[davem]

We meet few of the folk of Minas Tirith in the book, & I think this is why Faramir is such an important character in the story. Through him we are given a glimpse of the people of Gondor - though admittedly Faramir is not typical, he shows us that the Gondorians are a good people, fighting not just against Sauron, but to uphold an ideal. Apart from his men in Ithilien the first gondorian we meet is Ingold, one of the men building the Rammas:

'Yea truly, we know you, Mithrandir,' said the leader of the men, 'and you know the pass-words of the Seven Gates and are free to go forward. But we do not know your companion. What is he? A dwarf out of the mountains in the North? We wish for no strangers in the land at this time, unless they be mighty men of arms in whose faith and help we can trust.'

He doesn’t come across as very welcoming of strangers, to say the least. He refers to Pippin not only as if he wasn’t there, but almost as if he is a ‘thing’ - he asks ‘What is he?’, not ‘Who?’. If we had met this particular Gondorian before we met Faramir we may not have found ourselves rooting for Gondor. If Faramir seems to some readers to be unbelievably ‘goody-goody’ they should maybe ask themselves what they would have felt about Gondorians in general if he had been less of an ‘ideal’. The fact that Tolkien has given us such a shining example of a Gondorian means that he can give us a character like Ingold without him turning us off the people of Gondor altogether. Ingold is a man with a very practical outlook on things - he (speaking for the whole of his people, remember!) states that they only wish to have ‘mighty men of arms in whose faith and help we can trust.' around. It seems he struggles to see much good in any stranger - even Gandalf:

'May you bring good counsel to Denethor in his need, and to us all, Mithrandir!' Ingold cried. 'But you come with tidings of grief and danger, as is your wont, they say.'

This is hearsay reported as fact. Ingold doesn’t want ‘foreigners’ around unless they can fight, & even then, he doesn’t trust them.

Beregond, on the other hand, is a Gondorian more in the ‘Faramir’ mouid. He is naturally respectful of Pippin, & wishes to learn from him. If Ingold is a man after Denethor’s heart, Beregond os of Faramir’s party. We perhaps see a ‘split’ in the Gondorians. On the one hand Faramir symbolises the positive, open, compassionate side, the side that loves art, history & knowlege for its own sake - the idealists, if you will. On the other we have the ‘Denethorians’ the isolationists, the ones who openly state ‘If you aren’t with us, you’re against us!’, who seek in history & knowlege only the power to dominate & rule others - ‘For their own good’, no doubt.

'You have been in Rohan, I hear. There is much that I would ask you of that land also; for we put much of what little hope we have in its people. ...

They ate and drank; and they talked now of Gondor and its ways and customs, now of the Shire and the strange countries that Pippin had seen. And ever as they talked Beregond was more amazed, and looked with greater wonder at the hobbit, swinging his short legs as he sat on the seat, or standing tiptoe upon it to peer over the sill at the lands below...

Yet, underlying his curiosity, is a deep sadness. He fears the loss of everything he has come to hold dear. He is a man facing the shadow of Death - not just his own death but the death of every hope, dream & value - not to mention his son.

'Few, maybe, of those now sundered will meet again. And there were always too few children in this city; but now there are none--save some young lads that will not depart, and may find some task to do: my own son is one of them.'

Why does he allow Bergil to remain? I’ve never quite understood. Why do they allow children to remain in the city at all, rather than evacuating them? A sense of hopelessness - ‘They’re all going to die anyway, because we can’t win this war, so why argue with them, at least we will be with them when we all die.’?

But whatever else we can say about Beregond, he is an ordinary man. He is not in the counsels of the rulers. As much as Ingold, all he has to go on are rumours:

And the Lord Denethor is unlike other men: he sees far. Some say that as he sits alone in his high chamber in the Tower at night, and bends his thought this way and that, he can read somewhat of the future; and that he will at times search even the mind of the Enemy, wrestling with him. And so it is that he is old, worn before his time. But however that may be, my lord Faramir is abroad, beyond the River on some perilous errand, and he may have sent tidings.

Yet, this doesn’t make him narrow minded & untrusting like Ingold. Rather it makes him uncertain & sad.

'Yet, Master Peregrin, we have this honour: ever we bear the brunt of the chief hatred of the Dark Lord, for that hatred comes down out of the depths of time and over the deeps of the Sea. Here will the hammer-stroke fall hardest. And for that reason Mithrandir came hither in such haste. For if we fall, who shall stand? And, Master Peregrin, do you see any hope that we shall stand?'

