outright disdainful of fiddly details like consistent characterization, coherent themes, and of course physical laws, as we’ve spent some time examining here.
The conspiracy theory I’m pushing is that they were trying to avoid all of the character beats added to Celebrimbor in the Shadow of Mordor videogames, for fear that WB would sue them claiming rights to everything they made up (when writing around the same kind of partial source material situation RoP has).
The Tower of Babel!
And, um, the whole Enlightenment and modernity. To quote: “The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.” (Francis Bacon, A New Atlantis, 1626)
We don’t really remark upon it today, because to us these philosophical question have been settled centuries ago, but the idea that human-/elvenkind can improve its (Middle-) Earthly lot by real (ahem; “natural”), as opposed to supernatural means (i.e. by venerating the god(s) so hard that they intervene and grant an improvement) — and that this is a worthy goal in the first place, compatible with going to heaven after death — were very much open questions a few hundred years ago. A related idea is that the social order is divinely ordained (usually only the peak of this iceberg, the divine right of kings, comes into sight) and thus not subject to intentional change or perhaps even study, as opposed to something that can be understood and engineered for human benefit.
Personally, I like the tower of Babel to be a project (mis)management story. There’s a highly visible setback, so the busy King pulls up to the site with “who do I behead for causing it?”. And suddenly the architect, the foreman, the workers, the materials supplier, etc. break out in squabbling, everyone blaming everyone else but not admitting to anything, while “the requirements and/or original timeline were beyond possible from the start” is of course unsayable.
The whole condemnation of Celebrimbor hinges on the idea that we accept Tolkien’s moral conception of the universe as valid, and, like, we don’t have to do that.
(Also the fact that all the worst things about Celebrimbor come in a very, very late draft that completely changes Galadriel’s backstory so that she Never Did Anything Wrong Ever, Actually, is… telling. The Legendarium isn’t a canon, it’s two completed books amid a forest of drafts written decades apart that contradict each other all the time, and treating it like the former doesn’t entirely work.)
Even if you disagree with Tolkien, you should make sure that you understand what exactly it is that you’re disagreeing with.
This is an excellent and moving post – thank you! In reading just its first few paragraphs, where you mention Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad’s motivations – their compassion and desire to protect the “lesser races” and preserve the Elvish civilisation (and dare I say it, hegemony over western Middle-Earth), I was struck by the notion this is a metaphor for the kinder aspects of the USA self-image as the Defender of the West. And here it is, being depicted as a weak, failing thing torn down by subhuman barbarians. It will be avenged, I expect, by more belligerent and violent individualist heroes rather than societal action – the kinds of people who are metaphors for the less kind traits in the USA character. (…Not that I intend to find out directly, since I rage-quite Rings of Power after season 1. )
So on this notion, are the writers expressing their own sentiments about the worth of compassion, or are they writing for their bosses in Amazon, or are they just picking up on recent changes in the Weltanschauung?
I suspect mostly that last: American pop culture has been drifting that way for a while now. :/
As someone who *has* actually watched both season 1 and season 2, I don’t get the sense that RoP is depicting compassion as a weak and failing thing at all–their take on Celebrimbor, if anything, emphasizes the strength of compassion in the end. Ditto the Míriel/Pharazôn storyline, which so far in their rendering has pitted admirable compassion and faith against brutal tyranny and oppression, and shown that although evil may triumph over empathy in the moment, compassion and the desire to protect still has value. The Second Age is tricky to depict precisely because things like the Númenor storyline could easily be rendered in the way you describe, as the triumph of evil over misguided kindness; Tolkien was reluctant to flesh out a narrative of it partly for this reason. I for one think RoP is doing an admirable job of rejecting the idea that compassion is a weakness or a mistake, even in defeat.
It is interesting that Tolkien had an non relativistic view of morality, and at the same time his Celebrimbor is darker and greyer than the Rings of Powers.
The way I would put it is that, while Tolkien’s morality was not gray or ambiguous, his characters often were.
Tolkien’s characters were more morally ambiguous when modeled on Norse sagas (e.g. Turin, inspired by Kullervo) and became less so as he strove to make Middle-Earth more coherent and Christian. The good characters in The Hobbit like elves and dwarves were certainly more flawed than those described in The Lord of the Rings, his later more ambitious work.
To be pedantic; Kullervo is from the Kalevala, and thus isn’t Norse.
Excellent essay. Definitely given me a glimpse into the moral background of LoTR that I knew was there, but hadn’t truly explored.
I wonder what it would have taken for Celebrimbor to redeem himself. Would it have been enough to have come to his senses and died trying to save his people? Or have refused to give up the location of any of the rings, specifically because he realised what would happen to the people holding them? Or would he have had to made meaningful steps towards destroying the rings?
Also, more of a style point than a typo, but in this caption:
“Peter Jackson also has the advantage of Sean Bean, who has just a few seconds to sell Boromir’s sincere regret, with a quivering lip and stumbling speech as Boromir comes to his senses and realizes what he has done.”
I would suggest that Peter Jackson has the advantage of Sean Bean, who *needs* just a few seconds to sell Boromir’s sincere regret. He only has a few seconds, but because of Sean Bean’s calibre, that’s all he needs.
Sean Bean has not much time. Sean Bean needs not much time.
“Even when the One Ring – a shadow of Sauron’s own corrupting power – tries to tempt Boromir or Sam, it tempts them not with altruism but with greatness and adulation”
I love the scene where the ring tempts Sam because it really illustrates how Sauron can only think in terms of domination. When he comes across someone who just wants to live a quiet life, he is utterly bewildered by it.
You can practically see the cartoon sweat drops shooting out of the Ring as it tries to figure out what normal people want.
It had no trouble with humans. It also finds common ground with Elves, albeit they often have enough willpower to resist it. I’m not sure about Dwarves, though the lesser rings worked quite well with them (even if not in the way Sauron intended), and we know Dwarves can get “dragon sickness” even without the action of a ring. It’s not “normal people”, it’s hobbits in particular who the Ring has trouble with. (And it did have notable near-instant success with Smeagollum, though it got quite stuck at that point.)
“It also finds common ground with Elves”
I don’t think the One was ever close to an elf for long. Did hang out in Rivendell and Lothlorien without causing a riot, but it also travelled with the Fellowship and only Boromir seemed to have trouble.
(I mean yeah, presumably it _would_ corrupt an Elf who carried it for long. But there’s no actual data, just the opinions and fears of the Wise.)
“Dwarves, though the lesser rings worked quite well with them”
Sauron would say they barely worked at all. Didn’t allow him to enslave the dwarves, didn’t extend their lifespan or make wraiths of them, one wonders if the Seven even made them invisible. The Seven did make them greedier (and more successful, somehow.)
The adaptation of the scene where it is offered to Galadriel is spectacular, even if she passes the test. And given all what the Elves do to chase the Silmarils, “domination” ought to be a workable selling point with them.
(Also, do the Sixteen even make the wearers invisible? The Three don’t, and I understand the Sixteen’s original function didn’t need this feature in the slightest. It’s only chronic exposure of humans in particular that turns them invisible, no?)
The three doesn’t make elves invisible. Might do that to mortals.
Letter 131, also the Preface to the Silmarillion:
‘The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. ‘change’ viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance – this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor – thus approaching ‘magic’, a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron (‘the Necromancer’: so he is called as he casts a fleeting shadow and presage on the pages of The Hobbit): such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible.
The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the preservation of beauty: they did not confer invisibility. But secretly in the subterranean Fire, in his own Black Land, Sauron made One Ring, the Ruling Ring that contained the powers of all the others, and controlled them, so that its wearer could see the thoughts of all those that used the lesser rings, could govern all that they did, and in the end could utterly enslave them.’
I believe that’s about as much as Tolkien ever said of the powers of the Rings.
I suspect that the original sales-pitch for the Rings was most simply that they would protect the elf _wearer_ from ‘fading’. Plus the vague power enhancement. The anti-fading effect on mortals presumably ‘stretches’ them into quasi-immortality, while the invisibility effect that Sauron contributed makes them into wraiths.
The Three being able to protect a small realm each was Celebrimbor’s advancement.
Many fans think that Sauron (as a Maia) and Calaquendi like Glorfindel, would not become invisible; the effect is presumed to be from pulling someone into the Unseen, and Gandalf tells Frodo that Glorfindel already exists on both sides. Other fans assume the invisibility effect can be controlled once you’ve mastered a Ring. AFAIK, Tolkien sheds no light.
BTW, a few other notes from 131, written in 1951 before LotR hit the shelves:
‘They [Numenoreans] became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves’
and of Sauron: ”He lingers in Middle-earth. Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth, ‘neglected by the gods’, he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power”
‘many of the Elves listened to Sauron. He was still fair in that early time, and his motives and those of the Elves seemed to go partly together: the healing of the desolate lands. Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor.’
So Sauron had some better motives, and was able to appeal to them as well.
> The Seven did make them greedier (and more successful, somehow.)
I don’t find it strange that greed would lead to more financial success.
I don’t have a page citation from the Fellowship of the Ring because I’m not going to try to find the exact passage, but when the ring-wraiths come directly for the hobbits in the Barrow-downs, Frodo, and only Frodo, could see them because he put the Ring on. He also saw a luminous figure in the distance, which he’s later told is one of the elves. I got the impression when I read it that *all* elves exist in both the Seen and the Unseen, whereas the Rings pull people from the Seen to the Unseen otherwise.
> I got the impression when I read it that *all* elves exist in both the Seen and the Unseen,
The passage to me sounds like it’s more about what we’d now call Calaquendi:
‘And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas. They do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power.’’
