[davem]

This chapter divides neatly into two, & in a way its interesting to compare them. The first half is basically backward looking - it is Gimli & Legolas recounting the events of their journey from Erech to Minas Tirith to Merry & Pippin. The second half of the chapter looks forward - the Captains of the West make their plans.

I think this is significant in that it is Gimli, a dwarf & Legolas, an Elf, who dominate the first half of the chapter. Both are members of races whoo are passing (or will pass) from Middle-earth. Their view of the future is pessimistic, & Legolas seems even more pessimistic than Gimli - in the short term:

Gimli:'There is some good stone-work here,' he said as he looked at the walls; 'but also some that is less good, and the streets could be better contrived. When Aragorn comes into his own, I shall offer him the service of stonewrights of the Mountain, and we will make this a town to be proud of.'

Legolas;'They need more gardens,' said Legolas. 'The houses are dead, and there is too little here that grows and is glad. If Aragorn comes into his own, the people of the Wood shall bring him birds that sing and trees that do not die.'

For Gimli, it is a matter of when Aragorn becomes king, for Legolas it is a question of whether he will.

As to the longer term, their positions seem reversed:

'It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.'
'Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,' said Legolas. 'And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.'
'And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,' said the Dwarf.
'To that the Elves know not the answer,' said Legolas.

Gimli here sees Men as doomed to fail in everything they attempt, while for Legolas they are not without potential. For good or ill Men will outlast the other races. Interestingly, it seems that their positions have changed - we began with Gimli speaking hopefully of Aragorn’s victory while Legolas questioned it, & now it is Legolas who prophecies Men’s spirit will not be defeated, & that however dark things may seem there is always hope. Yet Legolas is not speaking in this last conversation of Aragorn himself, but of Men generally. Aragorn may fail, but his ‘seed’ will not. Gimli, rather, has placed his faith in Aragorn himself, not in the race of ‘Men’. Legolas sees the ‘big picture’ - as befits an ‘immortal’, Gimli, a mortal (albeit a very long lived one), thinks of the here & now. The long term future is dark & probably without much hope, but in his time there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

The defeat of the enemy at Pelargir shows Aragorn in a different light. He is not seen by the inhabitants of the lands through which he leads his force as their champion or liberator - he is the King of the Dead, a figure of fear. Indeed, in an earlier draft he is called by them ‘’Lord of the Ring(s) (in that draft Galadriel was to have given Nenya to him to be the wedding ring he gave to Finduilas, the ‘proto-Arwen’). Aragorn would have been very ‘close’ to Sauron symbolically - ruler of the Dead, & even bearer of Sauron’s title. the words of Gimli & Legolas seem to point up this similarity:

Gimli;Strange and wonderful I thought it that the designs of Mordor should be overthrown by such wraiths of fear and darkness. With its own weapons was it worsted!'

Legolas;'Strange indeed,' said Legolas. 'In that hour I looked on Aragorn and thought how great and terrible a Lord he might have become in the strength of his will, had he taken the Ring to himself.

If we add to this Aragorn’s black banner, his arrival at the Harlond in the ships of the enemy, his use of the Palantir - which up to that point has such strong associations with the enemy (forget for a moment the background history of the Stones) it seems that something rather ‘strange’ is going on. Aragorn is using the ‘weapons of the enemy to ‘worst’ it. It seems that what we’re seeing is Aragorn taking back, one by one, the things Sauron has claimed for his own & using them to defeat him. His banner is black, but is replaced once its job is done, the Dead are released, the ships are left behind. If nothing else he is establishing his right to rule, in defiance of Sauron - whatever Sauron does Aragorn does better: he takes up the weapons Sauron has used & turns them on him & them casts them aside. This is not merely about defiance, or challenge - it is about humiliation. What Aragorn is doing is making Sauron look pathetic. Whatever Sauron throws Aragorn hurls back. As Legolas says: ‘Not for naught does Mordor fear him.’

Yet something else happened on the riverside - Legolas heard the crying of the gulls & something awoke in him which cannot ever go back to sleep. He may have stepped out of the Elvish world to play his part in the events of the War of the Ring, but the cry of the gulls has called him back. Even the pleas of his friend cannot call him back to the world.

Never in all my life had I met them, until we came to Pelargir, and there I heard them crying in the air as we rode to the battle of the ships. Then I stood still, forgetting war in Middle-earth; for their wailing voices spoke to me of the Sea. The Sea! Alas! I have not yet beheld it. But deep in the hearts of all my kindred lies the sea-longing, which it is perilous to stir. Alas! for the gulls. No peace shall I have again under beech or under elm.'
'Say not so!' said Gimli. 'There are countless things still to see in Middle-earth, and great works to do.

And here we see the difference between Elves & mortals - for mortals who are doomed to leave the world 'There are countless things still to see in Middle-earth, and great works to do.’, while for Elves, who are doomed to remain in the world forever there is, sooner or later, the Sea & the forgetting of ‘countless things in Middle-earth’.

I’ll come back to the second part of the chapter later - if no-one beats me to it.