[davem]

And so to Faramir....

Well, I suppose you either love him or hate him. Or rather you’re convinced by him or you’re not. Obviously the movie makers weren’t, so they decided this ‘goody-goody’ had to be made more ‘realistic’. I’ve never found him not to be ‘realistic’. He is wise, compassionate & concerned to do the right thing, even if he loses all in the process. As Anne C Petty has pointed out Tolkien’s Faramir is the perfect Steward for Aragorn, & clearly that was Tolkien’s intent. The incoming age of Men will need men like Aragorn & Faramir if it is to have any chance of both retaining the best of the past & of building a future which the inhabitants of Middle-earth (& we the readers) can have hope in.

Yet many readers seem to have a problem with Faramir - how can anyone simply walk away from the Ring, feeling no temptation?

Alas for Boromir! It was too sore a trial!" he said. "How you have increased my sorrow, you two strange wanderers from a far country, bearing the peril of Men! But you are less judges of Men than I of Halflings. We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt.Not if I found it on the highway would I take it I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them.

But that’s the point - he doesn’t simply walk away from it:

.

"But I am not such a man. Or I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee. Sit at peace! And be comforted, Samwise. If you seem to have stumbled, think that it was fated to be so. Your heart is shrewd as well as faithful, and saw clearer than your eyes. For strange though it may seem, it was safe to declare this to me. It may even help the master that you love. It shall turn to his good, if it is in my power. So be comforted. But do not even name this thing again aloud. Once is enough."

Faramir knows the power of the Ring. He also well knows what it offers. And that’s the point - he knows what it offers, but he doesn’t want that.

"For myself," said Faramir, "I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens: not a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Numenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.

He knows, perhaps, that he could be tempted by it, in the right (or wrong) circumstances, so he turns away from it, rejects it before it can take a hold of him, & he finds the strength to to do this in his idealism. Its the very thing that some readers find makes Faramir unbelievable that enables him to turn from what the Ring offers. Without such high ideals he too would have fallen to its lure.

Two slightly contradictory statements are made by Faramir in this chapter. The first:

"For so we reckon Men in our lore, calling them the High, or Men of the West, which were Numenoreans; and the Middle Peoples, Men of the Twilight, such as are the Rohirrim and their kin that dwell still far in the North; and the Wild, the Men of Darkness.
'Yet now, if the Rohirrim are grown in some ways more like to us, enhanced in arts and gentleness, we too have become more like to them, and can scarce claim any longer the title High. We are become Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with memory of other things. For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days.

So, Faramir’s idealism is rooted in the past. He looks back to what was, to the heights from which Men have fallen, & he wishes for the old days to come again. Nostalgia? Of course, but again, it is this nostalgic idealisation of the past which gives him the strength to reject the Ring & what it (seems to) offer.

Yet in this passage we see also, perhaps, a slightly less admirable side to Faramir - a side which perhaps Eowyn will play some part in redeeming him of - his classification of Men into three ‘classes’ (with his own people in the ‘top’ class). He judges other men as being ‘high’, ‘middle’ & ‘lower’ - the Class system we know so well in all its glory!. Yet Faramir, through his love of Eowyn, will marry one of a ‘lower’ class & so learn the error of his ways. Don’t tell me there’s no character development in Faramir!

But there is also something else going on in this classification of Men into three kinds - it is the same classification that we find in the Elves of the First Age - the ‘High’ Elves who went to Valinor, the ‘Middle’ Elves, the Elves of the Twighlight, the Sindar, who began the journey but left off part way, & the Avari, the Unwilling, Elves of the Darkness, who refused the Light. Faramir is projecting the history (& the choices) of the Elder Children upon the Younger. Again an idealisation of the past to the detriment of the present. Even the ‘Blessing’ he proclaims before meat looks backwards:

"So we always do," he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be. "

But as I said, there is another statement of his which seems to contradict what he is saying here:

'Yet there are among us still some who have dealings with the Elves when they may, and ever and anon one will go in secret to Lorien, seldom to return. Not I. For I deem it perilous now for mortal man wilfully to seek out the Elder People. Yet I envy you that have spoken with the White Lady."

He idealises the past, to the extent that he has prejudices based upon his interpretation & understanding of it, yet he ‘deems it perilous’ to seek out the living embodiment of that past. Mortal men must leave the past behind & move forward. Perhaps he knows in his heart that too much contact with the past is fatal - those who have willfully sought it out have been lost in it, never to return. He is at the point of ‘waking up’ & moving forward, leaving behind his old prejudices. Frodo & the Ring will be one catalyst, Eowyn another. He has the makings of a truly great Steward, a man of the future, not of the past.