‘‘Yes, you saw him for a moment as he is upon the other side: one of the mighty of the Firstborn. He is an Elf-lord of a house of princes.’
And, well, I’m not sure if Tolkien meant it at the time or was re-using names, but he later decided that Glorfindel was from Aman, had died in Beleriand, come back in Aman, and then been sent back to Middle-earth. So he’s like doubly of Aman.
To be fair, all we know is that Boromir was the *first* character in the Fellowship to struggle with the Ring. We don’t know how long the others may have lasted, because at that point they parted company with it.
Though I suppose that’s not necessarily evidence for or against the conclusion. More of an ‘insufficient data’ comment.
Though considering the shenanigans of yesteryear’s elf population, I’ve no doubt the opinions and fears of the wise were well placed as to their corruptibility. Perhaps said shenanigans produced a strong natural selection effect, and now there are no unwise elves left standing, but I wouldn’t be willing to take that chance!
This might be Professor Devereaux’s most devastating criticism of
Rings of Power yet. First, a lot of criticism I have read of Rings of Power holds out Sauron corrupting Celebrimdor as the best part of this season. This post rips apart what was supposedly the best Rings of Power had to offer and makes a compelling case that even this is rotten.
Even worse, this post is telling the writers “your writing has no Themes. It is nothing but Plot.” To a writer that is a far more biting criticism than “your Plot stinks.” And the criticism lands. Celebrindor wanting to do good and being tricked by smarter Sauron and his mind-control powers that always work doesn’t mean anything. It is just some bad stuff that happened.
On the first part, I’m one of those who would say that Sauron corrupting Celebrimbor is the best part of this season. Thinking further, that’s “best” in terms of writing and directing and performance. A couple of good actors in a room, minimal or no special effects, not exposition but characters expressing themselves. (I might be biased, everything else in RoP being so frequently awful probably helps.)
So well crafted, but still ignoring or in opposition to the themes of the original.
I agree.
I thought it was fairly weak, though definitely nowhere near as bad as the worst the season had to offer (for my money that was the “Tom Bombadil as Gandalf’s Yoda-like mentor” subplot and the attached maybe-Saruman mystery box cult leader) for a lot of the reasons mentioned in the article above. It’s just not much of a corruption story when the corrupter can just mind control the corruptee and everyone else in the city.
The dwarves plot was, for me, probably the best. Standard ring corruption plot executed somewhat competently despite an unclear timeline and a lot of the same worldbuilding flaws that the first season was guilty of.
An interesting analysis, but I don’t agree that much with the Celebrimbor part. I’ll admit up front that I’m influenced by a lot of fanfic that makes him a cinnamon roll, but I’ll try to put that aside and argue from the texts.
tldr: I think Bret leans too hard on a particular and not necessarily correct interpretation of what are extremely minimal passages. It’s not wrong as _a_ take, but it’s not the only possible take. A Celebrimbor who is motivated by more than self-interest and glory, and who is as ‘redeemed’ as Boromir, is perfectly compatible with what we’re given.
1) Strictly speaking, the show only has LotR to go on, and there’s almost none of that there. Simply that Celebrimbor was Lord of Eregion (no mention of Galadriel), close friendship with the dwarves, Celebrimbor perceives the design of Sauron, gets killed. As for motivations: “Sauron endeavours to seduce the Eldar. Gil-galad refuses to treat with him; but the smiths of Eregion are won over.” That’s it. One could spin that in almost any direction and I’m not sure RoP makes any error here (for once!) given that basis.
2) “preys on his compassion, an emotion Sauron ought not consider or understand.” I disagree with that, too, especially for a Second Age Sauron who hasn’t formed the One yet. If we’re considering all of Tolkien’s writings, there are some that allude to Sauron having some goal to order Middle-earth for their own good, though getting increasingly lost in “if they would just LISTEN to me”. Within LotR itself, I think we get an echo of that in Saruman’s speech to Gandalf (recalling that Saruman and Sauron ended up being both Maiar of Aule):
‘But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.’
‘We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends.’
3) The show giving Sauron blatant mind control is definitely wrong; the whole point of the Rings was to try to establish such control via backdoor. (Unless the controlled elves had Rings?) But Unfinished Tales has
‘Sauron used all his arts upon Celebrimbor and his fellow-smiths, who had formed a society or brotherhood, very powerful in Eregion, the Gwaith-i-Mírdain; but he worked in secret, unknown to Galadriel and Celeborn. Before long Sauron had the Gwaith-i-Mírdain under his influence,’
“arts” suggests that maybe the Smiths weren’t _entirely_ in their right minds. And this is the passage that is followed by the ‘revolt’.
4) The texts here are so minimal and contradictory that I really hesitate to put weight on them. Celebrimbor was at times an elf of Gondolin or even a Teleri. And this chapter is the very confused (in Christopher’s words) Galadriel chapter, which keeps changing her origin; even in this early version, when she left Beleriand has been changed from what she told the Fellowship in LotR.
5) The basis of elven kingship and thus the wrongness of the ‘revolt’ is kind of murky. Tolkien seems to have wanted the trappings of royalty without the violent power relations that underlay it. Some elves seem to be leaders because others choose to follow them; if the others choose otherwise, is that _wrong_? And Galadriel “left” rather than being driven out violently. Celebrimbor (by the Silmarillion) had previously been witness to Nargothrond balking at Finrod, and then to repudiating his own father for Curifin’s misdeeds.
6) Tales: ‘Now Celebrimbor was not corrupted in heart or faith, but had accepted Sauron as what he posed to be; and when at length he discovered the existence of the One Ring he revolted against Sauron, and went to Lórinand to take counsel once more with Galadriel. They should have destroyed all the Rings of Power at this time, ‘but they failed to find the strength’. Galadriel counselled him that the Three Rings of the Elves should be hidden, never used, and dispersed,’
As soon as he goes ‘oops’ he turns to Galadriel for help, despite the alleged power fight earlier, and she readily gives it. And even _Galadriel_ fails to find the strength to destroy the Three — not just Celebrimbor. I also note that Celebrimbor at least readily gives his greatest treasures away, unlike _some_ people I could mention.
7) Tales: ‘When Sauron learned of the repentance and revolt of Celebrimbor his disguise fell and his wrath was revealed;’
Tolkien chose to use ‘repentance’; I don’t think this should have less weight than Celebrimbor fighting in front of the treasure-house.
8) Bret: “Celebrimbor only appears”
I mean, the whole 2 year war is dispensed with in a paragraph, I don’t think we can condemn Celebrimbor for a lack of detail, as if he’d been hiding cowardly until Sauron broke in. He could have been directing the defense of the city and Tolkien just didn’t mention it. All we’re told here is ‘Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain;’
or in full: ‘captured the chief object of Sauron’s assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures. Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain;’
which to me makes the “treasures” the focus of _Sauron’s_ attention. Celebrimbor, well, if he’d been directing the siege, and the walls were breached, what do you expect him to do?
9) ‘This Celebrimbor revealed, because neither the Seven nor the Nine did he value as he valued the Three; the Seven and the Nine were made with Sauron’s aid, whereas the Three were made by Celebrimbor alone, with a different power and purpose.’
You could view this as C valuing the Three more because they were _his_, as an act of pride. You could instead view it as him knowing the Three weren’t as corrupted as the others, and serving a better purpose, and caring more because of those reasons. The Three were also objectively more powerful than the other Rings, another reason to guard them more. (Also see Letter 131, for more about the power and purpose of the rings.)
10) Tolkien does talk about the preservation-desire being somewhat sinful, but his overall writings make that murky for me. He also wrote that the designed ‘fading’ of Middle-earth was accelerated by Morgoth’s marring of it; not obvious to me why elves trying to hold that back should be such a bad thing. And the fact that Aman was a blessed land separate from everything else, with elves gathered in, is also implied to be a mistake; there’s a passage of Eru chiding Manwe for his lack of faith, and for not confronting Melkor earlier. In fact the very existence of Valinor might be deemed as least as sinful as the elves creating the Rings of Power; this isn’t helped by the nature and motivation of the Valar changing a lot over decades, more than their actions did.
Very well argued. I agree completely.
I’d like to expand a bit on your point #10. I’d argue that the Elves having to go to Valinor is not Iluvatar’s plan, or at least, it wasn’t his original plan. Even in the published Silmarillion, we see Ulmo, who is often portrayed as wiser than the rest of the Valar, arguing against bringing the Elves to Valinor.
And somewhere in the History of Middle-Earth, although I can’t remember exactly where at the moment, Manwe has a conversation with Iluvatar after bringing the Elves to Valinor, and Iluvatar does not approve. Manwe asks if they did the right thing, and Iluvatar basically says, “I put them in Middle-Earth, do you think you know better than me where they should live?” At which Manwe offers to send them back, but Iluvatar replies that it’s too late to change their decision now, but evil will come of it.
I completely agree, and I also think Bret’s Celebrimbor analysis is unnecessarily reductive (and not just because it does Rings of Power’s interesting read of him, by no means an absolution of him and the Elves, a disservice). Celebrimbor is not just arrogant and possessive Fëanor writ small, or even harsh and embittered Denethor, which is why Annatar’s partnership appeals to him in the first place: comparing the Celebrimbor-Sauron dynamic with the Fëanor-Melkor or even Fëanor-Valar dynamic is enough to illustrate that. RoP’s Celebrimbor is as much an artistic descendant of thoughtful Nerdanel as he is of prideful Fëanor, despite his wish that he were more like the latter, which I think is a totally valid and productive take.
