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Originally Posted by davem
Basically, Faramir is an idealist. As I said, his idealism is what enables him to reject what the Ring offers - he will not have Gondor Mistress of even willing slaves - but he has the faults of those virtues. Principal among those faults is a pessimism - 'It is long since we had any hope.' - about Mankind. All have fallen from grace. There is no hope even in the decendants of Numenor. So, he needs a lesson or two, not in humility as his brother did, but in hope. He too will fall under the spell of the Black Breath. He has lost hope & immersed himself in long lost ideals of the way things were.
I think seeing the desperate struggles & sacrifices of Frodo, Sam & later Eowyn enables him to rediscover his lost hope, which ultimately manifests in the Figure of Aragorn.
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These thoughts on Faramir's nature bring me to a very fascinating question - are the virtues and faults attributed to him by Tolkien JRRT's own virtues and faults? We do know this from the Letters (Footnote to Letter 180):
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As far as any character is 'like me' it is Faramir - except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage.
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What autobiographical elements do we detect in Faramir? I would definitely see the author as an idealist, as
davem describes Faramir, and his biography tells us that he had a strongly pessimistic strain to his character. What about the humility, the truthfulness, the connection with a high, mythological past? I think those elements are all visible in JRRT. What others do you notice?
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth..
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