Aragorn's choice

[Rivendell_librarian]

After the Fellowship has broken and the death of Boromir, Aragorn, as leader, has to choose between following Frodo and Sam, or Merry and Pippin.

'Let me think!' said Aragorn. 'And now may I make a right choice and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!' He stood silent for a moment. 'I will follow the Orcs,' he said at last. 'I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left.

Yet the purpose of the Fellowship was to enter Mordor to destroy the Ring. Frodo and Sam don't even know the way into Mordor and Mt Doom. Yet Aragorn follows his heart rather than his head and trusts the ring bearer and Sam will find a way. In fact, Merry and Pippin escape their orc captors anyway but Aragorn cannot know that would happen. But he does know Merry and Pippin's lives are in danger and they may face torture by Saruman. I believe Aragorn makes the right choice.

This also reminds me of the 1950s John Ford western The Searchers. It is marred by racist themes but is still a great film imo. A band of volunteer Texas Rangers seeking to recapture a kidnapped white girl are forced to retreat across a river by a superior force of native Americans. The captain of the rangers (Ward Bond) after this says "we're not enough but too many". That is too many to catch the native Americans unawares but not enough to take them on in direct combat. Was the original Fellowship of the Ring too many to enter Mordor and destroy the ring in Mt Doom? Had the other Fellowship members been there, would Frodo still have claimed the ring for his own at the end?

 

[grendel]

Actually, the purpose of the Fellowship - as I read it - was to accompany Frodo on the way to Mount Doom, as far as Fate or their desire would take them. Frodo was the only one on whom any onus was laid, to attempt to destroy the Ring, which meant going all the way to the fiery mountain. But I'm not sure Elrond thought ALL of them would make it into Mordor. I'm pretty sure Gandalf did NOT think they should all go to Mordor. Boromir certainly had no intention of going anywhere but Gondor.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Note that the topic of the thread is the wisdom of Aragorn's choice.

 

[Deleted member 12094]

It is a thin line, indeed; there are good arguments to do either of both options (to follow Frodo or to pursue the Orcs). I agree with Rivendell_librarian that it must have been quite difficult a decision to make.

If we limit the discussion to that, then not much more could be said. But as regards the general line of the story, it is “functionally” obvious that Aragorn had to take that decision, I think: Frodo and Sam lose their protectors and must take care of themselves alone from there on.

It is not the first time that this theme returns. Remember e.g. how Gandalf disappeared halfway Bilbo’s trip to Erebor, and once more how he failed to appear on time in Hobbiton, leaving no other choice to Frodo than to depart without him.

 

[Olorgando]

I have to paraphrase here. A statement perhaps in LoTR or outside it by JRRT: "While the eyes of The Great are focused elsewhere ..." (as in, most memorably, Aragorn giving Sauron a reason to "change his underwear" by ripping control of the Orthanc-stone from him) "small hand turn the wheels of the world". The whole theoretic possibility of a direct military assault on Mordor had been dumped very early. Secrecy, unobtrusiveness seemed to be the more sensible option (and just think of Aragorn, certainly of stature placing him above those basketball "Hobbits" known as guards, trying to navigate the Dead Marshes!). And the more immediate danger lay in Merry and Pippin being taken to Isengard and revealing the purpose of the Fellowship there. Not that the Palantir connection between Saruman's Orthanc-stone and the Minas Ithil (later Morgul) Palantir stone captured by the Ring-wraiths had been discovered yet. But Saruman being an enemy had been revealed at the Council of Elrond.

The question has often (IIRC) asked why Elrond did not send Glorfindel, without the slightest doubt a far more powerful Elf than Legolas, on the (anti-) quest. The answer, I think, lies in the vision of Glorfindel that Frodo (close to becoming a wraith himself) had of Glorfindel, explained to him by Gandalf in the chapter I "Many Meetings" of Book Two in "Fellowship": "Yes, you saw [Glorfindel] for a moment as he is on the other side: one of the mighty of the Firstborn." Perhaps the mightiest in some way in Middle-earth for having been allowed to return to M-e, presaging Gandalf's own return as the vastly more powerful "The White" compared to the previous "The Grey". As this "other side" is the natural vision of the Ring-wraiths, and so without a doubt of Sauron, sending Glorfindel would have had the effect of burdening the Fellowship with the equivalent of police car / fire fighter / ambulance lights. A seriously bad idea if one wants secrecy ...

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yes, a passage in the drafts makes the idea clear.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Yes, a passage in the drafts makes the idea clear.

