Hope and Hopelessness

[Firnantoonion]

(Gandalf) ‘Great gladness it is to see you wake again to health and hope, so valiant a lady!’
‘To health?’ said Éowyn. ‘It may be so. At least while there is an empty saddle of some fallen Rider that I can fill, and there are deeds to do. But to hope? I do not know.’

here, hope is used in the same meaning as health, but as health for the fea. when there is no hope, it seems to me that the fea itself is ill, like a wound can mar the hroa, the loss of hope can mar the fea.

therein you see a very deadly point of the nazgul: they take away hope, thus marring the fea, and indirectly the prestations of the hroa. (when there is no hope in a battle why would one fight)

to go even further (and to add even more discussion to it) I would like to state that hope was the interference of Eru to the world, thus giving his children the will to continue and to overcome the evils in the world and thus make the world as it was originally meant in the songs of the ainur.

[ September 05, 2003: Message edited by: Firnantoonion ]