Also note the stories in which he is the crafter of the Elessar, or one of them–it is not the act of someone who cares about the work of his hands more than living things, but of someone who has great respect and love for nature’s design. Contrasting his relationship with Galadriel (especially in the version where he crafts a second Elessar out of love for her) with that of Fëanor is also revealing: compare the latter’s desire to possess her beautiful hair, as an aid to his craft, with the former’s creation of a gift that will help her to fulfill her wish to protect and heal. I think there is room for a lot of nuance with him, and interpreting his arc as more Boromir-like than Fëanor-like is perfectly true to the scraps of information we have about him.
I wholeheartedly agree, and I’m not a fan of the post’s take on Celebrimbor (and not just because it does Rings of Power’s interesting read of the character, by no means an absolution of him or of the Elves, a disservice). Fëanor is exactly the kind of Elf Bret describes, but Celebrimbor is not just arrogant and possessive Fëanor writ small, which is why Annatar’s partnership and guidance appeal to him in the first place: comparing the Celebrimbor-Sauron dynamic with the Fëanor-Melkor or even Fëanor-Valar dynamic is enough to illustrate that. RoP’s Celebrimbor is as much an artistic descendant of thoughtful Nerdanel as he is of prideful Fëanor, despite wishing he could be more like the latter, which I think is a totally valid take. Also note the stories in which he is the crafter of the Elessar, or one of them–it’s not the act of someone who cares about the work of his hands more than living things, but of someone who has great respect and love for nature’s design. Contrasting his relationship with Galadriel (especially in the version where he crafts a second Elessar out of love for her) with that of Fëanor is even more revealing: compare the latter’s desire to possess her beautiful hair as an aid to his craft–which she rejects, and hates him for it–with the former’s creation of a gift that will enable her to fulfill her wish to protect and heal the living things of her realm. I think there is room for a lot of nuance with him, and interpreting his arc as more Boromir-like than Fëanor-like or Denethor-like is perfectly true to the scraps of information we have about him and to Tolkien’s spirit.
I wholeheartedly agree, and I’m not a fan of the post’s take on Celebrimbor (and not just because it does Rings of Power’s interesting read of the character, which is by no means an absolution of him or of the Elves, a disservice). Fëanor is exactly the kind of Elf Bret describes, but Celebrimbor is not just arrogant and possessive Fëanor writ small, which is why Annatar’s partnership and guidance appeal to him in the first place: comparing the Celebrimbor-Sauron dynamic with the Fëanor-Melkor or even Fëanor-Valar dynamic is enough to illustrate that. RoP’s Celebrimbor is as much an artistic descendant of thoughtful Nerdanel as he is of prideful Fëanor, despite wishing he could be more like the latter, which I think is a totally valid take. Also note the stories in which he is the crafter of the Elessar, or one of them–it’s not the act of someone who cares about the work of his hands more than living things, but of someone who has great respect and love for nature’s design. Contrasting his relationship with Galadriel (especially in the version where he crafts a second Elessar out of love for her) with that of Fëanor is even more revealing: compare the latter’s desire to possess her beautiful hair as an aid to his craft–which she rejects, and hates him for it–with the former’s creation of a gift that will enable her to fulfill her wish to protect and heal the living things of her realm. I think there is room for a lot of nuance with him, and interpreting his arc as more Boromir-like than Fëanor-like or Denethor-like is perfectly true to the scraps of information we have about him and to Tolkien’s spirit.
By the way, for anyone who hasn’t read _Unfinished Tales_, I do recommend it. The Galadriel chapter is a hot mess of conflicting versions, but there’s a lot of cool stuff in the book. “Of Cirion and Eorl” is probably the most surprisingly deep chapter, with women warriors and Galadriel’s Coolest Moment, among other details.
Regarding the ‘revolt’: Christopher notes the oddity of Galadriel allegedly being in charge of Eregion, and refusing Annatar, but him still operating in Eregion.
One also notes that Celeborn apparently preferred living under his ‘usurper’ than traveling through Khazad-dum after his wife.
Somewhere in later HoME there is a note about the Three somehow slowing down linguistic change for the Eldar in the Third Age, and maybe even in the Second due to existing. *All* the Eldar, not just the two obvious Ring-protected ‘realms’ of Lothlorien and Imladris. I think this is both absurd and unnecessary, but it is a thought Tolkien had at one point, and could be taken to indicate the power level that Celebrimbor was safeguarding.
At a meta level, I think a problem I have with this post is that Boromir’s story is published, and presumably polished the result of a lot of craft; Celebrimbor’s posthumous texts are more like extended and unstable footnotes. The core part is simply that he existed, made the Three, and got killed. Beyond that he’s mutable, just like Galadriel herself. The Galadriel chapter also has:
‘The other tale runs so: that long ago, ere Sauron deluded the smiths of Eregion, Galadriel came there, and she said to Celebrimbor, the chief of the Elven-smiths:’
whoops! here she was not the founder of Eregion, and probably never in charge! No revolt! Also this passage has Celebrimbor being from Gondolin, and in love with Galadriel. And he makes one of the Elessars, or maybe both of them. I have trouble with asserting Celebrimbor committed a sin of revolt when that only happened in one of at least three versions.
Two more origins of Celebrimbor:
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Celebrimbor#Eldarin_Hands,_Fingers,_and_Numerals
‘c. 1968, Tolkien changed Celebrimbor’s origins from that of a grandson of Fëanor to that of a Teler of Aman (Falmar).[28][29][30]
In that version of his history, Celebrimbor, the “heroic defender of Eregion in the Second-age war against Sauron”…’
Heroic defender!
‘In a late text that Christopher Tolkien called Of Dwarves and Men (from c. 1969),[31] Tolkien changed Celebrimbor’s origins yet again.[28]
Here, Celebrimbor is depicted as a Sinda who claimed descent from Daeron,[32] a famous minstrel and the chief loremaster of Doriath.’
“One also notes that Celeborn apparently preferred living under his ‘usurper’ than traveling through Khazad-dum after his wife.”
I always find that especially odd because he’s there for a *long* time. He could have traveled through the Gap of not-yet-Rohan, crossed the mountains in summer, even gone to the coast and taken a ship south and up the Anduin. The idea that Celeborn’s reluctance to enter Moria meant he just *had* to stay in Eregion feels very arbitrary.
I think Celeborn still has his people in Eregion, who consider him their lord, but didn’t want to leave Eregion. Celeborn had enough power to organize a sortie, so he clearly wasn’t just living alone under Celebrimbor’s rule.
I wholeheartedly agree, and I’m not a fan of the post’s take on Celebrimbor (and not just because it does Rings of Power’s interesting read of the character, which is by no means an absolution of him or of the Elves, a disservice). Celebrimbor is not just arrogant and possessive Fëanor writ small, which is why Annatar’s partnership and guidance appeal to him in the first place: comparing the Celebrimbor-Sauron dynamic with the Fëanor-Melkor or even Fëanor-Valar dynamic is enough to illustrate that. RoP’s Celebrimbor is as much an artistic descendant of thoughtful Nerdanel as he is of prideful Fëanor, despite wishing he could be more like the latter, which I think is a totally valid take. Also the stories in which he is the crafter of the Elessar, or one of them–this is not the act of someone who cares about the work of his hands more than living things, but of someone who has great respect and love for nature’s design, and the idea of making a copy of another’s artwork demands a kind of humility that Fëanor never had. Contrasting his relationship with Galadriel (especially in the version where he makes a second Elessar out of love for her) with that of Fëanor is even more revealing: compare the latter’s desire to possess her beautiful hair as an aid to his craft–and her utter rejection and hatred of him–with the former’s creation of a gift that will enable her to fulfill her wish to protect and heal the living things of her realm. I think there is room for a lot of nuance with Celebrimbor, and interpreting his arc as more Boromir-like than Fëanor-like or Denethor-like is perfectly true to the scraps of information we have about him, and to Tolkien’s spirit. Celebrimbor’s end is certainly darker than Boromir’s, but it’s not necessarily because he was less repentant.
I agree, and particularly I think this analysis of Celebrimbor is missing the First Age and all its various effects, particularly the Doom of Mandos, the kinslayings, and Celebrimbor’s father. I’m not at all sure that Celebrimbor would have been *allowed* to return to the West. “On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East,” and all that. But more than that, or in with that, Celebrimbor’s story and Boromir’s story occur in different literary and ideological contexts.
In many respects, elements of the Legendarium that come *before* The Hobbit are in a different ideological mode than The Hobbit and LotR. With LotR you can see a great deal of Tolkien’s deep-seated Catholic faith…but in the Silm, his equally-deep-seated love of premodern stories and legends is at the fore. You can see the clash between “for elves to have sex is to marry, and they love only once and marry only once” and “sit down, it’s time for Half-Sibling Drama with the House of Finwe”, for example. And I assert that Celebrimbor’s betrayal and death in the Second Age falls into the Silmarillion pattern of heroic tragedies. He’s the last body count of the Doom of Mandos placed particularly on the House of Fëanor.
“To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass.”
I don’t bring this in to say that nothing that happened was Celebrimbor’s *fault* – he made some very bad decisions – but that this is the narrative context in which he is placed, and I think his story makes more sense there. With LotR as the central narrative, he fits into the tragic past, the world of inescapable doom where there is no right answer.
I do also think that the text makes it sound to me like Sauron was going for the treasury – where I believe the Nine were said to have been? – rather than Celebrimbor choosing the location of their fight. And that, if we’re going to judge Celebrimbor by what was tortured out of him, which feels wrong to me, the Three were strategically the most important to protect simply because Sauron hadn’t already tainted them.
