# At Boromir's death



## Deleted member 12094 (Jan 2, 2020)

There is a particular aspect I like speculating about, as regards the description of Boromir's passing..

_At last slow words came. ‘I tried to take the Ring from Frodo,’ he said. ‘I am sorry. I have paid.’ His glance strayed to his fallen enemies; twenty at least lay there. ‘They have gone: the Halflings: the Orcs have taken them. I think they are not dead. Orcs bound them.’ He paused and his eyes closed wearily. After a moment he spoke again._​_‘Farewell, Aragorn! Go to Minas Tirith and save my people! I have failed.’_​_‘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!’_​
It's about these words of Aragorn in the above citation: _"You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory."_

Factually, Boromir had failed the Fellowship's confidence and caused great harm (at least by the understanding of the moment). So where is that "victory"?

My own guess is that Aragorn referred to Boromir's repenting of him trying to steal the Ring and showing more humbleness in death than he had done so in life.

Any other comments or possibilities are very welcome...?


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jan 2, 2020)

I believe the author talked about this in a letter. I'm afraid I'm away from my library again, but someone here should be able to provide the quote.

No time now, but I'll try to come back to the subject later.


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## Alcuin (Jan 2, 2020)

I don’t recall anything in _Letters_, but in _Reader’s Companion_ there is a discussion of Boromir’s death as a redemption, citing several sources, none of them Tolkien himself. Among the discussions, though, are Boromir’s defence of Merry and Pippin, an act that reflects the Christian rite of penance; his sounding his horn, an homage to _Chanson de Roland_; his confession to Aragorn as he lies dying, and Aragorn’s absolving him. Boromir’s death is, in classical terms, a Christian death, and a Catholic one in particular: from this reflection arises Tolkien’s beautiful and heart-wrenching scene.

Boromir’s fall to the Ring was, in some respects, almost as inevitable as Frodo’s. It was, as his loving brother Faramir observed, “too sore a trial.” And yet again, Providence uses Boromir’s fall to unforeseen advantage: Frodo and Sam leave the Fellowship and embark upon their apparently hopeless Quest; Merry and Pippin are carried to Fangorn, where they meet Treebeard, who overthrows Isengard and sends to Théoden the Huorns that complete his victory at Helm’s Deep; and sets Aragorn with Legolas and Gimli to the succour of Rohan, renewing the old alliance between Gondor and Rohan and putting Aragorn on the road to Dunharrow where in the dark road under the mountains he rallies the Dead Men of Dunharrow, rescues the coastlands of Gondor from their ancient enemies and fallen kinsmen the Corsairs of Umbar, then sails up Anduin to the victory of the Pelennor Fields, where he is at last recognized by all as the true king.

I am presently rereading _The Lord of the Rings_, and in the chapter “The Great River” Boromir challenges Aragorn’s authority a great many times. Finally in the chapter “The Breaking of the Fellowship”, Aragorn confronts him and for the first and only time, gives Boromir a command:
​“Boromir! I do not know what part you have played in this mischief, but help now! Go after those two young hobbits, and guard them at the least, even if you cannot find Frodo.”​​Boromir had been sitting “aloof, with his eyes on the ground,” but I imagine that when Aragorn called out his name, his head popped up, and he obeyed immediately and without hesitation: At his death, Boromir finally if tacitly acknowledges Aragorn as the rightful King of Gondor, and himself says that in his obedience to Aragorn he paid his penance.

Boromir dies a good death, and in his death, which seems so great a loss, accomplishes great good for the Fellowship of the Ring. So Tolkien shows that what seems to us a loss and failure may in fact become a great victory in the long arc of history.

In _Letter_ 328 late in his life, Tolkien wrote,
​A few years ago I was visited … by a man whose name I have forgotten… He had been much struck by the curious way in which many old pictures seemed to him to have been designed to illustrate _The Lord of the Rings_ long before its time. … I think he wanted at first simply to discover whether my imagination had fed on pictures… When it became obvious that, unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before and was not well acquainted with pictorial Art, he fell silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. Suddenly he said: “Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?”​​Pure Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G[andalf] to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: “No, I don't suppose so any longer.” I have never since been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusement.​​


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## Sir Eowyn (Feb 25, 2020)

I've written this before, how in my view Tolkien never really did right by Boromir---he and Saruman are the only two figures I feel that the author's moralizing marred. Saruman should have been lordly, magnificent, even in defeat, not the petty serpent-tongue we get. I mean, he headed the White Council, and this is all he is? I get the moral point, but sheesh... the concept of beauty beyond good and evil doesn't seem to have lodged well in Tolkien.

