I was actually quite impressed by Denethor. He had the same sort of deep-seated inner power and inner darkness I've read in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. John Noble would have made a superb Kurtz! The scenes in which Gandalf has to belt him seem to follow from the "he needed that" train of thought, and yes, the audience cracked up here too! I didn't think of it so much as Gandalf pushing Denethor back onto the pyre as Gandalf defending himself, Pippin and the others from a mad, raging man who had lost the capacity to reason and therefore had to be dealt with as harshly as was necessary to save others. I still missed the palantir resonance with Pippin's experience though, and the image of the two withered hands burning forever in the Palantir of Minas Tirith...<P>Cheers!<BR>Lyta
__________________
“…she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea.”
|