Why was Aragorn in exile and not in Gondor?

[Orcrist]

I have read the LOTR before but can't remember an important point. I'm rereading right now and am in book five. I can't stand it anymore and need to know the answer to this question: WHY IS ARAGORN IN EXILE?
any help will be greatly appreciated. if the answer is a spoiler please don't tell me.

 

[Grond]

How about a simple answer? Aragorn was in exile because his ancestor's claim to the throne was rejected.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Fair enough; and I can give an even simpler answer, if you like: Aragorn was in exile because it was meant to be part of the story.

Just like Perseus. Or Moses.

 

[Olorgando]

How about a simple answer? Aragorn was in exile because his ancestor's claim to the throne was rejected.

That would be the claim to the throne of Gondor, I take it, made by Arvedui in 1944 TA (himself at that time not yet King of Arthedain!) in the name of his wife Fíriel, last surviving child of King Ondoher, but also as heir of Elendil and Isildur (nominally last High King of the realms in exile). (I wonder what Arvedui’s dad, who reigned Arthedain for 20 more years, thought about this whole business!)

But I just can’t get my head around Aragorn being in exile from Gondor. He was exiled from his throne of Arthedain (at deserted Fornost – at least there was no pretender squatting on it that needed to be ousted) since 1974 TA when the W-k of Angmar captured it, and Arvedui’s demise at sea a year later. Also, from his higher throne at Annúminas since the death of Eärendur, the tenth King of Arnor, in 861 TA, when Eärendur’s sons quarreled about the succession (bad sign of the decay hastened by being in Middle-earth, there would have been no argument in Númenor) and split Arnor into Arthedain (ruled by the eldest son), Cardolan, and Rhudaur.

One might construe an exile from the High Kingship and thus indirectly from Gondor due to the fact that only Elendil and Isildur were recognized as High Kings, while Isildur’s fourth, youngest and only surviving son Valandil (being a child, he was left in Elrond’s care at Rivendell during the war of the Last Alliance, which Isildur and his three elder sons did survive, only to be killed at the Gladden Fields), was not. At least this is Tyler’s take on it in his “Companion”.

 

[Grond]

That would be the claim to the throne of Gondor, I take it, made by Arvedui in 1944 TA (himself at that time not yet King of Arthedain!) in the name of his wife Fíriel, last surviving child of King Ondoher, but also as heir of Elendil and Isildur (nominally last High King of the realms in exile). (I wonder what Arvedui’s dad, who reigned Arthedain for 20 more years, thought about this whole business!)

But I just can’t get my head around Aragorn being in exile from Gondor. He was exiled from his throne of Arthedain (at deserted Fornost – at least there was no pretender squatting on it that needed to be ousted) since 1974 TA when the W-k of Angmar captured it, and Arvedui’s demise at sea a year later. Also, from his higher throne at Annúminas since the death of Eärendur, the tenth King of Arnor, in 861 TA, when Eärendur’s sons quarreled about the succession (bad sign of the decay hastened by being in Middle-earth, there would have been no argument in Númenor) and split Arnor into Arthedain (ruled by the eldest son), Cardolan, and Rhudaur.

One might construe an exile from the High Kingship and thus indirectly from Gondor due to the fact that only Elendil and Isildur were recognized as High Kings, while Isildur’s fourth, youngest and only surviving son Valandil (being a child, he was left in Elrond’s care at Rivendell during the war of the Last Alliance, which Isildur and his three elder sons did survive, only to be killed at the Gladden Fields), was not. At least this is Tyler’s take on it in his “Companion”.

How about Aragorn's direct claim of High-Kingship. He is, after all, the heir to Isildur. From Unfinished Tales, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields:
"After the fall of Sauron, Isildur, the son and heir of Elendil, returned to Gondor. There he assumed the Elendilmir as King of Arnor, and proclaimed his sovereign lordship over all the Dunedain in the North and in the South; for he was a man of great pride and vigour. He remained for a year in Gondor, restoring its order and defining its bounds; but the greater part of the army of Arnor returned to Eriador by the Numenorean road from the Fords of Isen to Fornost."

