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Old 06-10-2003, 06:38 PM   #35
Morwen Tindomerel
Wight
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Minas Anor or Annuminas the Golden
Posts: 187
Morwen Tindomerel has just left Hobbiton.
Silmaril

I think Saucepan Man and I are essentially in agreement. One must not underestimate the lure of the Ring. After all Gandalf himself declared he couldn't trust his strength where the Ring was concerned. He also makes it clear that close proximity is not a requirement. Gandalf tells Denethor that even locked away in Minas Tirith's deepest vault the power of the Ring would undermine his will.

Galadriel and Faramir both refuse the Ring, well done, but they also send it away from them at the earliest opportunity. Neither is subjected to the months of pressure that Boromir withstood quite well until after Lorien.

My personal opinion is Galadriel's well meant meddling somehow tipped the balance of his mind in the wrong direction. Possibly Boromir was coping with the temptation by suppressing it. Galadriel with her telepathic psychodrama forced him to face it head on with near disastrous results.

More interesting to my mind is the fact that Galadriel *knows* Boromir is wavering, (she tells Gandalf so after his return) and it is highly unlikely that Aragorn missed, or failed to correctly interpret the numerous clues of a troubled mind Boromir gave during the journey down river.

For that matter how could Gandalf and Elrond have missed Boromir's skepticism about the quest or his vulnerability to the Ring's spell?

They couldn't have. So why was Boromir included in the Company, and why was he kept with them even after it became clear he was in trouble? For both his sake and the quest's one would think they'd have left him behind under some pretext or other.

The answer I believe is because their foresight told them Boromir's presence was somehow vital to the success of the Quest. And so it was. Had he not attacked Frodo and frightened him into instant flight it is very likely he and the Ring would have been taken by Saruman. Boromir's 'fall' saved the Ringbearer and Middle Earth and so was in this sense 'providential'.

But Boromir himself, had he continued under the Ring's spell, would have been equally dangerous to the success of the Quest. Had he not immediately repented and broken the Ring's control over him.

Boromir was vital to the success of the Quest. Neither Faramir nor anybody else could have played his role. He was *meant*, as Gandalf would say, to be a member of the Company for without his weakness and his strength the Ring would not have escaped Saruman's grasp and been ultimately destroyed.
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