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people so not them. Tecnically, Parth Galen is part of Gondor's Territory, and as such under Gondors law. And at the time of the attack, the ultimate arbiter of that law is Denethor, NOT Aragorn.If any question of crime arose, it would have to be Denethor, not Aragorn who would have to hear the case and pass judgement. Aragorn isn't king yet. Even once he became king, even if he did decide it was worth trying (which he probably wouldn't) he can't; few, if any, civilized legal systems allow for punishment for retroactive crimes (even if something is declared illegal now, you can't punish someone for doing it in the past, before it was illegal.) I will reiterate what the others have said, any decision by the rest of the fellowship to let Gandalf, Aragorn or anyone else be the leader, and to abide by thier decisions, was purely VOLUNTARY. Aragorn had NO legal authority to enforce any decision he made as law, heir to the throne or not. Under the law as Denethor would interpret it, Boromir trying to take the ring would not have probably been considered a crime. Quite the opposite in fact, Denethor makes it pretty clear that in his book, NOT trying to take the ring and taking it back to Minas Tirith would have been the criminal act. Faramir makes it pretty clear in his words to Frodo in Ithilien that, by deciding to let Frodo and Co. go on thier way as opposed to taking them all back to Minas Tirith to see what Denthor thinks, he is techically comitting treason, and he damn well knows it. As for trying to have him arrested in Rohan, how, the crime was not on Rohan soil, nor are any of the parties involved citizens of Rohan. Rohan literally would have no jurisdiction. And even if it did, it would not be much of a case. Remember the crime is only of great magnitude if you KNOW what the ring is, which no one in Rohan would. Short of someone in the party letting Theoden or Eomer in on the secret would would be dumb, especially Theoden (since, at that point Theoden would still be under Grima's ministrations so anything Theoden knew Grima would know and pass on to Saruman) it's just attemped theft of one gold ring. That's a minor crime at best, and given how well Boromir is thought of in Rohan, likely to be pardoned almost without thought. To be honest, at this point, I think you are trying to cast Aragorn as some sort of absolute tyrant, doing whatever he thinks is best without council, and arresting or punishing anyone who disagrees with him. If he really WAS that kind of a person, there is no way he would have been allowed to join the Fellowship; it would be like letting Sauron himself join! From the beginning we are meant to see Aragon as a "good" and "wise" king to be, and a good and wise ruler does NOT just do whatever he wants. He may be the ultimate arbiter of the law, but he is NOT above it. To borrow a line from Tolkien's Friend C.S. Lewis's work "The King is under the law, for it's the law that makes him a king." |
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They were not in Rohan at that point and were headed East, not back west to look for kidnapped Hobbits. If any Lord had authority there it would have been Boromir's father.
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Gandalf was not only answerable to Aragorn, but also to the Council. How could he possibly justify to the Council in going into Moria, even with wolves tracking the Company? Let's face it, wolves are hardly stiff opposition for a Company which boasts a Maiar and the heir of Isildur? Had it been a strong company of Orcs following them, as spotted by the keen eyes of Legolas, then that may have altered things, but wolves? I don't quite see it.
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It appears that he and Aragorn had been arguing this point for a while, at least before they even reached Caradhras. It also seems that it was an option, at least so far as Aragorn was concerned, a last option.
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They also represented certainty that the fellowship has been tracked by the servants of Sauron. Hence the attempt to go through the mines to escape their enemies eyes for a while.
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It seems to me that Moria was as good a place as any to drop off the radar for a while. Remember that no one knew what Durin's Bane actually was, so the idea of entering its territory was not an assurance of anything. |
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Basically one important point regarding this whole thing -
- the main point of the quest with the Ring was to destroy Sauron not by power; it was a manifestation of rejecting any form of control. Starting to arrest people or exercising any form of control would be totally against the spirit of the whole "operation" and what the Free People stood for, or what they decided they were standing for. So from that also follows, if we go down the line of talking about arrest, Aragorn should have first arrested Elrond and co. for deciding on such a ridiculous plan and putting the Ring into unnecessary risk by sending it to Mordor in the first place. Arguments had been put forward on the Council, making it clear that it was an incredibly risky option, and if there ever was a time for arresting someone, it might just as well been there. If Aragorn had been up to claiming his kingly power and arresting people for treason or endangering the fate of Middle-Earth, he would have probably agreed with Saruman the same way Boromir did at the Council: the best course is to claim the Ring, or at least keep it hidden. The madmen who wanted to run with it right into the heart of Sauron's realm should be arrested, in terms of public safety, to prevent them from doing anything crazy that could have cost the lives of thousands. |
What is more, surely Elrond and Cirdan should have arrested Isildur and forced him to destroy the ring. To reference another thread, this is a n aspect where understanding of Tolkien's Catholicism may be useful. It is about free will and it's proper exercise, not imposing and enforcing laws and hierachy.