Likewise Boromir is really only set up as a foil to Faramir (clearly an author self-portrait). The Ring is the ruin of Boromir, but Faramir wouldn't pick it up by the wayside. Then Boromir of course sins and has to be punished by death. Only Pippin's passing thought, in "Minas Tirith" (the chapter), that he took right away to the Captain of Gondor's lordly but kindly manner is there any acknowledgement that Boromir had human worth before his deathbed repentance. 

I adore the books---but this, for whatever reason, has always needled me slightly.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Feb 25, 2020)

This might be the case, if we didn't know that Faramir didn’t exist until after Boromir's death.

I'm once again away from my library, so can't look through the drafts, but I seem to recall a period in which Tolkien speculated about the course Boromir's story-arc would take, one being accompanying Aragorn to Gondor, and vying with him for power. I may however be thinking of some post hoc musings in a letter, so would be glad for correction.

Whatever the case, in the end Boromir's became the classic tragedy of the fall of the hero through hubris; he has a great destiny almost within his grasp, but takes an action, whether because of "fate", or a "tragic flaw" which causes an imbalance in the natural order.

I lean toward a less condemnatory, more sympathetic view: sometimes the tragic character is simply caught in an impossible situation, one with which he is not equipped to cope. Boromir is a high mimetic character "caught" in a romance, and an unusual one at that: although Aragorn's story is a classic romance quest for kingship and renewal of the land, the real quest is one of _renunciation. _To use Alcuin's model, we could say Boromir is a traditional martial hero caught in a "Christian" romance, and from God's point of view a mock-hero, like Satan in Milton's more mythical epic, though as I say, I lay less emphasis on questions of hubris and hamartia.

Nevertheless, the imbalance must right itself, and the _lex talionis _must act on the character to do so; it can take any form, whether from society, suicide (as with Denethor), or, in Boromir's case, orcs. His repentance could be seen as a specifically Christian act, as Alcuin does, but as _cognitio _or recognition is a part of the tragic arc that predates Christianity, we can make the connection or not as we like.

In any event, successfully incorporating a complete high mimetic tragedy into a a romance is in my view, quite an accomplishment, and can, if we "stand back" from it, to use a phrase I mentioned elsewhere, be seen as the carefully designed piece of storytelling it actually is.

"Carefully designed", I say, but not by the author, since we can see from the drafts that he was himself unsure of the direction the story would take; and if not the author, then the design must come from the story itself; unsurprising, as stories are made from other stories, and the Fall of the Hero reaches back at least to Classical Greece. That it continues to this day is evidence of its validity and durability as a method of resonating with an audience.

And the same is true of Faramir; we know that at the time of his appearance, Tolkien was under increasing pressure to deliver the story, and was trying to rush to its completion; he "didn’t want him, though I like him", but the Tale of the Two Brothers is, if anything, older even than classic tragedy, stretching back before Cain and Abel to the Egyptian story of that name, so "here he came, walking out of the woods of Ithilien", providing the symmetry demanded by the story.

Or perhaps I should say, by Story.


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## Aramarien (Feb 27, 2020)

When reading LOTR, I always had a bit of a problem picturing Boromir. Pippin always felt he liked him and admired him. I know this is a forum for the books, and I do not like to compare to the movies, BUT, it was Sean Bean's portrayal of Boromir: arrogant in the way a leader of men would be, brave and loyal, yet a basically good person, that made me understand Boromir better. I reread LOTR and saw this is how Boromir was. ( I am NOT talking about how the dialogue, scenes, etc were changed in the movie, just the portrayal of the character)

I felt sorry for Boromir. I started to see his point of view as a captain in the wars against Sauron that using the enemy's weapon against him was, to him, logical. In the end, after being around the Ring so long, and whatever Galadriel presented to him as a test, was , as Faramir said, too sore a trial for him.

I think Aragorn realizes this when he said to Boromir that he had conquered and had gained a victory. Boromir was remorseful and tried to make amends. Perhaps during the Council of Elrond when Aragorn heard Boromir's argument about using the Ring, Aragorn might have understood that point of view, although he did not agree with it.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Feb 27, 2020)

Aramarien said:


> I started to see his point of view as a captain in the wars against Sauron that using the enemy's weapon against him was, to him, logical.


