[Fordim Hedgethistle]

First, the Saruman/Gandalf "old man" who comes to the Three Hunters. Here's a wild idea, but isn't there a tradition in certain Christian faiths/stories of the "unseen third" who walks beside us through life, and that person being Christ? Is there some way of looking at this strange third person (not really Gandalf, not really Saruman) as an actually divine vision??? Like I said, just a real wing-dinger of a speculation. . .

It was a sore trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end.

This is an interesting ‘final word’ on Boromir, isn’t it? Here we have Galadriel and Gandalf both effectively weighing in on the tricky topic of Boromir and rather unambiguously stating that he “escaped” his peril in the end – he did in fact die in honour, as Aragorn said, and not as a slave to the Ring or himself. It’s also interesting that Gandalf seems to have such sympathy for Boromir, acknowledging that he fell because of his greatness: “a warrior and a lord of men.” He’s not saying that Boromir was weak or flawed. In fact, what he’s saying about Boromir is precisely what he is depending upon Aragorn for! He’s returned to get Aragorn back in the action.

And once again, we see in this chapter the kind of hero that Aragorn is. He’s willing to lay aside his life and his dreams for the sake of Merry and Pippin. He’s not about taking care of himself, but of others. He is motivated by a selfless love of those who need him…best stop, in danger of swooning.

That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered his darkest dream. In which no doubt you will see our good fortune and our hope.

So between them our enemies have contrived only to bring Merry and Pippin with marvellous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never have come at all!

I love these two moments in which Gandalf, now the White, reveals so much to us about the nature of evil in Middle-earth, and about the relation between good and evil. The great weakness of evil is its inability to judge or think in the way so beautifully demonstrated by Aragorn. If he is able to think only of the other, evil (Sauron) is able only to think of the self: he cannot even imagine that others would want to destroy his Ring. He is so consumed by the self that he cannot see beyond the limits of his own eye/I – great irony: the eye is blinded by the I. What I find most remarkable about this revelation of Sauron’s one weakness is how Gandalf calls it their “good fortune and hope.” It is not a strategic result of their work on Sauron that has made him weak, and it is not a flaw or chink in his armour that they can take advantage of, but the result of “fortune” (how things are, the way things work in the fabric of Middle-earth) and therefore a source of “hope.” Like Aragorn, Gandalf is here suggesting that the way to proceed is by giving oneself over rather than putting oneself forward. Just as Aragorn is willing to die for Merry and Pippin, Gandalf was willing to die for Middle-earth, and remains willing to follow “fortune and hope” rather than act against Sauron directly – as he says, Black is mightier than White. He cannot defeat Sauron, but he’s willing to do what he must in the defeat that he hopes fortune has allotted for Sauron.

And there is real reason for hope, insofar as Gandalf also points out the essentially self-defeating nature of evil. He recognises that what appears to be a source of despair and loss (the capture of Merry and Pippin) is actually a source of happiness and good. Fortune, apparently, works in mysterious ways…

There’s one more very interesting passage:

Dangerous!…And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord.

The suggestion here seems to be that the real danger to the peoples of Middle-earth is not really evil, but power. Perhaps not even this: perhaps the only real danger is that of beings who put themselves forward before all others. Boromir almost did this, but “escaped” in the end. Aragorn refuses to do this – he does not put himself forward, but is called by those who need his strength. Evil is merely the result of power that seeks to fulfil itself, or power that follows its own desires rather than submitting to the needs of others. So rather than attacking the evil outright or directly (that is, the White wizard attacking Sauron) the only hope of Middle-earth is to destroy Sauron’s self-directed-power (the Ring). Do away with that, and the evil that is the result of that will crumble away.

EDIT: very nice point, Child, about the necessity of making small, local decisions of right and wrong, versus attempting to grapple with the rather more abstract and unweildy notions of good and evil. If everyone just did what was right for their neighbour then the Good would take care of itself!