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Again, I will repeat, for absurdity's sake, Aragorn neither had the authority nor the inclination to arrest Gandalf. To say otherwise is merely circumlocutious arguing to no point whatever. Aragorn would not arrest him in a box He would not arrest him with a fox He would not arrest him here or there He would not arrest him anywhere He would not arrest him with some troops He would not arrest him in a chicken coop He would not arrest him in Moria dire He would not arrest him in the Shire He would not arrest him as the king He would not arrest him for anything Aragorn would not arrest Gandalf because Of who and what and where he was. |
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Aragorn's fear was for Gandalf, not the Quest in general. Quote:
There was no thought that Moria would put the Ring in any particular danger, no more than it was already. So Gandalf had done absolutely nothing that would warrant "arrest", or even choosing a new leader. |
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Now your questioning the omniscience of the author regarding his plot and his intentions? |
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T-o-l-k-i-e-n. You've made that error a few times. But that is not surprising. P.S. The namecalling is rather sophomoric, but apt for the type of poster you are. |
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Other people have addressed the issue of Aragorn's ability to make an arrest, but I'd also like to throw in my two-cents. Before he was crowned as King of Gondor and Arnor, he had zero authority except over those who swore allegiance to him. He was the Chieftain of the Dunedain, and as such, the Dunedain of the North owed him allegiance, but he claimed to ability to command or exercise authority beyond those people, not even the lands which his ancestors ruled, but merely those who counted themselves as his subjects. He did not exercise lordship over the Shire, over the the human settlements in the former territories of Arnor, but merely over the Dunedain who gave themselves over to his command.
Had he attempted to exercise authority over any land before being recognized by the existing government (say in Gondor before he was crowned), he would have been ignored. Aragorn even traveled to Gondor under an alias during the rule of the Steward Ecthelion II, but exercised no authority as King of Gondor; he merely served the steward as an advisor and commander in Gondor's armies. Aragorn is not the only rightful king who refused to exercise his authority when he had no de facto rule over his territory. Thorin II did not reign as king until he had reclaimed Erebor. He, like the Chieftains of the Dunedain, exercised authority over subjects, but not the title and rights of a king over his kingdom. During the War of the Ring, Aragorn even wanted to avoid entering Minas Tirith until he had been crowned! So, exercising any kind of authority as an officer/leader of Gondor is right out. Whether or not he had a right to isn't really the question, it's a question of would he have done so. The answer is no: Aragorn would exercise no authority derived from his status as king of Gondor until he had been crowned. Next, his status as a member of the Fellowship. It has been brought up before that he might have challenged Gandalf's leadership if it appeared that Gandalf was leading the company to ruin. Arrest might be interpreted as simply devesting him of leadership authority and taking on the role himself. This is possible, but exceedingly unlikely. It would, first, require the support of either the rest of the Fellowship, or the Ringbearer, as even Gandalf deferred to Frodo's decisions. As has been brought up before, Gandalf was known (to Aragorn) to be a true and faithful servant of the Valar. His wisdom, while not entirely beyond question, was not to be taken lightly. Aragorn understood that Gandalf had the experience to properly evaluate the risks of traveling through Moria, despite their lack of knowledge of what was occupying the place. Gandalf's fall demonstrates that he was not infallible, but all other roads had been reasonably disqualified, and Boromir's evident desire to get the Ring to Gondor was troubling to all those who recognized it. Gimli's desire to enter Moria wasn't exactly bias, in my opinion, but a combination of information and ignorance. Though the dwarves had not heard from the colony in Moria for some time, they had traveled to Rivendell (in large part) to seek Elrond's advice on investigating. They had no evidence that the colony had been destroyed; they just had no word whatsoever. Hardly confidence inspiring, but also not a reason to believe that it had been completely destroyed. Gimli obviously believed that some kind of friendly party likely occupied the place, or that whatever hostile force had occupied it before had been sufficiently subdued that it would present less of a threat than paths that were known to be watched by active enemies. And, despite all that, Gandalf still thought it was a bad idea. He just saw no better option. He and Aragorn, in fact, agreed on that. They resolved that without a safer option, they would take the path of least resistance that wasn't confirmed to be under the watchful eye of a known enemy, but one that might be occupied by an unknown enemy that could reasonably have been recently defeated, in part if not in whole. |
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