Yes, and T.A.Shippey discusses the possibilities of the opposed views: the Ring as an active evil, to be avoided at all costs, vs. as what he calls a sort of "psychic amplifier", i.e. _morally _neutral. The latter appears to be Boromir's view, especially given what he says to Frodo on Amon Hen: "True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted."

He was wrong, of course, but as the High Mimetic hero is primarily a leader, he would naturally be drawn to any tool, or weapon, that would give him "power of Command".


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## Aramarien (Feb 28, 2020)

Squint-Eyed Southerner, I agree. It makes Boromir's downfall tragic. I agree that he did want "power of Command" to better lead his armies. I believe he enjoyed being a leader of men and using his prowness in battle, not unlike some athletes might enjoy using their skills for competition. I believe that Aragorn, older, wiser, and more experienced understood how Boromir might feel. Aragorn understood that Boromir understood the power of the ring and how he was wrong, and thus this was his victory.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Feb 28, 2020)

I think you may be right there. Gandalf the White says he was "Saruman as he should have been", and Aragorn, at least in this regard, is Boromir as he should have been: aware of the power of the Ring, as a weapon capable of overthrowing Sauron, but also aware of the result of using it.

Boromir has been much misunderstood by critics, many of whom appear uncomfortable with him, as a check of entries for him in the indices of books on LOTR will show. Some nearly ignore him altogether; others don't seem to know what to make of him. I read one critic who interpreted his statement "The Ring would give me power of Command" as "the Ring would give him power to _force _people to his command". This seems to me to be a fundamental misreading, both of Boromir, and the Ring. He should have taken Galadriel's words to Frodo seriously.


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## Aramarien (Feb 28, 2020)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Gandalf the White says he was "Saruman as he should have been", and Aragorn, at least in this regard, is Boromir as he should have been: aware of the power of the Ring, as a weapon capable of overthrowing Sauron, but also aware of the result of using it.



Interesting analogy! 
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I always had a problem with Boromir until I saw Sean Bean's portrayal of his basic character (once again, not the dialogue that was made up by PJ!) It was almost a shock when I realized that was how Tolkien wrote him and I didn't see it. 
Boromir is actually a very real person, and almost the way a lot of "modern" heroes/ almost anti-heroes are portrayed in movies. A lot of bravado, a bit of arrogance, but still likable, still relatable. A realistic person who is a basically good and decent person with flaws like any mortal man.

I still wonder why I could never really see it before. Perhaps because Boromir is set among characters that are "fantastical". Gandalf, a Maair, Aragorn: descended from Elves and Men and Numenorean; Legolas: technically a prince, a son of a king; Gimli, also is from a "noble" line of Dwarves. Our hobbits are supposed to reflect the "common person", but again, Merry and Pippin are from high families in the Shire. Sam, the most relatable character, is still very noble in his character; and Frodo, also from high families.

Just some random thoughts


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Feb 28, 2020)

I mentioned elsewhere recently that romance normally shows characters in a black/white polarization; Boromir, as a tragic figure of (Frye's) High Mimetic mode, doesn't fit into this framework, and often, I think, gets mistakenly forced there, through less than careful reading.

Not that I'm accusing you of this! But it is a subtle aspect of Tolkien's genius that is sometimes overlooked.


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## Aramarien (Feb 28, 2020)

Squint-eyed Southerner, I never thought of Boromir fitting into the High Mimetic Mode. I have read LOTR over 25 times over the years. I never thought of LOTR being a "romance" or even a "fantasy" novel. It is in a class of its own. Boromir is not a tragic figure per se, but the events and circumstances that led to his downfall are tragic, but he has redemption in the end.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Feb 28, 2020)

True, but tragic characters can have redemption -- someone cited Oedipus on another thread as an example.

Tolkien himself described LOTR as a romance; admittedly to differentiate it from the novel, which predominated in the 20th century; but he felt the romance wasn't just an outmoded and juvenile form, and set out to prove it. Triumphantly.


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## Aramarien (Feb 28, 2020)

Although Tolkien may have describe LOTR as romance , I feel he created a genre all its own, although he may not have realized it. A genre that countless authors have since tried to emulate. But Tolkien is the master!!


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