XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: jon.lennart.beck.its.my.name@mail.its.in.danmark
"Stan Brown" skrev i meddelelsen
news:MPG.2904d54478d2d64498c4b3@news.individual.net...
> But let's suppose that Boromir did want to be King of Gondor. That
> still didn't make him evil. After all, he was the heir apparent to
> supreme power in the realm; would it have changed anything really if
> he called himself King rather than Steward? We do know that he
> showed no inclination to lord it over neighboring countries.
> Saruman's desire to rule realms was quite a different matter.
There would have been one difference. It was in theory a Ruling
Steward's duty to relinquish supreme power of the realm if the rightful King
returned. In Denethor's case this was in practice not so, of course, just a
ceremonial nothing and an obeisance to a line of Kings long estinguished. I
suppose without knowing that Denethor believed in his bones that the Kings
of long ago were greater than he, but also that for the purpose of the rule
of Gondor he and his line had no betters left in the world and no equals.
He seems to have considered the line of Kings to have failed, and the line
between Arvedui and Aragorn to have become bereft of that title, so that
maintaining his own title and his successors' would be only a ceremonial
tradition in a culture apparently holding tradition in high regard.
Even book-Boromir, after his repentance, seems to have accepted this duty
peculiar to Stewards but not Kings, although he was dying at the time
anyway. What he would have done had he survived and come to Minas Tirith
with Aragorn is anyone's guess. Faramir opined that he would have obeyed
this duty, if accepting Aragorn's claim. He himself certainly did both.
Brān.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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