Quote:
Originally Posted by Erendis
Question 1.
Concerning the existence or not of Isildur's bloodline,for someone as well-educated as Denethor there must have been some clues in the records of Ondoher's time about Aranarth,since he was the grand-son of the Gondorian king, after all.
|
About this... I don't think at all that it would have been unlikely at all for Denethor to have gone through the annals of Eärnil and Eärnur's day to know that Aranarth, son of Arvedui, still lived and headed the remnants of the Northern Dúnedain--it's just that with the waning and vanishing of those remnants in the north, why should anyone assume that an unbroken lineage remained? After all, your default assumption as a Gondorian might be that lineages naturally fail--it happened to them a few times. Additionally, the White Tree which continued to live all through the years of the Stewards after Mardil finally died in 2852, at the end of the Stewardship of Belecthor II. To the Gondorian mind at this time, there will never again be a king. Boromir--hopes of being the next Steward aside--should be taken as a typical Gondorian at the Council of Elrond:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by The Council of Elrond
'I was not sent to beg any boon, but to seek only the meanings of a riddle,' answered Boromir proudly. 'Yet we are hard pressed, and the Sword of Elendil would be a help beyond our hope--if such a thing could indeed return out of the shadows of the past.' He looked at Aragorn and there was doubt in his eyes.
|
--Emphasis mine.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by The Council of Elrond
'Isildur's Bane is found, you say,' said Boromir. 'I have seen a bright ring in the Halfling's hand; but Isildur perished ere this age of the world began, they say. How do the Wise know this ring is his? And how has it passed down the years, until it is brought hither by so strange a messenger?'
|
Boromir's question here refers to the Ring, but because of the mention of Isildur, it struck me as appropriate to quote, because he has exactly the same doubts about Aragorn and Isildur's lineage. It is only over the course of the next Book, until his death, that he comes to accept Aragorn fully. And why should he? It's been a millennium since Eärnur returned from the North--victorious over the Witch-King, a brief glimmer of hope in the mid-Third Age before he rode off to Minas Morgûl, never to be seen again. Even granting the longer Númenorean lifespan, which was waning much anyway in that millennium, that's still like someone coming forward today as the Heir of Edmund II Ironside--and out of the wild north, too, not out of a millennium of increasing records and technological certainty, but the complete opposite.
The fact that Denethor thought in the first place that Aragorn might be of Isildur's line and a kingly claimant, on those grounds, can be presented then as proof of his insight and wisdom, in my opinion.