I'm not sure what this means

 

[Elthir]

I'm not sure what this means

I think it means that there's a passage in the drafts that makes clear whatever idea S-eS is talking about there.



Possibly the idea regarding why Glorfindel did not go on the quest.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Yes which idea and which passage are what I don't know.

 

[Ealdwyn]

Secrecy, unobtrusiveness seemed to be the more sensible option (and just think of Aragorn, certainly of stature placing him above those basketball "Hobbits" known as guards, trying to navigate the Dead Marshes!).

I wonder whether this perhaps over-complicates the issue. Secrecy is on point, but if Aragorn's presence was more of a liability than a benefit then I imagine he wouldn't have been sent in the first place. Certainly travelling unobtrusively would have been one of the issues considered, and the fact that he was chosen as one of the nine indicates that his usefulness outweighed any potential loss of secrecy.

I see Aragorn's choice a simple one: it was Merry and Pippin who had been captured and who were in the most immediate danger. Perhaps there was an element of foresight, too, but it only takes him a moment to decide, so it's a gut decision.

 

[frodolives7601]

After the Fellowship has broken and the death of Boromir, Aragorn, as leader, has to choose between following Frodo and Sam, or Merry and Pippin.

'Let me think!' said Aragorn. 'And now may I make a right choice and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!' He stood silent for a moment. 'I will follow the Orcs,' he said at last. 'I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left.

Yet the purpose of the Fellowship was to enter Mordor to destroy the Ring. Frodo and Sam don't even know the way into Mordor and Mt Doom. Yet Aragorn follows his heart rather than his head and trusts the ring bearer and Sam will find a way. In fact, Merry and Pippin escape their orc captors anyway but Aragorn cannot know that would happen. But he does know Merry and Pippin's lives are in danger and they may face torture by Saruman. I believe Aragorn makes the right choice.

This also reminds me of the 1950s John Ford western The Searchers. It is marred by racist themes but is still a great film imo. A band of volunteer Texas Rangers seeking to recapture a kidnapped white girl are forced to retreat across a river by a superior force of native Americans. The captain of the rangers (Ward Bond) after this says "we're not enough but too many". That is too many to catch the native Americans unawares but not enough to take them on in direct combat. Was the original Fellowship of the Ring too many to enter Mordor and destroy the ring in Mt Doom? Had the other Fellowship members been there, would Frodo still have claimed the ring for his own at the end?

Interesting questions! I agree with you that Aragorn makes the right decision. At that moment, Merry and Pippin are the ones in imminent danger. I think perhaps Aragorn is acting partly out of some basic trust that Frodo's quest will work out as it needs to, whether he himself is present at the end or not.

I suspect Frodo would have claimed the Ring regardless of who else had been there. Since the other members of the Fellowship had not borne the Ring for a long time, as he had, I believe they would have been unable to say anything that would have gotten through to him, that would have broken into the reality he was experiencing when he came to the climax of the quest after feeling the Ring's growing influence for so long.

 

[Hisoka Morrow]

I suspect Frodo would have claimed the Ring regardless of who else had been there. Since the other members of the Fellowship had not borne the Ring for a long time, as he had, I believe they would have been unable to say anything that would have gotten through to him, that would have broken into the reality he was experiencing when he came to the climax of the quest after feeling the Ring's growing influence for so long.

Exactly, making sure resisting the Ring's temp is the most prior consideration for the Fellowship's mission.

 

[Alcuin]

Frodo’s mission was certainly secret! Aragorn’s not so much: after Pippin viewed Sauron in the palantír, Aragorn took the opportunity to frighten and press Sauron, though at the “Last Debate”, he remarked that “if I had foreseen how swift would be [Sauron’s] onset in answer, maybe I should not have dared to show myself.”

In Reader’s Companion for “Departure of Boromir”, Hammond and Scull observe that

Aragorn does indeed make the right choice. It is notable that he does not even consider going to Minas Tirith as an option. It is an unhappy day because of the death of Boromir, but though its events appear evil, the culminate in good: Frodo escapes from Boromir towards Mordor with Sam, Merry and Pippin come to the Ents and rouse them to action against Saruman, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, reunited with Gandalf, are led to Rohan in time to free Théoden, ally of Gondor, from the influence of Wormtongue.
​

I might add that Aragorn’s intention was to go with Frodo to Mordor, at which Merry and Pippin exclaimed they would go, too: so many people would have aroused Sauron’s suspicions.