It seems to me that JRRT is clearly laying out the claim of Aragorn in this passage. The confusing thing is why Isildur didn't leave one of his sons there as his Steward. If he meant to assert an unconditional claim to the throne of Gondor, that would have been the proper action. He was creating a "recipe for disaster" by appointing his nephew, Meneldil, as his representative. There would likely have been strife over the kingship of Gondor had Isildur survived. I need to research more of the writings as to when and how Meneldil asserted his kingship of Gondor. If he did so, he would have been usurping the kingship since Isildur was Elendil's heir and Isildur's surviving son, Valandil, would, by right, be the High-King of both Gondor and Arnor.

 

[Olorgando]

… It seems to me that JRRT is clearly laying out the claim of Aragorn in this passage. The confusing thing is why Isildur didn't leave one of his sons there as his Steward. If he meant to assert an unconditional claim to the throne of Gondor, that would have been the proper action. He was creating a "recipe for disaster" by appointing his nephew, Meneldil, as his representative. There would likely have been strife over the kingship of Gondor had Isildur survived. I need to research more of the writings as to when and how Meneldil asserted his kingship of Gondor. If he did so, he would have been usurping the kingship since Isildur was Elendil's heir and Isildur's surviving son, Valandil, would, by right, be the High-King of both Gondor and Arnor.

I cross-checked Tyler’s “Guide” (my source for the above statement that Isildur’s fourth, and only surviving, son, was not accepted as High King) with Foster’s “Companion”. Foster even goes so far as to state that only Elendil was ever recognized as “High King”, meaning Isildur was not. Meh!

Several kings of Arthedain claimed overlordship over the other two fragment kingdoms of Arnor, without success. But then there’s Arvedui, about whom Malbeth the Seer had something to say. He might have become the King of a reunited – um, well, Gondor and Arthedain (leaving Angmar and the other fragments of Arnor which had fallen under its thrall by then, Cardolan and Rhudaur, to deal with). We know that the Gondorians replied with “ah, no”, which settled that. Only for their kingly line (already marred by some breaks in direct father-to-son descents – back-tracking on customs established in Númenor in the first of three millennia of its existence) go effectively extinct 106 years later. In part because the direct-line descents had “diluted royalty” (as was never the case in the North “Kingdom” – the question “why not?” might be fruitful for a new thread!), in part because they did not want to risk a new civil war as had happened in the 15th century Third Age.

Your query as to why Isildur didn’t leave one of his sons (I’d guess the second-oldest, certainly not his heir) as steward in Gondor. Under Elendil’s High Kingship, his sons Isildur and Anárion ruled Gondor as joint kings until Anárion’s death in 3430 Second Age. Now with the common capital of Osgiliath, still each of Elendil’s sons had a fief and a personal High City – Anárion the fief of Anórien and the fortress Minas Anor (the later TA Minas Tirith), Isildur the fief of Ithilien and the fortress Minas Ithil (the later Minas Morgûl). (In both cases I get a sort of “duh” feeling about the naming!). I would think that at least a joint kingship of Gondor might have been sensible – but not Isildur suppressing the (rightful) aspirations of his brother’s heirs to such an arrangement. So, Meneldil in Minas Arnor (and I would see no warrant to talk about “usurping a – joint – kingship”), and one of his sons (the second or third) in Minas Ithil. How much good this would have done, “knowing” human nature, is an entirely different question.

(BTW, has there ever been a thread here discussing why on Arda Elendil chose that smaller, much more northerly, by all accounts far less productive – in terms of agriculture and livestock breeding, serious considerations at those times – and massively less populated region of Arnor to settle in, leaving the much more promising Gondor to his sons? I have very vague memories about Elendil having lived - for this period of Númenor – to an exceptional age of well over 300 years, but have not been able to dig it out of my HoMe books; but I haven’t leafed through all of them …) 😳

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The closest thing to what you're asking that I could find is this:

https://thetolkien.forum/threads/differences-between-arnor-and-gondor.12131/

I haven't read all the way through it, though.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Northrup Frye is well worth the price of a second-hand college textbook, and since there are usually a lot of them in circulation, that should be fairly cheap. Frye’s work, however, is rich in insight and depth, opening a work of literature to see its deeper meanings and the themes that connect it to other works over the centuries. It is marvelous, enjoyable, profoundly useful material you will never regret learning. Squint-eyed Southerner refers to it often!