“There Sauron took the Nine Rings and other lesser works of the Mírdain; but the Seven and the Three he could not find. Then Celebrimbor was put to torment, and Sauron learned from him where the Seven were bestowed. This Celebrimbor revealed, because neither the Seven nor the Nine were works of evil, and were things ‘unstained,’ before he was tormented. The Three alone he kept hidden.”
This passage from the Unfinished Tales seems to reduce Celebrimbor’s moral failing. I am also less certain about the significance of the desecration of his body. This action is not unusual for either Sauron or Melkor, and should we expect his body to be carried away as happened to Fingolfin’s through Thorondor?
One of the aspects in which the LotR movies differ from the books (a minor one) is that the first movie shows Boromir developing a kind of older-brother-relationship with Merry and Pippin – he is clearly fond of them and rather protective of them. This is not shown in the books (at least as far as I remember, it’s been quite a while since I last read LotR).
I always liked that about the movies but now, after reading this essay, I wonder if this doesn’t weaken Boromir’s moral arc a bit: He has a much clearer motivation in the movies to protect Merry and Pippin as he has strong emotional ties to them, whereas in the books his sacrifice is greater, giving his life for them mainly because it is the right thing to do (I would not rule out completely that he is fond of them in the books, too – Tolkien doesn’t always show the ties the members of the fellowship have to each other, even if they are there, but to me there is a marked difference in the relationship between Boromir and the young hobbits in the books versus the movies).
The discussion of Boromir’s moral arc reminded me of something I read about Tolkiens worldview. It is well-known that he was a devout Christian, but was also fascinated by Norse mythology. The author Tom Shippey writes about a “theory of courage” which is based on the difference between Christian and Norse worldview. In my own words and somewhat simplified (I can’t find my copies of Shippey’s books on Tolkien so this is based on memory), a person with Christian faith knows that there will be some reward for a morally correct choice, at least in the next world (eternal life). In contrast, Norse mythology offers no such assurance: The world will end in Ragnarök, where most gods and all of humanity (save for one man and one woman) will perish. So to do the right thing will, in the end, not make a difference to one’s ultimate fate; the only reward for having done something good/made a morally correct choice is the knowlege that one has done so.
According to Shippey, Tolkien therefore considered it to require more courage to make the morally right choice when one lives within the Norse worldview than it requires somebody who has a Christian worldview – the ability to carry one without hope is a major theme in Tolkien (and somebody of Christian faith can always hope for salvation, which the characters of LotR cannot do, as they live before Christianity).
By the way, I strongly recommend Shippey’s books “J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century” and “The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology” to anybody who is interested in Tolkien. Shippey is a medievalist and scholar of middle and old english literature, his books focus on the way Tolkien wrote (structured, constructed) his books and used language. It’s deeply fascinating stuff and made me appreciate LotR even more.
I read the books last year, and I don’t remember Boromir ever showing affection to any of the hobbits or really paying any attention to them before he tries to take the Ring.
When Frodo wrote the book, he obviously didn’t have a chance to talk to Boromir and hear his point of view – but he clearly did consult Merry and Pippin. I think if they had noticed Boromir feeling affection for them they would have mentioned it and it would have gotten into the narrative.
I appreciate this essay so very much! The Noldor have been my favorite of the Elven kindreds since I was 13, and despite the (many) things he (absolutely) did wrong, I have to admit I love Fëanor and his disaster offspring. Celebrimbor is such a fascinating character to me, and I was so hopeful to see this darker, fallible side of Elves explored. It’s so thematically significant that despite repudiating his father, Celebrimbor doesn’t quite learn the family lesson and still loves too greatly the works of his own hands; to see his intellect, skill, and agency so reduced was bitterly disappointing.
“Another chance to remind you that it is Gimli who is probably the most lethal individual fighter in the Fellowship.’
Blasphemy! It’s clearly Legolas. A whirling cyclone of death that boy is.
In the books, as far as I remember, Legolas isn’t nearly as deadly as in the films, though that’s obviously a very high bar. He does snipe a flying Nazgul in the middle of a cloudy night while they’re traveling down the Anduin, though, so he’s certainly an extremely capable marksman.
That still only counts as one!
Bret knows better – he himself points out elsewhere in the post that Aragorn doesn’t bother to count.
“Aragorn and Éomer and Imrahil rode back towards the Gate of the City, and they were now weary beyond joy or sorrow. These three were unscathed, for such was their fortune and the skill and might of their arms, and few indeed had dared to abide them or look on their faces in the hour of their wrath.”
Funny how almost all of Aragorn’s so-called “kills” happen off screen…
That did not go unnoticed by the writers of “Bored of the Rings”.
Not everyone thinks that killing people looks cool.
Thank you for your essay this week, for once not about pedantry, but the very heart and soul of the Tolkien legendarium. I do think it labours under a misapprehension, though, in the first half on Celebrimbor. The Boromir part was greatly touching, as Tolkien’s eucatastrophes tend to be. In honour of your essay, have an essay of my own, On How the Fate of the Elves Relates to the Redemption of Celebrimbor.
The Elves in Tolkien’s legendarium, unlike Men, do not die indeed and go out of the world, but their fate is bound with that of Arda. They, sooner or later, reincarnate: this idea is there from the earliest writings, and never disappears. That they have to wait in the halls of Mandos and do not re-appear in Middle Earth changes nothing to this fundamental point. The Elves do not go to heaven: out of their purgatory they go back to earth. Bound up with this idea of an entirely different fate for the Elves, is that their task in the world is different from that of Men as well. The task of Men in life, one could say, is to prepare for death, their especial Gift of Eru Illuvatar. The task of the immortal Elves, instead, is to make the Earth beautiful and keep it so. Their lives and that of Arda are intertwined. This art is their joy and their service to Eru. They are not responsible for just Valinor, which the Vala chose as a land to easier guard it from Melkor, but for all of Arda, including Middle-Earth. The Elves, Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri, should work together with the Vala and make Arda as beautiful as can be. The Noldor specifically seems to have callings as craftsmen; and this reaches its zenith in the Silmarils, which neither Vala nor Elves could have made by themselves, but of which making the Elf Feänor was the chief. Note that the Elves are not immortal because they live or lived in Valinor, but Valinor is called deathless because the Elves reside there. And wherever the Elves go, they beautify with their skill and art: so the Eldar in Valinor, so the Noldor in Beleriand and later Lindon and Eriador, so the Grey Elves in Doriath and Cirdan in the Falas, and so the Elves of the Lonely Isle in their traffic to Numenorë. Even the Dark Elves, untaught by any of the Vala or Maia, were naturally gifted in language and song, which they taught to Men as well as Ents.
The choice of the Vala then to try and get all the Elves to Valinor, as mindstalku has mentioned, is a great mistake. Incidentally, it is a mistake made out of love for the Elves, which in time was used against them as it was interpreted (by Melkor as well as his greatest foe, Feänor) as their desire for dominion over the Elves. The Vala acted only out of love and did not fall, but the Elves did fall and this was out of a desire for Dominion: Feänor first over his Silmarils, and the Noldor after him over realms of their own in Middle-Earth – not least of which was Galadriël, who only overcomes this desire for mastership when Frodo offers her the Ring. All of them in the first instance target their desire for dominion in overcoming the dominion of Melkor, and this is of course a good thing. It is a greater fault of the Vala that they have ignored the Elves that did not come to Valinor as well as Middle-Earth for far too long, and the making of the Sun and the Moon are part of their penitence. When they finally give in and allow Eönwe and the Vanyar to go to war with Melkor at the end of the First Age, the Noldor may return to Valinor, but the princes (and Galadriël) prefer to stay and rule in Middle-Earth. This is not inherently a failing, for it is their fate to love and order and beautify the whole earth, but it is marred by the dominating influence of Melkor. This is the great tragedy of the Noldor: that in trying to rectify the mistake of the Vala they fall further than the Vala ever did, yet is their coming to Middle-Earth as the coming of the Moon and Sun for the Elves left there under the shadow of Melkor.
Coming to the case of Celebrimbor then: his being a lord of the Noldor is accident, but of substance is his being a craftsman. It is his fall as a craftsman that Tolkien describes, and I think we may see him being redeemed through his craft as well. Celebrimbor is as much at fault as all the other Noldor to stay in Middle-Earth; but he is less at fault than Galadriël and Celebrimbor in wanting a realm of his own, since all he wants is his smithy. His fall is that of a craftsman, in two ways. First in the way of his grandfather, since he too falls prey to the desire for dominion over his own creation. He loves the rings too much to destroy them to prevent them from falling into Sauron’s hands. This is after having already fallen in the second way to the temptation of the shortcut to knowledge through uncritically accepting the help of Annatar. His redemption, as far as it stretches, is also through his craft. It is significant that he made the three, the best of his work, without help from Annatar: he has now mastered the craft, which was in itself good, and the rings are pure; crafted rings of art, not magic rings (cf. Galadriël’s discussion with Sam on Elven magic). These rings are meant for all of Elvenkind, and thus for all of Middle-Earth, which seems yet again forgotten by the Vala; the best of Mankind has been placed in Numenorë and they also have little thought for the continent. In this Celebrimbor is greater than his grandfather: Feänor so hoarded his Silmarils he would in the end not even show them to the Vala. His redemptive act may not stretch too far, but his effort is taken up in a greater grace, and this I think is significant also. For the three were not only essential in preserving the Elven realms during the Third Age for the fight with Sauron, but the ring of fire specifically was instrumental in the final deliverance from Sauron. The ring was given to Gandalf, who used it to fire on the hopes of all the free peoples: from the thirteen dwarves and a hobbit without whose adventure there would be no Queen in Gondor, to the work afterwards without which there would be no Gondor at all – or any other kingdom, freedom or beauty, as all would be Sauron’s slag and orcish filth. And so there can be no greater crafted thing than the rings of Celebrimbor that saved Middle-Earth from Sauron, save maybe for the last Silmaril in which the Light of the Trees still shines.
