Chapter 4: The Siege of Gondor

Jacob's Thoughts (9/18/16)

Let's just get this out of the way: Denethor is the worst.  He is sending his last living son--the one he had earlier sent into a hopeless battle with nary a kind word, no less--to the funeral pyre without even checking his vitals.  He is abandoning his city to its doom, letting others take all the hits while he gives himself over solely to his own despair.  Rarely has grief been more selfish.

And yet, and yet.

I find I can't really join in the choruses of condemnation against Denethor, for his failings are ours, too. For he is behaving so erratically because he has lost all hope, and he has lost all hope because his first son was killed, the Enemy is at the gates, any possible allies are few and distant, and he learns that the wizard who's supposed to be helping him has let their one chance, their one boon--the One Ring--wander right into the enemy's grasp with some hapless halfling.

Frankly, Denethor's objections to Gandalf make a sad sort of sense: why on earth did he send the Ring away with Frodo?  Wasn't that just the most insane, idiotic plan ever?!  Yes, with the benefit of hindsight, it will turn out to have been the best strategy all along, the winning move; but when you have only a 1% chance of destroying the Dark Lord once and for all but a 99% of ruining everything--especially compared to having only, say, a 10% chance of only temporarily defeating Mordor, but a 90% chance of at least keeping the Ring out of Sauron's grasp (even if it still eats at your own soul)--well, by that arithmetic, Denethor's initial plan for the Ring appears far more sensible than Gandalf's.  And when Gandalf himself confesses to Pippin that there was only ever a dim hope to begin with, it would appear to justify Denethor's assessment of the situation.

This is not to defend Denethor, nor excuse him, but just to at least get where he's coming from.

Denethor likewise fascinates me because he is such a compelling portrait of a man given over to complete despair.  The way he releases Pippin from his service with a "go die in the manner you see fit," the way he openly wails at how the lines of Kings and Stewards are at an end, all this indicates a man who has truly abandoned all hope.  For all his arrogant macho posturing (e.g. dropping his cloak to reveal the armor he wears night and day and so forth), the man collapses like an accordion at the signal moment.  Like his eldest Boromir, his fate is so tragic precisely because his could so easily be ours.

In a sense, he is the mirror-image to Theoden, a man who shakes off his doldrums to rise to the challenge when he's needed most; Denethor by contrast prepares all his life for battle, only to sink into despair when the enemy comes.  Something feels...realistic about this pairing.  I have to think that Tolkien, in the trenches of the Great War, saw some of both: men of cynicism and hopelessness who reveal a forgotten courage when called upon, and arrogant men of strength and will who wilt like flowers in the face of danger.

And here's the thing: you don't know which one you're going to be until the trial moment, either! Theoden is who we hope we will be, but Denethor is in the cards, too.  You also don't know whom your friends and allies will be, either, and you're going to have to deal with both responses in a fire-fight.  Let us not judge Denethor till we are faced with the same challenge, too.

I don't want to finish without noting this chapter's excellent ending: Gandalf personally faces the Nazgûl at the gates of Gondor, "under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed," commanding the demon back to the abyss as only a man who has personally slain a Balrog can do--and the insolent Nazgûl in turn uncloaking his invisible head, like we haven't seen a Dark Rider do since they had Frodo cornered in "Flight to the Ford," and for the same reason: to exult in the totality of his triumph.

And with the same effect: right when the Nazgûl thinks he's won, lo and behold, a light breaks, pierces the darkness, and horses ride to the rescue--"Rohan had come at last."

Ben's Thoughts (12/13/16)

This is an excellent chapter, one of the highlights of Book V. Tolkien has proved himself in the past to be a master of tension-building, and he does it again with great effect here. The chapter starts off with the Dawnless Day, the whole city holding its collective breath against the breaking of the coming storm. Then it hammers on sucker punch after sucker punch in a long, brutal, slog of defeats and setback for the men of Gondor: Faramir's initial retreat, cowering under the wings of the Nazgul; Denethor's callous command for him to return to Osgiliath; the news of the loss of the fords, the destruction of the Causeway Forts, the fall of Cair Andros, and then Faramir taking a wound himself; Denethor's unravelling and his men's acknowledgement of his broken state; and finally the destruction of the city gates at the command of the Witch-King. Powerful stuff, capped with the electrifying confrontation of Gandalf and the Lord of the Nazgul at the broken gate. Throughout, Tolkien manages to convey the stakes, the sense of scale, and the military movements with aplomb. The reader is assisted from setpiece to setpiece as he juggles all of the players' movements, including the Chekhov's Gun of the (hopefully timely) arrival of the Rohirrim.

It bears mentioning that some of the setup that this chapter provides falls flat in later chapters, as Jacob has already pointed out. However, taking the chapter on its face, it succeeds marvelously. A few thoughts.

First, Denethor. I admit that on this reading I was surprised by how quickly his 180-degree turn into madness and despair comes on. But isn't that how it would actually be? You put on a brave face, just as much for yourself as for anyone else, but that straw that breaks the camel's back -- in this case Denethor coming face to face with his wounded, apparently dying son -- is what it takes to tumble you over the edge. This is a man whose entire life has been framed by retreat, setback, and the knowledge that true, total victory over his lifelong foe will result only in a diminuation of himself and his familial authority.

