[Rimbaud]

Another good starter post, Princess. As we've recently focussed on one of the Men of the party, let's take a peek at t'other. While reading your above opening, I couldn't help thinking that - a) you're correct, he develops more in the wise leader stakes through this chapter and - b) how everyone he meets through the course of his journey to MT has a different lesson for him. It's a very different story of growth from Frodo's; indeed, you could argue that where Frodo lost part of himself every step of the way through the books, Aragorn was constantly adding elements to himself.

This accretion and subtraction dichotomy is a nice, simple parallel for the flux of ME races, as Men multiply, and the others fade away, amongst other things.

But back to my original point, on Aragorn - and his meeting with Eomer, where, as you say, Aragorn develops further leadership skills. He has learned from Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond, and comes the turn of a very different sort of leader to show him another form of leadership.