Derrida and Foucault are infested carbuncles on the rump of Western intellectualism, directly responsible for much of the institutional septicemia and Gramscian damage that is killing academia. Their method of Critical Analysis is just that: Criticism without constructive purpose, without intellectual foundations, based upon raw emotion and scatological infantilism; distortions, perversions, even absence of logic; and twisted reason worthy of a madhouse, which is what it has produced on university campuses. Using the pestilent practices of these two escapes of the infernal Abyss, their followers empty a sound text of all its meaning and insert into it instead the vile regurgitations of their febrile imaginings.

As Treebeard so eloquently put it, “There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men bad enough for such treachery.” Derrida and Foucault are the twin Sarumans of the academic world, and all their followers little Orcs wantonly hewing and burning the structure of Western civilization with the deliberate and stated intention of bringing it down. They are termites of the mind, causing more damage than would the return of the Black Death.

Dang, that was well said! Wow!


CL

But in this case I am not complaining about people who don’t like the book: my granddaughter doesn’t like it. That’s their prerogative, and there is no accounting for taste. Nor am I berating “modernists” who prefer noir fiction, or brutalist literature (e.g., Clockwork Orange or Fight Club). I am speaking of people who have no purpose but destruction: intellectual vandals whose sole purpose is to pull apart the thin veneer of civilization, in the deluded belief (one hopes) that what replaces it will be some utopian dreamworld rather than an incredibly violent, miserable, tyrannical society (or lack thereof) more akin to what replaced the Western Roman Empire, “the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

“And [men] as miserable slaves would please [them] far more than [men] happy and free. There is such a thing as malice…”
Lest there be any doubt, I seek to remove it. Plain speaking is best: “speaking Truth to Power,” is that not the phrase they like to use? But only their “truth,” and Heaven help you if you dare question their abuse of power.I’ve a house full of them. Bibliophilia. We had about 6500 in our old house; only about 1800 now.Please do.
But these are not new ideas! They are old ideas that have been tried – and failed! – over and over. Was Soviet Russia a success? The Holodomor? Everyone knows Hitler was a murderous maniacal monster, but Stalin killed more Russians than the Germans. What of Mao? Was the Cultural Revolution a success? Mao killed between 60 and 100 million Chinese. Pol Pot, Mao’s student and protégé, slaughtered one in three Cambodians. These post-modernists are just another stripe of Marxists.

I’ll stop now. This is a Tolkien board.

*applause*


CL

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

My excuse being this:

Frye gave a response to criticisms of his method in a talk in the 80's. I found it hilarious. I'm away from my library, but I'll insert it later, if this thread is still creeping around out of its grave.

Alcuin, in the post immediately following, asked me to be sure to do so, but I couldn't find the book when I got home, and it's been bugging me, for (gasp) four years now! 😳
Yesterday I came across it -- where it had been sitting on a bookshelf all along. 🤯 So I can finally keep my word by "inserting" it, for the benefit of any lingering ghosts who might still care.

In a talk about convention and genre, Frye had this to say about critical fashion:

Thirty years ago, when I wrote the Anatomy of Criticism, I paid some attention to the question of genres, because I felt that lack of of careful attention in that area made for many confusions and illiterate critical judgments. The wheel of fashion that moves the history of taste has turned since then, though that does not mean that the issues involved have turned with it. I now frequently encounter objections to my alleged passion for ticketing and labeling things, where reference to an excessive toilet training in my infancy is clearly being suppressed with some reluctance. But when I turn to other areas of critical theory, and am informed, for example, that the privileging of interdiscursivity problematizes the differentializing of contextuality, I do not feel that I am being released from an obsession. I only feel that I am facing different conventions about what it is important to find names for.

Whew. Okay, one burden lifted at last. 🥵

And for anyone who doesn't care -- which I assume includes everyone -- there's still the original thread subject to mull over! 😁

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

And by the way:

 

[Vardarianna]

WHY IS ARAGORN IN EXILE?

The same reason Eomer was 'in exile' .... PETER JACKSON FANFICTION!