Life or Honor?

[ninja91]

As to us plumbing his works, I say yes. Many instances occur where beings are troubled by the loss or impending loss of life, and they are pressed with a decision to either attempt to thwart it or sit back and do nothing. For example, when the ents attack Isengard after they find that part of their forest was destroyed. This was not a matter of honor, because the ents considered not doing anything, but a matter of life because the ents felt sorrow for their lost friends and environment.

[Elu Ancalime]

Elu, thanks for the connections to The Odyssey. Are you suggesting that there was a development from a limited view (honor valued over life) to a broader one (life valued over honor)?

I wonder if we're giving "Life" too broad a meaning in some of our examples? The long and short of it is that to value Life over Honor is to say "I'd rather stay alive than be known for ___-heroism, loyalty, fill in the blank-____".

So when we say that Gandalf values Life above Honor, is this what we mean?

In the Homeric Epics, life means "to live long and healthful, and enjoy it with your family and friends" (as what happens at the end of the Odyseey) as opposed to the Iliad's developing theme of "die in honor fighting for something you believe in". It dosnt have to mean Life as opposed to Death, but Honor in Life as opposed to Memory in Death.(in the Greek sense)

It dosent fit in with LotR exactrly that way, like with what you said about Gandalf. I dont think we can easily argue or believe that Gandalf would want to die (as anobjective, not on impulse like in Moria) and be honored or want to live gloriously like a king.
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Mercedes-amg

[Galadriel55]

Talking about Life vs Honour in Gondor, I think that it's helpful to analyse Beregond, since he's the only Minas-Tirithian warrior we know a bit closer. You could say that he's both.
Life above honour: risks everything, including his reputation, to save Faramir's life
Honour above life: Sticks to what his inner voice tells him is GOOD (ie the honourable thing to do) rather than keeping his life and job safe, again, by saving Faramir.
It depends on the defintion of LIFE and HONOUR.
I guess a typical inas-Tirithian (since that's what, in my opinion, Beregond is supposed to represent) will have an aproximate balance of both. Ioreth has a similar case - She risks her life to do an honourable thing by saving other lives.
That saying, Boromir, Faramir, and Denethor are NOT typical Minas-Tirithians!

[doug*platypus]

Interesting point about Beregond there, Galadriel. At the start of this thread I would have automatically responded to the question posed by saying that in Gondor at least, honour is regarded even more highly than life. But I see what you are saying about Beregond potentially putting aside his honour in order to save the life of Faramir. At the same time, however, is there not a certain, important type of honour in this? Risking everything, including his own life, for Faramir that is.

I interpret lmp's original question as asking whether individuals within the story place their own life higher than their honour, or vice versa. To which I would say that all the heroes of the story place their honour over their lives, and most of the villains prefer to hold onto their life however they may!

The various societies we encounter in the story emphasise honour to differing degrees, and to a certain extent they also define it differently, or at least practice it differently. To a soldier of Gondor or a rider of Rohan, honour is gained by risking your life in battle for your lord and your country. Faramir alludes to the fact that warriors in Minas Tirith are esteemed over all other professions, and Beregond explains that even a man of arms of the Citadel Guard is held in honour. To a hobbit, however, honour of a different form is found through fostering a large family, obeying the laws and customs of the land, or being an acknowledged authority on potatoes like the Gaffer is.

Within the confines of the different cultures our heroes spring from, there are a number of examples where honour is chosen over life. Frodo not fleeing the barrow, Gandalf confronting the Balrog, Boromir defending Merry and Pippin, the three hunters following the Uruk Hai, Faramir rejecting the Ring, Gimli entering the Paths of the Dead. Although not all of these choices led to each of these characters laying down their life, there was always a very real potential, and a good deal of uncertainty over safety at the time the decision was made.

On the flip side of the coin, we have those characters who elected to choose their life over their honour. Wormtongue is the most obvious for his weaselling out of fighting for Theoden, but Gollum also pleads for his life a number of times, which is something we do not see any of the heroes doing, and the Mouth of Sauron quails when Aragorn stares him down.

I think we can definitely see the moral code of Tolkien himself, of the time and place where the story was formed and written, and perhaps also of the literary traditions which he harks back to, in the distinction between the heroes who choose honour over life, and the villains who choose life over honour.