[davem]

Taking the events of the chapter in order, I think this was the first thing that stood out:

'It is long since the beacons of the North were lit,' he said; 'and in the ancient days of Gondor they were not needed, for they had the Seven Stones.' Pippin stirred uneasily.

It seems that Gondor is moving backwards, devolving from a time when they had a high tech signalling & communications system to one when they were dependent on a very ‘primitive’ means of summoning help. Yet, what we also see is the fading of ‘magical’ means, of Elven ‘technology’, & the increasing use of mundane means. Beacons don’t need superior will in their employment. This movement away from magic can perhaps be seen as a development, an evolution, as anyone can light a fire. We are actually seeing a movement away from dependence on a few gifted individuals to save Gondor to a society where individual merit will determine the future of the realm. But this also places the Gondorians in a very precarious position when facing an enemy who employs magical means to fight. The appearance of the Nazgul brings terror & loss of heart, & only magic can bring them down, whether that’s the power of Gandalf, or of Merry’s Barrow blade, ‘wound about with spells for the destruction of Mordor’. Soon, the magic will pass away, & maybe part of the reason Gondor survives & thrives is that it has found a way of living without it.

Gandalf passed now into the wide land beyond the Rammas Echor. So the men of Gondor called the out-wall that they had built with great labour, after Ithilien fell under the shadow of their Enemy.

Shippey compares the Rammas to teh Maginot Line, Lewis & Currie in ‘The Uncharted Realms of Tolkien’, to the ‘Star Wars’ satelite defence system. Basically, they see these things as ‘defences’ which ultimately prove useless & massively expensive ‘white elephants’, which fail at the test, & are particularly dangerous because of the faith placed in them. Gandalf’s words are telling: ‘But leave your trowels and sharpen your swords!' Basically, he is telling them that their own courage & willingness to defend what they love is what will save them, & that faith placed in ‘things’ is most likely to lull them into a false sense of security & lead them to complacency.

Yet the herdsmen and husbandmen that dwelt there were not many, and the most part of the people of Gondor lived in the seven circles of the City, or in the high vales of the mountain-borders, in Lossarnach, or further south in fair Lebennin with its five swift streams.

I was surprised when I first read this - it seems Gondor is not all that densely populated. They cannot defend themselves. Rohan is vital to their survival, not because they lack courage, but because they lack numbers. But even in the Gondorians the blood of Numenor is not ‘pure’. Numenor is passing away - for good or ill - & will soon become a memory:

There dwelt a hardy folk between the mountains and the sea. They were reckoned men of Gondor, yet their blood was mingled, and there were short and swarthy folk among them whose sires came more from the forgotten men who housed in the shadow of the hills in the Dark Years ere the coming of the kings.

I can’t help feeling that this is part & parcel of the change indicated by the use of the beacons. Neither the replacement of the Palantiri with beacons, nor the fading of Numeorean blood were wished or intended, but both will have a ‘liberating’ effect on the people of Middle earth. We are also told later that :

Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there. In every street they passed some great house or court over whose doors and arched gates were carved many fair letters of strange and ancient shapes: names Pippin guessed of great men and kindreds that had once dwelt there; and yet now they were silent, and no footstep rang on their wide pavements, nor voice was heard in their halls, nor any face looked out from door or empty window.

For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. But the gates were not set in a line: the Great Gate in the City Wall was at the east point of the circuit, but the next faced half south, and the third half north, and so to and fro upwards; so that the paved way that climbed towards the Citadel turned first this way and then that across the face of the hill. And each time that it passed the line of the Great Gate it went through an arched tunnel, piercing a vast pier of rock whose huge out-thrust bulk divided in two all the circles of the City save the first. For partly in the primeval shaping of the hill, partly by the mighty craft and labour of old, there stood up from the rear of the wide court behind the Gate a towering bastion of stone, its edge sharp as a ship-keel facing east. Up it rose, even to the level of the topmost circle, and there was crowned by a battlement; so that those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a mountainous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below. The entrance to the Citadel also looked eastward, but was delved in the heart of the rock; thence a long lamp-lit slope ran up to the seventh gate. Thus men reached at last the High Court, and the Place of the Fountain before the feet of the White Tower: tall and shapely, fifty fathoms from its base to the pinnacle, where the banner of the Stewards floated a thousand feet above the plain.

Going back to something LMP said in the ‘Tolkien the Artist’ thread, it seems that Minas Tirith itself is almost like a three dimensional ‘mandala’. It is circular, obviously, but I also wonder about the symbolism of ‘seven’ here. ‘Seven stars & seven stones & one white tree’. Why seven levels? In medieval astronomy there were seven ‘planets’ - Sun, Moon, Mercury, venus, Mars, Saturn & Jupiter. I also note that ‘those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a mountainous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below.’

The guards of the gate were robed in black, and their helms were of strange shape, high-crowned, with long cheek-guards close-fitting to the face, and above the cheek-guards were set the white wings of sea-birds; but the helms gleamed with a flame of silver, for they were indeed wrought of mithril, heirlooms from the glory of old days. Upon the black surcoats were embroidered in white a tree blossoming like snow beneath a silver crown and many-pointed stars. This was the livery of the heirs of Elendil, and none wore it now in all Gondor, save the Guards of the Citadel before the Court of the Fountain where the White Tree once had grown.

Yet again, we are told of the fading of Gondor. It is a place of memory - but it is also backward looking, unable to move forward. Men in ancient armour guard a dead tree while war approaches.

It has already been pointed out that Gandalf ‘condems’ Denethor’s questioning of Pippin rather than he himself,

You can use even your grief as a cloak. Do you think that I do not understand your purpose in questioning for an hour one who knows the least, while I sit by?'

but Gandalf had already predicted this would be the case before they entered the hall:

But he will speak most to you, and question you much, since you can tell him of his son Boromir. He loved him greatly: too much perhaps; and the more so because they were unlike. But under cover of this love he will think it easier to learn what he wishes from you rather than from me. Do not tell him more than you need, and leave quiet the matter of Frodo's errand. I will deal with that in due time. And say nothing about Aragorn either, unless you must.'

Gandalf knows Denethor too well.

Finally, for now, we have Pippin’s oath. As has been pointed out, all four Hobbits swear an oath of service - Sam to Frodo, Frodo to the Council, Merry to Theoden & Pippin, here, to Denethor. They all commit themselves to the service of an individual, apart from Frodo, who swears service to a ‘mission’, if I can put it that way. Their oaths bind them, but only Frodo is broken by the oath he swears.