This ... reminds me of the 1950s John Ford western The Searchers. ... The captain of the rangers ... says "we're not enough but too many". That is too many to catch the native Americans unawares but not enough to take them on in direct combat. Was the original Fellowship of the Ring too many to enter Mordor and destroy the ring in Mt Doom? Had the other Fellowship members been there, would Frodo still have claimed the ring for his own at the end?

Yes and yes. Sauron and Saruman had both tracked the Company from Hollin onwards. They knew about the fall of Gandalf in Moria, and Saruman even knew the words of the song Galadriel sang at their parting. (“What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”) I think that in retrospect, Sauron saw Aragorn sitting on Amon Hen (number 15 and number 19 in this post) and later recognized him as Isildur’s Heir. There was no way the Company of the Ring was going to enter Mordor: there were too many of them!

And yes, Tolkien said that Frodo was, in effect, fated to fall to the power of the Ring. In Letter 191, written nine months after the publication of Return of the King, Tolkien said,

If you re-read all the passages dealing with Frodo and the Ring, I think you will see that not only was it quite impossible for him to surrender the Ring, in act or will, especially at its point of maximum power, but that this failure was adumbrated from far back. He was honored because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and had then done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do. He (and the Cause) were saved – by Mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of Pity and forgiveness of injury.
​

And there are a great number of other references to Frodo’s inability to destroy the Ring, and how this had been foreshadowed not only from the beginning of the finished tale, but from its very conception. For instance, at one point he considered having Sam and Gollum fall together into the fire, or Sam alone; and at another, he remarked that had Gollum not fallen back into evil when Sam awoke and unjustly rebuked him for “pawing at Master” outside Shelob’s Lair, Gollum would still have seized the Ring from Frodo and cast himself into the fire. So yes, Frodo would still have claimed the Ring: he was in the place that it was forged, the very heart of Sauron’s kingdom, where the Ring was at its most powerful and most potent, “its point of maximum power,” as Tolkien puts it.

As for Aragorn’s presence among the Nine Walkers, he could hardly be refused! Like Gandalf, this was his central, core purpose: regaining the throne of Gondor, succoring the only surviving Dúnedain kingdom, and fulfilling Elrond’s requirements for Arwen’s hand in marriage. The dreams of Faramir and Boromir (“Seek for the sword that was broken…”) Aragorn saw as both a summons to him and the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Northern Dúnedain (“[T]he Sword that was Broken is the Sword of Elendil that broke beneath him when he fell. … [I]t was spoken of old among us that it should be made again when the Ring, Isildur’s Bane, was found.” FotR, “Council of Elrond”) But once Frodo and Sam departed, his tasks took him elsewhere: In the case of Merry and Pippin, he said, he could not “abandon [them] to torment and death” (Two Towers, “Departure of Boromir”); moreover, whether they were taken to Isengard or Barad-dûr, they would certainly reveal all that they knew under torture, to the ruin of the West. Aragorn had no other viable option but to try to rescue them.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yes which idea and which passage are what I don't know.

Apologies for not replying sooner. The passage appears in "The Treason of Isengard", p. 165:

'The elf-lords I may not send, for though their power is great it is not great enough. They cannot walk unhidden from wrath and spirit of evil , and news of the Company would reach Mordor by day or night.'

Although not taken up into the final version, the intent seems clear: to creatures of the Shadow, they would appear as Glorfindel did to Frodo, "a shining figure of white light". Or even more so, as Frodo was not fully in the wrath-world.

On first reading this passage, I made a note wondering if something similar could be the case with the eagles. Pure speculation on my part, of course, but it sure would be convenient!

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Though Legolas was the son of Thranduil so he was no ordinary elf warrior.

 

[Elthir]

If I recall correctly (and maybe I don't), in The Book of Lost Tales there's a suggestion that the Noldo Legolas was notably gifted with respect to sight (possibly "night sight" . . . though maybe sight in general, without checking if a distinction is clearly made there)

-- with one of his names meaning "keen sight" or similar -- while the Noldorin Elf Gimli was notably gifted with respect to hearing.

That said (again, if remembered correctly), is there something in The Lord of the Rings that arguably elevates the martial skills of Legolas son of Thranduil (in the minds of readers) notably beyond the skills or prowess of the Elvish folk of Mirkwood or Lorien?

I realize Legolas shot down a Nazgul for example, but are we to think this was necessarily beyond the ability of an "average Elf archer" with a bow from Galadriel?

couldn't help add the Galadriel bit

I'm not saying there isn't any suggestion anywhere, I'm just asking. Or do you simply mean that while Legolas was no reincarnated Glorfindel from Aman, he was still a notable foe to deal with in combat.