It’s also interesting to compare and contrast Celebrimbor’s failure with his father Curufin and grandfather, Feanor. I’m not quite sure to put it eloquently but you can almost take it as Celembrimbor growing into the same problems that his ancestors did.
Take Celebrimbor’s coup against Celeborn and Galadriel and then compare it to Curufin’s coup against Galadriel’s brother Finrod in the early silmarillion. Then his absolute love for the 3 rings he made himself and weigh it against how Feanor’s and the silmarils. Both set of artifacts set in motion the events of the age and ultimately are responsible for both the rise and eventual fall of Evil.
Sauron was made stronger by the ring but it’s also part of what allowed him to be defeated in the end. It isn’t the same as Morgoth and the silmarils but it’s a applicable parallel.
Strange to say of this of all posts, but it is topical and timely. Many thanks and happy Easter!
This endorsement of Boromir’s fundamental moral success, which is repeated multiple times throughout LOTR by multiple characters, to the point that it is clearly central to Tolkien’s conception of his world and what matters in it is definitely something that CAN be captured in a television show, if the writers are willing, and capable.
“Instead, otherwise alone, unwatched, and unnoticed, he fights a battle he must know is hopeless to answer his charge and defend two young hobbits who are entirely superfluous to the quest as he understands it.”
The sacrifice requires that the character be willing to lay aside their grand role in the future for some small in priced act in the present. Not an easy choice. Too many of us are willing to let small things go by in service of “the cause.”
One show that did capture this principle was BABYLON 5 which has an entire episode devoted to this very issue. Season 2’s “Come’s the Inquisitor in which a character driven by certainty of prophesized destiny is forced to make this very moral choice. And it is a powerful episode that informs the character and changes them.
In short, Babylon 5 is a better Tolkien show than Rings of Power even attempted to be.
I think this is largely right, but a few points:
The Elves being gathered in the West is a plan of the Valar’s, but Tolkien suggests in a few places that it *wasn’t* Iluvatar’s, and may not have been a wholly right choice. The Elves were made to be part of and enhance Middle Earth, especially in the Elder Days, and being made wards of the Valar diminished them and laid the ground for the revolt of the Noldor, and meant that Men awakened without the wisest and best of them available to mentor them until a few made their way to Beleriand.
It wasn’t clearly or wholly *wrong*. It was a response to the danger posed by Morgoth and his marring of the world, and it was a decision that they made in their legitimate role as the guardians and rulers of Arda. But it was *their* choice, made by their judgment (with some arguing against, and some later regret), not a divine mandate that they were carrying out.
(Giving Numenor to the loyal Edain was similarly a judgment of the Valar, and the outcome there went so wrong that they threw up their hands and begged Iluvatar to intervene. The Valar are wise, but far from infallible.)
For that reason, I don’t think that staying in Middle-Earth after the pardon constituted rebellion per se on the part of the Elves. (Still less for those who hadn’t left Aman against the Valar’s will in the first place.) Doing so in order to create dominions was more perilous, but still I think not clearly *wrong*: Gil-Galad isn’t framed as a rebel, and I don’t think Galadriel’s establishing of Lothlorien per se is portrayed as a bad thing.
But they had to be willing in the end to *lose* them to the time and change of Middle-Earth when the need arose, because that was the difference between the Undying Lands and elsewhere. And clinging to changelessness in the face of immortality is the Elvish temptation analogous to mortals clinging to life in the face of mortality. That’s the test that Gil-Galad passed in the War of the Last Alliance and that Galadriel, at length, passed at the end of the next age. Like Boromir, they sacrificed for others when the call came to do so.
Celebrimbor is a tragic figure, but the text doesn’t seem to judge him as having fallen in quite the same way, not only as Feanor, but as more mixed figures like Maedhros or Thingol. He clearly makes *wrong* choices, particularly trusting Sauron. But I’m not sure that he does as much knowing wrong as this piece suggests.
I don’t think he betrays *people* when he gives the location of the Nine and the Seven. If those Rings had had wearers, their minds would have been open to Sauron. That’s why the wearers of the three took them off when they perceived the One. So if Sauron couldn’t reach them directly, that suggests that they were unworn and hidden, presumably in different places than the Three were.
I also don’t think that the making of the Rings themselves was so clear an exercise in hubris, though I’m less sure about that. Partly that’s because the later wearing and the use of the Three, untouched by Sauron, is generally portrayed as a positive thing. They’re the key to the preservation of Rivendell and Lothlorien, both of which are storehouses of wisdom and knowledge and places that hold off the Darkness and aid others to do so.
They’re *also* aspects of the temptation to “embalming” and stagnation that Tolkien calls out for the Elves after the Elder Days. But I think it’s noteworthy that there’s never a hint that Elrond is a hypocrite for retaining and using his Ring while urging Isildur to destroy the One, or that the fading of Nenya and therefore Lothlorien is other than a loss and a sorrow. Gandalf, who’s as close as there is to a moral compass in The Lord of the Rings, bears Narya without a hint of reproach.
The Three are a point of vulnerability, but they’re not an evil in themselves, or even the cause of evil the way, e.g., the Silmarils were. Which at least suggests that Celebrimbor’s ambition to make them wasn’t either.
Celebrimbor failed in a way that Boromir didn’t: he trusted Sauron against others’ advice (though they couldn’t fully tell him why), because Sauron offered a path to his ambitions. He was blind to the dangers the Rings presented until Sauron made them unambiguous. And yes, he wanted to approach the perfection of Aman in Middle Earth.
(But so did Galadriel, with her conscious reflection of the gardens of Lorien. Which she maintained for millennia with one of Celebrimbor’s creations.)
His fate still feels to me less like the working out of justice for his transgressions than the culmination of Sauron’s deceptions and malice. He walked into the trap, but it doesn’t feel like he *deserves* it the way that, say, Feanor so richly earns his end.
second tldr over all my posts:
If you sample different passages, you find Tolkien saying that Celebrimbor fell for Sauron holding out the lure of healing Middle-earth; ‘repented’; immediately gave up his greatest treasures, not even keeping one of the Three for himself; and died as “the heroic defender of Eregion”. Which is a rather different spin than Bret’s, but I think just as valid. So I think RoP’s decision to make Celebrimbor sympathetic and heroic, rather than arrogant and proud, is perfectly fine.
(Especially since, strictly speaking, they didn’t have rights to any of it, and had to make up a character based on the most barebones information: made the Three, got killed.)
When we get into the weeds of the posthumous Tolkien stuff, there often is no ‘true’ answer, much as many of us nerds would like there to be one. (E.g., the origin of orcs is _unknown_. “Corrupted elves” was just one idea, given prominence by Chris’s editing of the Silmarillion.)
“But I think it’s noteworthy that there’s never a hint that Elrond is a hypocrite for retaining and using his Ring while urging Isildur to destroy the One”
As I recall, and some slight searching backs up, that is a movie fiction and not from Tolkien.
Elrond did not implore Isildur to destroy the Ring when he first claimed it, and when Isildur was killed it was as he was traveling to see Elrond about it. Hardly the actions of someone who had willfully rejected the advice of said person previously.
Yet another case of the movies casting a character being a worse person than Tolkien portrayed them as.
‘Elrond did not implore Isildur to destroy the Ring’
He did:
‘Alas! yes,’ said Elrond. ‘Isildur took it, as should not have been. It should have been cast then into Orodruin’s fire nigh at hand where it was made. But few marked what Isildur did. He alone stood by his father in that last mortal contest; and by Gil-galad only Círdan stood, and I. But Isildur would not listen to our counsel.
‘ “This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother,” he said; and therefore whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it. But soon he was betrayed by it to his death; and so it is named in the North Isildur’s Bane. Yet death maybe was better than what else might have befallen him.
Then again, what would Cirdan or Elrond have done, had one of them been first to retrieve it? They might have had a better idea about what it was, but that doesn’t mean they could have thrown it straight into the Fire, or given it to someone else. And if they did neither, it would only be a matter of time.
Gandalf was able to handle it, throw it into a fire, retrieve it with tongs, and hand it back to Frodo with no sign of being overwhelmed. Bilbo handed it off, albeit with prompting and some pressure.
The Ring’s temptation varied according to circumstances, the strength of the wearer, their intentions, etc. But I think it’s possible that someone like Elrond who began with suspicion, who kept it at arm’s (or tongs’) length, who was not under pressure of immediate need, at a time when Sauron was diminished to nigh-impotence, could have resisted its temptation long enough.
Or maybe not. Maybe he gets to the edge and decides that it would be better to keep it safe and locked away rather than risk the unpredictable consequences of its destruction. Especially since anyone who might have reminded him of his duty was either dead (Gil-Galad) or elsewhere (Galadriel). And I don’t think Glorfindel had returned from the West yet.
And I’ve long been darkly amused by Isildur in the UT chapter saying he was going to give the One to the Keepers of the Three, when he knew exactly what two of them would say and that he was going in exactly the wrong direction to do it.
“That change in motivation extends to Celebrimbor and here it is worth noting that Rings of Power has changed the order in which the rings are made. In the legendarium it is explicit (e.g. Sil. 287, Tales 227-8, RotK 415) that the lesser rings were created first, the Three Elven Rings second and the One Ring last; RoP inverts the first two, having the Three created before the Seven and Nine. Moreover, it changes the motivation: in RoP the first three Elven rings are sufficient to avert the decline of the Elves, which would of course remove the original motivation for making them. So the show has Sauron, in disguise, suggest Celebrimbor make the other rings of power for the purpose of giving them to Men and Dwarves.”
