Tension between Rohan and Gondor in the fourth age

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

... which demonstrates exactly why The New Shadow is so short (and along the way, why Tal-Elmar never went anywhere either). I read somewhere that Tolkien chose to write his version of what a novel would like like had it descended from the Old English/Norse literary tradition (ie, Beowulf), rather than the French/Latin 'Romances'. LotR in particular focusses on nobility and heroics - on rising above the world, where even Le Morte d'Arthur has a heavy focus on failure - Galahad aside, all of the famous knights (Lancelot, Gawain, Kaye, Tristan, even Arthur himself) fail, and fall.

Put another way: Beowulf's death is a victory. Arthur's is a defeat. And in Tolkien, even the greatest losses (the passing of the Lamps, Trees, Beleriand, Numenor, and the Elves) come across as 'victories', because they lead to something greater - the Trees, the Sun over Middle-earth, the Star of Eärendil, the victories of Elendil, and the Reunited Kingdom.

My line of argument runs directly into author/reader interactions, and I don't think that's avoidable. It's absolutely valid as a reader to suggest that Gondor and Rohan would eventually fall out on different sides* (though probably with some sort of capital-c Consequences for breaking an oath to the One); I think it would be very difficult to argue that it's anything Tolkien would have written, anticipated, or countenanced.

*Counterfactual digression! I'm not sure Gondor/Rohan is the best fight to pick here. What about the conflict between the Kings in Minas Anor and the Princes of Dol Amroth? "Are we not also of the half-elven? Elendil was never king in Númenor; our lineage is as noble as that of his line, and has ruled for longer by far." And in between you have the merchant-princes of Pelargir (wait, I think I just made that up... could've sworn I read that somewhere), and all the various fiefdoms of Gondor proper... and, yes, the Riders as well, loyal to the kings in Mundburg because of their oath, but dubious about their 'ivory tower' (sorry) approach...

It could make for a great story, no doubt about it. But it wouldn't be Tolkienesque.

hS

Tolkien stated, "I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing [my emphasis]. It proved "sinister and depressing" because the waking world dawned on Tolkien's starlit fantasy. He cut the story short precisely because the 4th Age was heartbreaking for him. The dim shadows cast in the corners of the now vacant and decrepit Last Homely House and the end of the line of kings in Gondor were too real and too terrible to contemplate further; but Tolkien foretold the doom as far back as when he curved the earth and the straight road was no longer navigable to Faery, save for the return of those few exiles who knew the way.

"the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors — like Denethor or worse."

So, like Byzantium or Rome, Gondor would fall into a long period of increasing decadence, ruled by weak-willed kings and guileless boy-emperors, puffed up by frilly sycophants and bullied by unscrupulous charlatans. This is the way of all earthly empires far removed from angelic aid.

The eventual breaking of the oath of Eorl would certainly have dire consequences, but nothing that could not be readily foreseen in an historical context. In all likelihood, the oath may be broken and renewed and broken again in waves of wars, revolts and an influx of new tribes and races from the East, until all the the 3rd Age kingships finally succumb to the crushing weight of inevitability.

Tolkien saw that inevitability and wisely put down his pen when he realized the depressing consequences of the eucatastrophe that ended the 3rd Age. He dwelt in the 4th Age just long enough to tie up some loose ends, character-wise, and aborted a 4th Age tale that demeaned and lessened the heroic ages of the passing Middle-earth. He could not bear to contemplate the mundanity of a Middle-earth full of middling and mediocre Men.

And here we are. Some valor and heroism remains among the flawed descendants of former kings, like those undaunted men who filled the stinking trenches along the Somme and fell in the barbed and brutal chaos of No Man's Land. But the epitaph of that conflict was a League of Nations that could not find a lasting peace, followed by an even graver conflict and a United Nations that is nowhere near united. The old oaths are broken.