The thing is there are other things resulting from the fire that would have killed Denethor even it the armour and stuff didn’t burn all the way to his skin in the time to run all that way. Today was Career Day at my school, and one of the guys was the a County Prosecutor. I want to be a lawyer, so I found his lecture fascinating (so much that I was actually glad I couldn’t eat lunch at school so I could go listen to him speak again).
The relevant thing to this discussion that he mentioned is that often when he investigates arson murders (and I’m assuming this would apply to guys who got lit on fire) is that often it isn’t the burns or fire itself that kills a person, but the secondary results of fire. The ones that I think would have been the problem would be smoke inhalation and heated air.
If you’re running you need more air, so Denethor would have been consuming a lot of smoke and heated air. While I’m sure we all know what the effects of smoke inhalation are, the thing that would be worse for Denethor would be the heated air. Fire quickly heats up the surrounding air - it only takes seconds - and when you inhale hot air it burns the insides of your throat and lungs along with the air passages. You slowly suffocate to death when you’re just breathing shallowing. What would the outcome be if you’re running while inhaling smoke into scorched lungs while suffering burns - the guy wouldn’t have made it a quarter mile.
And yes, this is probably the posting equivalent of beating a dead horse.