If I recall correctly, the seven and nine were originally made for elves and only after Sauron’s treachery and the elves rejecting of the rings did Sauron settle on giving the others to dwarves and men (after reacquiring them through violence).
That, I believe, has impact on Celebrimbor’s motivation as well.
” the seven and nine were originally made for elves and only after”
Correct. I’m not sure if even a close reading of LotR makes that fully clear, but other writings clarify it. There is also an implication that the Seven were an improved and presumably later production run compared to the Nine. (Improved how? Yeah, we don’t get details like that.)
The whole Ring-plan was kind of a fiasco for Sauron.
Plan A: enslave key elves. Result: they dodge.
Plan B: enslave humans and dwarves. Result: the dwarves are immune, the humans turn into fear-wraiths instead of immortal sorcerer-kings.
Plan C: use the fear-wraiths and conquer the world the hard way.
Plus of course giving himself an Achilles heel.
And then there are the lesser rings, which Gandalf had to spend decades deciding Bilbo didn’t have. What became of them? What did they do? All we know is that they didn’t have gems, and it at least wasn’t implausible that one might convey invisibility.
And when first meeting Gandalf, Saruman is wearing a ring, by implication one he’d made via his investigations into the craft. Which in defiance of all comments about Chekhov’s Gun never comes into the story again.
The Valar seem to have been conflict adverse, their response to Morgoth was to cocoon themselves and the Elves in Valinor and leave Middle Earth in literal darkness. They boarded the light of the Trees tainting it with the sun of covetice which later stained the Silmarils
Every time the Valar openly confronted evil, they literally changed the landscape. The first war between them and Melkor shattered the perfect symmetry of the primordial world. The War of Wrath drowned Beleriand. They were so afraid of the consequences of directly facing the younger Children of whom they knew the least (and presumably damaging the divine plan concerning them) that they lay down their governance and asked Iluvatar to intervene.
It’s very possible that this was partly a culpable lack of trust in Iluvatar’s plan. But it also reflects their experience of exactly how destructive their direct intervention could be. Using deliberately limited agents and indirect interventions during the Third Age was presumably a concerted effort to balance their responsibilities with those dangers. And it *did* work. Barely.
“had to lay down their governance”
My understanding is that that wasn’t motivated by being afraid of mishandling mortals, it was because they were expressly forbidden by Eru from using force against his Children. Otherwise, Osse and Uinen (Maiar of storms) should have been capable of simply sinking the whole Numenorean armada. So the appeal was more “You banned humans from Aman and You banned us from using force against them, but they’re on Aman, You made this problem, You fix it.”
(If they couldn’t use force, how come Osse and Uinen sometimes did sink ships? Inconsistencies in the legendarium…)
“Valar seem to have been conflict adverse”
Their response to the coming of the Elves was to go arrest Melkor and drag him back to Aman for three ages of captivity. It’s implied this did a lot of collateral damage though, making them shyer of further conflict.
But there’s also the whole “multiple drafts” problem. Book of Lost Tales, from early on, has “The Hiding of Valinor”, where the Valar/’gods’ are more motivated by fear and complacency after Morgoth kills the Trees. Manwe in fact argues against the Hiding and is basically booted from power, to skulk around with Ulmo, maybe sending the occasional Eagle to help.
Later, Tolkien changed the Valar from heavily flawed quasi-gods to slightly flawed angelic beings, but the sequence of events stayed largely the same, and Tolkien had to write “Note on Motives in the Silmarillion” arguing that Manwe was playing 5-dimensional chess as Elder King, rather than doing what he could as a minority faction.
But I’m not aware of any text suggesting that the Light of the Trees (and Silmarils) was tainted with avarice.
“the choice to fight for the good ” — now there’s something we can apply to the here and now with complete relevance. No longer restricted to literature!
I can’t say I ever interpreted the ‘preservation’ power of the Three as blasphemous – they end up on the fingers of Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, after all, and are apparently used by all three without qualms. But I can kinda see the rationale. It’s an interesting idea.
This really should have a “Good Friday” tag.
“Instead, otherwise alone, unwatched and unnoticed, he fights a battle he must know is hopeless to answer his charge and defend two young hobbits who are entirely superfluous to the quest as he understands it”.
“How do you know the Chosen Ones? ‘No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother'” Not for millions…not for glory…not for fame. For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.” (see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Babylon_5#Comes_the_Inquisitor)
It looks like Babylon 5 is the true series adaptation of Tolkien’s work…
this was an absolutely lovely post. It actually moved me to tears a bit, thank you 🙂
This is fantastic. I don’t think I really understood Boromir’s redemption until reading this.
It’s also fascinating, and maybe a little depressing that the TV show missed the point about the rings and their maker.
i am not that convinced that Boromir would not have defended his comrades without having to redeem himself, he was with all his faults an honorable man and Faramir describes how they were part of the rear of the rearguard.
I do not think abandoning comrades was a thing he did lightly, we see from the onset how he cared for his companions.
It’s possible I missed something Bret said, but my impression was certainly not that Boromir protected the hobbits FOR THE PURPOSE of redeeming himself, in the sort of transactional way implied by the idea that he otherwise wouldn’t have. I thought the thesis was simply that Boromir DID redeem himself by the intention of this deed–coming back from the brink of the Ring’s corruption, back into what was best about his own nature.
Lovely piece. I think Tolkien’s Catholic morality is tinged with the Norse outlook – that it’s not victory that counts but unflinching courage, however dire the circumstances (in one saga a malicious character is beheaded in outrage for saying that a hero groaned while being burnt alive).
One alien values – one sore point for me with the Peter Jackson LOTR is the decision of the ents to go to war. He portrays them as tricked, George Bush style, rather than Tolkien’s deliberate and debated act of a free people to take action against wrong even if it meant their doom (echo of Britain entering Wolrd War II?).
The movie also changes the context and meaning of Eowyn saying, “Those without swords can still die by them.”
In the book, a healer complains that all warriors do is make more work for him. Eowyn points out that Sauron is coming for Gondor whether Gondor fights back or not. (Tolkien always said it wasn’t a World War allegory, but this part sure looks like one.)
In the movie, someone asks Eowyn why she carries a sword even though she’s a woman, and her answer implies that she needs it for self-defense. Which I guess is sort of the same thing, but personal instead of national.
You don’t need to call this an analogy to any specific war, it’s just true about war in general: If one side wants to have one, the other side doesn’t really have a choice not to have it.
From memory: “Those who have not swords can still die upon them”.
Someone once told me that strict pacifism borders on heresy within Christianity, as it prevents you from discharging an obligation to defend others. I wonder if anyone can tell me if that is true?
That depends on what you mean by “strict pacifism,” but no, it is not even close to being heresy, as a strict pacifist would say that their obligation to defend others is fulfilled by, say, putting themselves between the killer and their victim. One may argue that this is very unlikely to actually accomplish the objective, but I have nothing but respect for someone who actually does such a thing.
I’m curious. How would that work with, for example, an air raid? Or a siege?
(I gather that in Tolkien’s day, conscripts who claimed pacifism were not infrequently sent to bomb disposal and similar units, which were useful, extremely dangerous, and didn’t involve killing people. But that is the authorities finessing the issue, not a universal defence against air raids. Someone was going to have to shoot at the bombers.)
A lot of Christians have been pacifists. I believe Martin Luther King is an example. The Mennonites are a Christian denomination that are officially pacifist. It’s not the majority position but even within non-pacifist traditions there have been pacifist theologians in good standing. Refraining from violence is generally considered saintly even when it’s not considered obligatory.
As far as I know, no council, pope, etc., has ever officially said that strict pacifism is heretical, even though it’s usually not been the majority position (at least since the 5th c). It would be hard for them to come out and say that, since much of the early church appears to have been broadly pacifist.
The disorganized early Christian cults, especially the ones that didn’t seek non-Jewish members, don’t seem to have felt like there was any wiggle room about God Commanding them not to kill. Paul then tried to organize all these communities together and in the process basically does away with absolute interpretations of just about everything other than the paternity of Jesus, but individual Christians still have a lot of freedom to abhor violence. The turning point really comes when Augustine of Hippo launders a bunch of Neoplatonism and Roman political practice into Christianity. He established that it is possible for warfare to be just in the service of God or government, and that if such just circumstances exist then a Christian must get on with it. Essentially all Christians recognize Augustine as either the official saint of theology or at least as the saint that smart people should want to be like, and so while there’s been nearly 2000 years of debate about the exact edges of just war, Christian pacifists tend to end up unchurched or in pariah sects or as tolerated weirdos in non-pacifist congregations.
Quakers are often held up as a counterexample here, but hey, Nixon bombed Cambodia.
Quakers are often held up as a counterexample here, but hey, Nixon bombed Cambodia.
I don’t think it’s fair to use Nixon as an example of what the Quakers teach about war and peace- politicians belonging to a particular church can and do violate the teachings of their church all the time, sometimes for ideological differences and sometimes for reasons of state. There are lots of examples all over the ideological and political spectrum.
Pacificism is certainly a minority position, but I’d just qualify your statement to say that 1) the Orthodox Church always took kind of a….critical view of Augustine, as far as I know, so I’d amend your statement to say “Western Christians”, and 2) with the fracture of Catholic and Protestant unity in the 19th and 20th c under pressures of secularization, you can now find self described Christians in western countries who are perfectly happy to throw Augustine and everything he said in the trash bin. (I don’t think its that easy to excise Augustine from Christian history, which is one reason I don’t consider myself a Christian, but clearly some people do).