 

[Alcuin]

The Legolas of the Fall of Gondolin and the Legolas of the Nine Walkers are two different people, I believe, whereas Glorfindel of Gondolin and Glorfindel of the Lord of the Rings are the same entity, but re-embodied, or reincarnated if you prefer. Legolas of Gondolin was also, I believe, one of the Noldorin exiles.

Legolas of Gondolin is described in Book of Lost Tales 2 as having “eyes … like cats’ for the dark, yet could see further,” and that he knew all the plain of Tumladen (the plain in which Gondolin stood) even in the dark: he led the escapees, including the boy Eärendil and his parents Tuor and Idril, across the plain.

Legolas son of Thranduil was apparently born in the Third Age; or so I believe that is the general consensus: as far as I know, it is never specifically stated. Thranduil was from Doriath, akin to Celeborn and, perhaps, to Celeborn’s uncle, Elu Thingol: Thranduil and Legolas were Sindar. Also in Book of Lost Tales 2, “The History of Eriol”, “Ælfwine of England”, in the commentary, Christopher Tolkien remarks that

​

[M]y father would write, in a wrathful comment on a “pretty” or “ladylike” pictorial rendering of Legolas:

He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship.​

​

 

[Elthir]

I believe that as well, as I wrote recently in the linked thread for example (after my initial response of "I say no") . . .

thetolkien.forum/threads/is-legolas-from-the-fall-of-gondolin-the-same-person-as-the-legolas.29051/#post-534928


. . . meaning that I don't consider these Legolas characters to be the same person (unlike Glorfindel). Actually I'm not even certain that an updated Fall of Gondolin was going to employ
the name "Legolas" for this character, but that's another matter.

I probably shouldn't even have brought up the "other" Legolas, but I was merely noting that in the early Fall of Gondolin, the Noldorin Legolas seems to have been noted for something that stood out among his peers, given that his night sight is noted twice in the tale, and again in a name list.

So again, that said, is the Legolas of The Lord of the Rings ever noted as standing out from the folk of Mirkwood with respect to any gift or martial prowess?

As I say I can't recall at the moment, so I'm just asking. And not that Alcuin said otherwise, but the wrathful comments from JRRT don't necessarily state that Legolas stood out compared to other Elves, as "immensely strong" could be being granted here in the same sense as the "tremendous vitality" of Elvish bodies (in general).

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I was thinking of Squint's "The elf-lords I may not send,"

Legolas of Mirkwood being the son of the elven-king Thranduil, I was wondering how that stood Legolas with respect to being an elf-lord

 

[Olorgando]

The Legolas of the Fall of Gondolin and the Legolas of the Nine Walkers are two different people, I believe, whereas Glorfindel of Gondolin and Glorfindel of the Lord of the Rings are the same entity, but re-embodied, or reincarnated if you prefer. Legolas of Gondolin was also, I believe, one of the Noldorin exiles.

. . . meaning that I don't consider these Legolas characters to be the same person (unlike Glorfindel). Actually I'm not even certain that an updated Fall of Gondolin was going to employ the name "Legolas" for this character, but that's another matter.

I was thinking of Squint's "The elf-lords I may not send,"
Legolas of Mirkwood being the son of the elven-king Thranduil, I was wondering how that stood Legolas with respect to being an elf-lord

"Thranduil was the son of Oropher of the Grey-Elves [Sindar] of Doriath, who had been accepted as King early in the Second Age by the woodland "people" [Silvan Elves] of northern Mirkwood." (My J.E.A. Tyler "The complete Tolkien Companion")
Hypothesis: the not giving a name of a (noted) Elf to a later one (in contrast to what Men did) may have been something of a taboo among the returnees to Middle-earth / exiles from Valinor, the Noldor. The Sindar may have had fewer compunctions about this, if they had taken note of the name of a Noldorin Elf of earlier times.

S-es's quote (from an earlier phase of LoTR writing) might similarly indicate that "Elf-lords" was limited to these Noldorin exiles, and did not include Grey-Elves. And Glorfindel as not just a Noldorin exile of the First Age, but the only double-returnee of all Ages was very seriously a one-of-a-kind.

Legolas of the Fellowship would by this hypothesis not represent an "Elf-lord", nor would his father Thranduil, nor even his grandfather Oropher (who died in the War of the last Alliance) at the end of the Second Age.