Was it legit?

[Eonwe]

Originally Posted by boromir88

Well, they did have the power, clearly as we see in Arvedui's case. Did they "technically" have the power, I don't know. But, clearly that's what they did, and I think it was Kransha who did a thread similar talking about Arvedui's claim, the Stewards seemed to have the power whether they willingly backed down to the claimed King or not. My understanding was, if Faramir hadn't been such a good guy and did the right thing in letting Aragorn take the crown, he could have told Aragorn no.

it says in the appendix that Arvedui didn't have the strength of arms and the strength of will to oppose the Council. this suggests to me that he had somekinds of grouds to press his claims, but the fact that teh council just dropped the matter without answering his claim tells me that they would have driven it to war with arnor, who was already greatly weakened by civil war and teh wars with angmar. he (wisely, i think) just let the matter drop instead of pressing the issue.

as for aragorn's situation, he had allot going for him. faramir was apprenetly willing to let teh king return, aragorn found the white tree, gandalf and elrond backed him, and he did have a legal right to the throne, since there was no heir. not to mention that he had just saved the day militarily, and was the only one capable of healing the Black Breath, i think people look reather favorably on him.

i think the bottom line is that Aragorn was a direct desendent of Isildur, who after Elendil, was the High King. I think that pretty much makes Aragorn the High King as well.