I think Tolkien was aware of a tension between the Norse outlook and a Catholic outlook, and a lot of the moral interest of his work comes from the fact that he was drawn to both.
Yes. A key difference is that there is no room for hope in the Norse outlook – Ragnarok will come and the gods will lose. Tom Shippey (who wrote a very good book on Tolkien and was, like him, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse) explores this a book on the Viking ethos: “Laughing Shall I Die” .
The Gods will die, but they will win – Baldur will return from the death, Magni and Modi will inherit their father’s hammer, and the universe itself will be renewed.
“Baldur will return from the death,”
AIUI, a lot of scholars wonder if that’s some later Christian interpolation, or at least Christian-influenced, rather than historical Norse belief.
AIUI, a lot of scholars wonder if that’s some later Christian interpolation, or at least Christian-influenced, rather than historical Norse belief.
I certainly agree it’s an epistemological problem that our sources for Norse beliefs were written after Christianization, and *could* reflect adaptation to Christian beliefs, but do we have any grounds to think that that’s *not* what the pre-Christian Norse believed?
It’s possible (and if you believe there’s any truth to the supernatural, even likely) that two cultures could come up with similar religious ideas without any historical connextion or borrowing.
Indeed; I think it’s worth noting 2003 book by Indiana University’s Mark T. Hooker, “Tolkien Through Russian Eyes” devotes a whole chapter to how LOTR incorporates both Catholic Christian and Norse morality – which he viewed through the prism of their divergent treatments of the concept of “hope” and the importance assigned to it.
That is, according to the former, one MUST retain hope and be driven it, and indeed, Frodo’s mission is animated by hope – else they would have listened to doubters like Denethor and hid the Ring to simply delay Sauron’s ultimate triumph for as long as possible. On the other hand, the Norse morality (as are many other pre-Christian moralities, according to Hooker) emphasizes fighting (even) when you already have no hope – and Hooker describes that view as exemplified by Beowulf and being primarily the province of the dwarves in Tolkien’s text, going off a key line said by Elrond to Gloín.
“You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it.”
However, Hooker’s focus in the chapter is on exploring how the 15 or so people behind LOTR’s 10 translations into Russian (as of book’s publication 20 years ago, that is) felt about hope, and the attitude they brought into text. For instance, he zooms in on the following passage, when Galadriel gifts Gimli three of her hairs.
> Then the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three golden hairs. and laid them in Gimli’s hand. ‘These words shall go with the gift,’ she said. ‘I do not foretell, for foretelling is now vain: on the one hand lies darkness, and on the other only hope. But if hope should not fail, then I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.’
Hooker points out that two of the translations of Galadriel’s line wholly omit the role of hope and thus side fully with “the Norse morality”. I.e. (everything which follows is my Russian/Englist translation, rather than Hooker’s) in the very first translation, the condensed samizdat “retelling” by Zinaida Bobyr’, decides the only important part is “Let your hands flow with gold, and let gold have no dominion over you.” The most prominent translation, by Muraviev & Kistyakovsky (the one which described Boromir as “struggling against death” in his final smile and gave Stalinist connotations to Scouring of the Shire) outright reads like this.
“I do not want to foretell anything, since the Dark advances on Middle-Earth, and we know not what awaits us in the future. But if the Dark is destined to disperse, then you’ll manage to obtain a great deal of gold — yet you won’t become its slave.”
Other translators did retain the mention of hope, BUT the metaphors they used in that line still coloured the perception substantially. In Hooker’s view, “The Dark lies over one palm, and only hope over the other” (Gruzberg) still reads a lot more confident than “From one side the Dark advances over us, and from the other, — we are armed only with hope. But if hope is destined to prevail” (Nemirova), etc.
The other significant example is this line.
> “Despair, or folly?’ said Gandalf. ‘It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.
Most translations are fairly close, but one, by Yakhnin, adds a very different connotation.
“I don’t know what will happen to the world in the far future, — he slowly spoke, — but we, those leaving today, must free the Middle-Earth from the threat of the Gloom of the grave and the all-consuming Darkness. Yes, the road to Mordor is lethally dangerous, and yet it is the only way to victory.”
And in the “M & K” version, it turns into this.
“Elrond is wise, as we all know, and nobody would call the sole road leading to victory a road of folly…yet at the same time, it is insurmountable, and defeat inevitably awaits us”…”Defeat is inevitable only for those who have already despaired”, objected Gandalf… — To recognize the necessity of a dangerous way, when all the other paths have been cut off — that is indeed true wisdom.”
And “M & K” version of Elrond’s advice to Gloín is
“You’ll understand that you have no other choice but to fight the Enemy the death — even without a hope of prevailing in this battle.”
Which Hooker described as echoing not just Beowulf and Ragnarok, but also…the logic of penal battalions. Understanding this was a tendentious claim, he appeals to worldview of 19th philosopher Petr Chaadayev about resignation in the face of suffering as opposed to striving to change it as the basis of Russian culture, which was inherited from the Byzantine along with the Orthodox Christianity. Now, Chaadayev was himself declared a madman by the Tsarist state in his time for his thesis of Orthodoxy-induced stagnation – though his fate inspired Griboedov’s sympathetic “Woe from Wit”. (One of those works, like the writings of Turgenev and Leskov, which Russian students are meant to understand as being as much of a classic and an integral part of Russian culture as anything by Tolstoy, Chekhov or Dostoevsky, yet which is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world by comparison)
From my lens as a reader of this blog, I’ll note that the passage of Chaadayev which Hooker chooses to excerpt is such a perfect summary of the Fremen myth (with the bonus “hard” interpretation of “The Dark Ages”) that it would feel right at home in this post.
https://acoup.blog/2020/02/07/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-iiia-by-the-princess-irulan/
“At the same time as the building of the modern civilization was being erected amidst the fight between the strength-filled barbarity of the peoples of the North and the elevated thought of the religion, what were we doing? It was the grim will of fate that for the moral teaching which was meant to tutor us, we turned towards the decadent Byzantine, the subject of deep scorn from those peoples… The exceptional qualities, which religion bestowed upon the modern peoples and which in the eyes of clear reason places them so much more above of the ancients, as those were above the Hottentots or Lopari (old word for the Sami people); those new forces, with which it enriched the human mind; those morals, which under the influence of submission to unarmed power became as soft, as they before used to be cruel, — all of that had bypassed us…Even then, so many bright rays have shone amidst the apparent dark which covered Europe…turning back to the pagan antiquity, the Christian world had once again regained the format of beauty, in which it was then still lacking. As for us, locked away in our schism, none of those happenings in Europe have touched us.”
Hooker’s reading of that is largely uncritical; to him, Chaadayev is right in both that and in his other claim that Russia had only ever adopted foreign big ideas instead of birthing its own, and
the only mistake Chaadayev makes was in overlooking how every idea adopted by Russia nevertheless became adapted to local realities. In fact, he chooses to interpret the difference between Muraviev & Kistyakovsky and other translators in their treatment of hopeful resistance vs. hopeless duty in the text as a symbol of the former instilling Russian literature’s characteristic values (grim fatalism, according to Hooper) onto Tolien, while the other translators have crossed the gulf Chaadayev spoke of and were comparatively more affected by (post)-Catholic influences.
To me, that intepretation seems to contradict even a fair number of inclusions in a typical high school literature program in Russia (to give just one example, much of what was written by the actual most-important writer and poet as seen from the inside, Pushkin, is either fairly light or dark but not predetermined – i.e. the villain protagonist of The Queen of Spades is undone by a failure to uphold his end of a bargain, which was not a foregone conclusion and not locked in until maybe the day before the final card game where he loses everything) – not to mention his own admission earlier in the book that “socialist realism” (arguably one of the “most homegrown” art movements there ever was) had to be incessantly optimistic. It was probably this line of thought, more than anything else, which prompted his own text’s translator to add a note in a foreword that she does not agree with all of his ideas, but still considers it a valuable addition to the debate.
If you ever have the urge I would love to read something by you on how what takes down both Denethor and Saruman is what we would today call a “curated news feed” (but Hurin wasn’t taken down by it, though he was misdirected)
Your entire condemnation of Celebrimbor rests on the premise that we accept Tolkien’s morality sight unseen, and, like, we don’t have to do that.
I think you’ve made an error here in your criticism of Celebrimbor, and a large part of that stems from misunderstanding the character of Galadriel. She isn’t disagreeing with Annnatar’s plan because she perceives it as evil-if she did, she would not make use of the ring for it’s intended purpose, which it is quite clear she does in Lothlorien. As with Fëanor, she has quite clearly understood that someone isn’t to be trusted, while agreeing with at least some of their goals. Remember Galadriel herself is described as one of the chief leaders of the rebellion against the Valar-her being in Middle-Earth at all is her going against the natural order of things, and we know her desire to rule was a major factor in that.
I also somewhat disagree about your description of Denethor. It could be argued that he’s going against the natural order of things by opposing Aragorn, but Tolkien gives him the legal precedent, Pelendur ruled against Arvedui, and isn’t really implied to be wrong in doing so. Tolkien points out he consistently rejected Sauron and was broken by the apparent mortal wounding of his last surviving son. He’s an effective, cold, pragmatic but dutiful ruler who cares about the welfare of his people (far more than say Theoden does). It’s the wrong thing to be in the story he finds himself in, and his sin is despair, but even then only under incredible duress.