He knows that his city is not just ‘in harms way’, it is targetted. Sauron is motivated by a desire to revenge himself on the last of the Numenoreans. But he is not merely concerned for his own city & people - his concern is for Middle earth as a whole. He knows that if Minas Tirith falls Gondor falls & if Gondor falls Middle earth as a whole will fall. When he claims it is an ‘honour’ to bear the brunt of Sauron’s hatred, he means it. One gets the sense that as far as Ingold is concerned the rest of Middle earth could go hang as long as Gondor survives.

Yet I wonder whether Beregond is completely in the grip of despair. It doesn’t take much to inspire him with hope:

Then suddenly Pippin looked up and saw that the sun was still shining and the banners still streaming in the breeze. He shook himself. 'It is passed,' he said. 'No, my heart will not yet despair. Gandalf fell and has returned and is with us. We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees.'
'Rightly said!' cried Beregond, rising and striding to and fro. 'Nay, though all things must come utterly to an end in time, Gondor shall not perish yet. Not though the walls be taken by a reckless foe that will build a hill of carrion before them. There are still other fastnesses, and secret ways of escape into the mountains. Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green.'

He seems to be the kind of man who is naturally hopeful about the future, & his hope seems focussed not on Denethor, but on Faramir:

'But things may change when Faramir returns. He is bold, more bold than many deem; for in these days men are slow to believe that a captain can be wise and learned in the scrolls of lore and song, as he is, and yet a man of hardihood and swift judgement in the field. But such is Faramir. Less reckless and eager than Boromir, but not less resolute. .

But it is not Faramir himself who inspires him with hope, it is what Faramir symbolises. So, again, we see how vital it is that Faramir is the kind of man he is. His role, & he knows it well, is not simply to rule, to give orders, it is not even to defeat Sauron. Faramir’s role in life is to inspire his people to be the best they can be in peacetime. It is a heavy burden with which he must struggle, & we can see that in his ‘oath’ to refuse the Ring even if he found by the wayside he is leading by example - this is what he hopes would be the response of all his people to the ‘weapon of the enemy’. Faramir is not simply a man, he is a leader, a ‘shepherd’ to his people. That he has succeeded in that hope is shown by Beregond.

So, we come finally to Bergil. Bergil is interesting in two ways. First, he is, if not a ‘typical’ Gondorian child, he is typical of a certain kind - the ones who refused to leave the city. He is a ‘fighter’ & we see something of the spirit that has enabled Gondor to survive. Yet he is like his father in that fighting is not what he truly loves:

'

Farewell for this time,' said Bergil. 'Take my greetings to my father, and thank him for the company that he sent. Come again soon, I beg. Almost I wish now that there was no war, for we might have had some merry times. We might have journeyed to Lossarnach, to my grandsire's house; it is good to be there in Spring, the woods and fields are full of flowers. But maybe we will go thither together yet. They will never overcome our Lord, and my father is very valiant. Farewell and return!'

He will fight for what he loves, but he doesn’t love fighting for its own sake (well, no more than most ten year old boys!)

The other way Bergil is interesting is as part of a father-son pair. This pairing runs through the whole of the Legendarium & plays a central role in the two time travel tales Tolkien wrote. Yet within Middle earth we find this relationship repeatedly recurring. Sometimes it manifests positively, sometimes negatively - Tuor/Earendel, Barahir/Beren, Hurin/Turin, Elendil/Isildur, even the Bilbo/Frodo relationship is prety much father/son, & its interesting that in an early version of the Hobbit sequel the hero of the story was to be Bilbo’s son.

Finally, we find Beregond turning up to wish Pippin goodnight, & doing his Warden Hodges impression:

'Can you find your way?' said Beregond at the door of the small hall, on the north side of the citadel, where they had sat. 'It is a black night, and all the blacker since orders came that lights are to be dimmed within the City, and none are to shine out from the walls. And I can give you news of another order: you will be summoned to the Lord Denethor early tomorrow. I fear you will not be for the Third Company. Still we may hope to meet again. Farewell and sleep in peace!'

‘Put those Lights out!’ Don’t you know there’s a war on!’ Now, I have to admit, knowing when the book was written, that came close to breaking the spell!