Is it any wonder, then, that Denethor's thoughts turn to the Ring? It's not stated explicitly in the text, but I don't think that Faramir ever came right out and told his dad about the Ring when he was talking about his encounter with Frodo and Sam. This is hinted at by Denethor's remarks: "[L]ittle of what you have half said or left unsaid is now hidden from me. I know the answer to many riddles." So where does his knowledge come from? Wrested from his son's mind by his alluded-to powers of perception and discernment? Or, more mundane but perhaps more sinister, has he been spying on his son's actions through his Palantir? Later we learn that Denethor only sees through the Palantir what Sauron wishes him to see, and we know that Sauron has no direct knowledge of Frodo's quest and how close he has gotten to Mordor, but I tend to think the Stone's limitation is more of a general restriction than Sauron peeping over Denethor's shoulder every time he looks into the Palantir.

In any case, Denethor holding the Ring would be a bulwark both against Sauron and the impending encroachment of Aragorn, of whom Denethor is too keenly aware (as we discover in "Pyre", coming up). He believes he would never use its power; he would only safeguard it and use it as a threat against his opposing forces. Of course, that kind of tempting, destructive power cannot be simply locked away without use, not by a man like Denethor. Far better to reject it honestly to oneself, as Gandalf did, than trick yourself into thinking you would not pull it out in your hour of greatest need.

Then, inextricably linked with Denethor's fears about the Ring and his personal power is his complicated relationship with his second son. I think Tolkien wants us to have a vision of Denethor as a young man: a blend of Boromir's military ability and obedience combined with Faramir's thirst for knowledge and quality as a "superior," more-like-a-Numenorean kind of man. (I'm not really sure how to describe this quality. Tolkien lays these clear (sometimes racially distasteful) distinctions between Men in his text: highest are the Numenoreans, with their extra-sensory powers and links to the Elves and the Valar; next are the "lesser" but still noble men like the Rohirrim, and lowest and least are the men of the East, vassals to Sauron.) But even though he embodies (or embodied) the qualities of both his sons, he obviously preferred those of Boromir to those of Faramir, perhaps because his oldest son was so intractably dutiful. There can be little doubt from his remarks in this chapter that he spoke with his son about "Isildur's Bane" and his duty, should it chance to come within his grasp. This fact adds a nuance, one I hadn't previously considered, to Boromir's actions in the first book -- it isn't just that the Ring has seduced him based on his own emotional and mental state; his actions are influenced by the fact that all along, his father likely advised him to seize the Ring and bring it to Minas Tirith if the opportunity arose. One can definitely picture Boromir's complaints about "Elves and Half-Elves and wizards" originally coming out of the mouth of the haughty Denethor.

Poor Denethor. He learns too late the true value of his son -- far greater than that of the Ring or even of his own title and station. When he breaks, as occurs in this chapter, it's ugly.

And I haven't even mentioned the powerful yet vague descriptions of Sauron's host (effective in their opacity) and Pippin finally shining through as the stalwart who puts what is right (saving Faramir) over loyalty to order and so-called duty. Complex, meaty chapters like this one are why I love The Lord of the Rings.

Eric's Thoughts (1/3/17)

So much happened in this chapter (I read it over a couple of interspersed days) that I had to review the Cliff Notes before writing this blog post to make sure I covered everything important.

The heart of this chapter is Denethor's descent into madness.  Although the reason for his hopelessness is explained further in later chapters (i.e. Denethor has his own Palantir), the descent is understandable even without the Palantir reveal. Ben and I used to play a tower defense game in college where waves and waves of monsters would try to get by strategically placed towers that would automatically shoot. In the higher difficulty settings, the monsters would overwhelm the towers despite our best efforts and we would lose. That's pretty much what's happening here.

Notwithstanding my earlier critique of Sauron's forces being objectively underwhelming (only 30,000 strong), this chapter does an excellent job of truly making the odds of Gondor surviving seem insurmountable. To begin his assault, Sauron tosses the heads of those who were killed to weaken human resolve. Sauron uses fear as a primary weapon in his quest to subdue the world--both literally and figuratively. What does it matter that Sauron only has three-dozen thousand troops if Gondor does not even have the morale to resist?

Denethor's response to this oncoming wave of monsters demonstrates the power of fear combined with pride. Rather than turtle, as he should have done, he sends out his son in a suicide mission, implying that he expects his son to win, as Boromir "obviously" would have done. You can tell Faramir suspects his father's order will kill him, but he dutifully nonetheless obeys the command. The poisoned dart upon the return of course sets the stage for Denethor trying to burn his own son alive.

Woven into the different scenes is the Ring, of course. Denethor implies that he is aware that Faramir let the Ring go, and that Boromir would have thought to bring this gift back to him for Gondor's defense. There is a tense stand-off between Gandalf and Denethor, where Denethor asserts that he only would have used the Ring if absolutely necessary. During this confrontation, the fact that Denethor cannot even acknowledge his own fallibility of course tells the reader that he was woefully unprepared to come in contact with the Ring -- and that Faramir was right to let Frodo go. There is, of course, some logic to Denethor's position: better to use the Ring and perhaps fall than face numberless hordes and have the world fall under the Dark Lord's dominion. The reader judges Denethor only with the benefit of hindsight: if Frodo's mission had failed, perhaps Dark Lord Denethor (only a mortal) would have been a better result than Dark Lord Sauron.

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