Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuruharan
Personally I do find it plausible that successive generations of Chieftains of the Dunedain did feel constrained by the prophecy. I think that would be in keeping with the setting that Tolkien intended to create.
From a practical standpoint, there were a number of considerations against it. Politically, Gondor was too stable until the time of the War of the Ring for the prospect of an unknown rustic from the North to come in and claim the throne to have any appeal for the Gondorians themselves. The issue of a Northern claimant to the throne of Gondor had been decisively defeated for that epoch with the rejection of Arvedui. It is noteworthy that Aragorn emphasized being Elendil's heir rather than just Isildur's, probably to avoid the problem Arvedui experienced.
Also, for the most part the Chieftains of the Dunedain were concerned with the survival of their small people and had little time to spare for larger ambitions.
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Those practical objections all seem reasonable to me. They are (within the context of Middle-Earth) understandable answers to the posed question. My problem is that Tolkien didn't include them in the text of
Fellowship. Instead, he simply threw in a few vague lines about a prophecy that supposedly prevented a premature
Return of the King.
I don't find this solution to be very elegant. On the contrary, it's kind of hamfisted.
It would be illuminating if someone took their time to trace this problem back to the
HoME.