Also what would this argument in turn say of people like Húrin Thalion or Túrin Turambar? They both gave into despair, their final actions were definitely cruel and vengeful, moreso by far than Celebrimbor or Denethor. I’d argue they were, along with Nienor, conquered by evil. Only Morwen escapes that fate. Yet they are, within the text, treated as heroes because they opposed evil and were crushed by it. Are we to judge them negatively because they ultimately failed? Or to recognise their heroism in the face of an evil they alone could never defeat? Elrond seems to treat them as heroes, and the Gondorians repeatedly name children after them.
Tolkien certainly understood that a character can be both flawed and tragic, responsible in part for their own downfall and yet worthy of pity, and even praise for their virtue in despite of those flaws.
Great addition to Plutarch! Thanks. I guess Celebrimbor is the Greek and Boromir the Roman.
Bret, I wish I were better able to define and describe and discuss this post. But what I can do at least, is to quote gtt above to express this:
“I don’t think I really understood Boromir’s redemption until reading this.”
Indeed, after reading this, and also in no small part the caption to the photo of Sean Bean, I now understand why Bean was cast in such a “minor” part (i.e., a character who appears only in the first part of this trilogy of movies).
That was a very interesting essay! I mostly agree with your take on Tolkien’s views as expressed in his books. Thank goodness, I haven’t watched most of RoP season 2 and your description of how they spoiled the story is good enough for me.
I do disagree on the Elves’ migration to Valinor being Eru Ilúvatar’s plan for them. The Ainur originally, following the music of creation as they understood it, prepared all of Arda as a home for the Children of Ilúvatar, both the Firstborn and the Followers. It was to be as unblemished and filled with light as later only Valinor was, though in my reading plants and animals were not protected from fading and withering, as they later were in Valinor. Only when Melkor overthrew the lamps did the Valar retreat to and fortify Valinor, but they still hadn’t taken the decision to bring any of the Children of Ilúvatar there.
When Oromë discovered that the Elves had arisen in Middle-Earth, and after Melkor had been defeated and bound, the majority of the Valar decided to summon them to Valinor. However, Ulmo and others counseled against this plan, and the narrator qualifies it as selfish on the part of the Valar: “they were filled moreover with the love of the beauty of the Elves and desired their fellowship… From this summons came many woes that afterwards befell”.
So I do not think Celebrimbor’s wish to make Middle-Earth as beautiful as Valinor would be against Eru’s plan. However, in one of his letters, Tolkien wrote that the Elves used the Three Rings to to arrest change in their dominions. If arresting change in his kingdom in Middle-Earth was indeed Celebrimbor’s plan from the beginning, it would be wrong. I do think that Middle-Earth was never destined to be changeless. Even Valinor wasn’t entirely changeless in the beginning – the Eldar built their cities, the Calaciryon was cut through the Pelóri range. It is only after the creation of the Sun and the Moon that Valinor settled into a complete and perfect stasis.
In reference to footnote #2, I think that connects to another place where Tolkien’s frame of reference is different from that of modern filmmakers.
Tolkien tends to frame the combat effectiveness of his characters in terms of strength, endurance and ferocity, which seems to me to be a perspective derived from medieval literature, but it also seems logical that when fighting in armored mass combat, physical condition would often be the deciding factor.
Meanwhile, modern filmmakers tend to think more in terms of agility and skill, which I suspect is a legacy of martial arts and swashbuckler movies (the latter relying on fight choreography derived from sport fencing), and from the fact that most people’s only exposure to hand-to-hand combat today is in the arena of professional sports, where everyone is in elite physical condition, making skill/technique often the deciding factor.
It makes sense therefore that Tolkien would expect Gimli to be the best fighter in the Fellowship, while Peter Jackson would assume it to be Legolas.
Dwarves are small! Aragorn and Boromir are bigger and stronger than Gimli in the books. They’re the ones with the strength to force their way through the snow on Caradhras, and Gandalf specifically says it’s because they’re Men. When some of the heroic Men (and Legolas IIRC) fight Saruman’s Men at Helm’s deep, Gimli hangs back because he’s spooked by the sheer size of Men. He only kills orcs, who are smaller.
Though, it should be noted that Gimli won their little ‘competition’ at Helm’s Deep, without the benefit of a bow. He may have been spooked by the size of men, but he appears to be capable enough to surpass even an elf prince against uruk-hai (who are described as being *almost* as large as a man).
Though personally, I do prefer the vision that dwarves aren’t super-strong (as is the typical vision in modern media). The above could well be explained through Gimli being an exceptionally deadly dwarf, and/or Saruman’s forces being unaccustomed to fighting pint-sized adversaries (which would surely require modification of fighting techniques).
Also, once it came to melee range, Gimli is specced for taking on Saruman’s Uruk-Hai in a way that Legolas is not, particularly in the movies, where he’s toting an axe, Legolas is dual-wielding knives, and the Uruk-hai are wearing full plate armor.
I can’t help but find it vaguely sinister that the writers of the series chose to make compassion, rather than pride, the trait that is manipulated for evil, painting compassion as folly and weakness at a time when the most negative forces in the real world are appealing to people’s selfishness and pride. To be clear, I highly doubt that was intentional or that the implication ever crossed their minds, because, frankly, very little seems to have crossed their minds, but still. A bit troubling.
the most negative forces in the real world are appealing to people’s selfishness and pride.
I mean, in the strict sense I would agree with this, but I don’t think this is really a correct way of framing the most serious and long-lasting ideological conflicts in the world today. Pure selfishness and pride are kind of self limiting, the more difficult sources of conflict (nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism, communism vs. capitalism, ethnic conflicts, how to deal with specific issues like crime, environmental protection, human rights etc. etc.) revolve around how to balance compassion for one group with compassion for another, or how to balance concern for individuals vs. concern for the group. I think it’s pretty clear that while compassion in itself might be an unalloyed good, misdirected compassion can certainly be manipulated for evil ends (although which side is the misdirected one is obviously going to depend on your ideological premises).
I don’t know who you’re referring to as “the most negative forces in the world”, so its a little hard to respond, but if you mean Donald Trump, I would agree with you he’s sort of like a cartoonish caricature of a supervillain. Once he’s shuffled off the mortal coil, however, the difficult questions about how to balance competing goods, and how to balance concern for different groups or individuals against each other, are still going to remain.
I didn’t get this impression from the show at all. Compassion might be taken advantage of in some cases, but it’s not portrayed as wrong or weak; and it’s just as much pride or a sense of self-importance that is shown to make characters like Celebrimbor or Galadriel vulnerable to Sauron.
I don’t think it’ quite true that RoP doesn’t show the creation of the rings to be against divine providence. Back in S01 the dwarf king refuses to help the elves on precisely this ground. Quoting from memory: “The fate of the elves was decided ages ago, by minds much wiser than my own. I will not risk dwarven lives so they can cheat destiny” or something like that.
But perhaps the show puts less emphasis on this because “it’s wrong because God says so” doesn’t quite resonate with modern people the way it used to.
Very interesting analysis. Though that last bit describing how in Tolkien’s moral universe pure motives inevitably have good consequences and impure motives bad consequences seems deeply and obviously incorrect about how the world works. Do you think that’s how Tolkien saw the real world, or was it an aspect of the fantasy he was creating?
I don’t think that’s quite what it’s saying: Tolkien is more nuanced than that. Purely motivated actions might well have bad consequences, particularly in the short term (e.g. Treebeard letting Saruman persuade him to walk free out of pity leads to the Shire suffering), or not make an immediate difference (e.g. Frodo pitying Saruman at his end–which does not lead to Saruman’s repentance, but is still good for Frodo to have done). There are moments of grace in the narrative in which good is rewarded, as Boromir’s redemption is, but they are exceptional. (This is actually part of why I disagree with Bret’s analysis of Celebrimbor. I think he does repent and his last stand is redemptive–and his protection of the Three does lead to good, as well as evil, in the long term–but it doesn’t make his own fate any kinder.) In the end, the world is moving toward “the long defeat” in any case: evil can never be wholly stamped out from Arda Marred until the world is remade. Tolkien’s point is that one should do good and act for good reasons regardless of the outcome: good may go nowhere, but remains good, and conversely evil can (and will) often result in unintended good, but remains evil.
“Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
-Gandalf, LotR
“But at that last word of Fëanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, [Manwë] raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: ‘So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.’
But Mandos said: ‘And yet remain evil. To me shall Fëanor come soon.’”
-The Silmarillion
I’m not sure that in Tolkien’s moral universe pure motives inevitably have only good consequences, and certain that impure motives do not have only bad consequences.
(Eru presumably had pure motives to create Melkor, for example.)
And certainly, in the real world, attempting to do a good thing is more likely to lead to a good result than attempting to do a bad thing.
” seems deeply and obviously incorrect about how the world works.” Theologically, the key word is ‘seems’. The answer is trust in God, whose purposes are beyond our grasp. The true and final outcome is unknown – cannot be known to us – so we have to hope that they will be good.
Tolkien wasn’t deluded about the real world, but he saw clearly what Eru had intended his world to be.
I’d go a step further and say that the Rings of Power team adapting around the Silmarillion while still using it as the framework for their story was a mistake. A mistake made long before any of the writers started their first outlines, a mistake born in the halls of House Bezos rather than Payne or McKay, but a crucial mistake nonetheless.
I remember getting in an argument on that very topic over on Twitter in the halls of House Musk. (Smelly place.) And while it’s true that illusions blur the line between “mundane deception” and “straight-up mind control,” controlling the reality that someone sees and reacts to is well over that line.
“Celebrimbor’s body is made into a banner of Sauron, one last humiliation repaid to the proud folly of the greatest of Elven smiths.”
I’m imagining even that Celebrimbor’s hide was tanned and that the banner was for some orcish leatherworker, his Masterpiece.