Denethor's plunge

[davem]

Don't know if it helps, but using Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth, which is noted for its accuracy, the distance from the Hallows to the Minas Tirith 'Precipice Viewpoint' is approx 3 miles & involves a climb (as has been noted) from the fifth to the seventh levels. This being impossible one must suspect that it is not actually Denethor who is seen falling but one of his guards.

It seems that the most logical conclusion is that Denethor was grabbed by one of his guards just outside the Hallows, who attempted to extinguish the flames. Said guard, tragically, caught fire himself & in his panic left the dying Steward & fled looking for help. He in turn ran into another guard who attempted to put him out & suffered the same fate as his colleague. This event was repeated a number of times & left all Denethor's personal guard dead along the three miles distance. A kind of horrific 'relay', where the flames were passed along from guard to guard.

This tragic event was commemorated in later years by the famous 'Minas Tirith Relay Run' involving a flaming baton being passed by runners starting at Rath Dinen & culminating in the igniting of a Dummy at the edge of the 'Precipice Viewpoint' being set alight & catapulted off the edge, to fall into the great Courtyard before the gates at the First Level.

'The Fall of the 100th Guard Festival' as it came to be known was originally celebrated every ten years at midnight on the anniversary of Denethor's death & became so famous throughout Middle-earth that travellers of all races would come from across the length & breadth of Middle-earth to witness the spectacle, crowding the streets & spending lots of money.

Unfortunately, the popularity (& the resulting cash benefit for the city) lead first of all to the festival being increased to once in five years, then annually & finally to every Saturday night. Drunkenness & general rowdyness increased to the point that locals began to complain about the 'yobs invading our lovely city & making a nuissance of themselves' & many visitors who couldn't wait for the official event would sneak up to the Viewpoint & throw their own home made dummies off the top. This resulted in two main problems which eventually lead to the event being cancelled - first, flaming dummies would pile up in the courtyard, making access into the city a difficult thing, & secondly, the Burns Unit of the Houses of Healing found they couldn't cope with the numbers of locals & visitors who fund themselves on the receiving end of a flaming dummy hitting them from 5,000 feet. It became a bit of a sick joke among some of the locals, who began making & selling tunics emblazoned with the legend 'I went to Minas Tirith for the 'The Fall of the 100th Guard Festival' & all I got was these lousy third degree burns'. An attempt to make Dwarf sized tunics emblazoned with 'I was a burned Dwarf' failed miserably & lead to the violent murders of a number of tunic vendors at the hands of angry dwarves.

In the end it was decided that for the public good the event would cease & the 'official' version of events was declared to be that Denethor had burned to death in Rath Dinen, no guards had perished in flames & that none of the above had actually happened. Tourism in Gondor suffered but the locals bore it stoically (apart from the tunic printers, who raised a riot on hearing the official declaration of the end of the festival & attacked the local Civil Servants, dragging them from their offices (coincidentally on the Fifth level) all along the route to the edge of the Viewpoint, setting many of them on fire & hurling them off the edge, in a desperate attempt to start up another 'tradition'. The rioters claimed that this was a spontaneous outburst of anger, but the discovery of a batch of tunics emprinted with the legend '1st Weekly 'Fall of the Flaming Civil Servants' (who weren't set on fire & pushed over the edge by the Tunic Printers Guild of Minas Tirith & anyone who says they did it are liars because we were all somewhere else doing other stuff & it was most probably the pressure of the job which lead to a mass sucide on their part) Commemoration Festival' was seen as proof positive that the whole thing had been planned.

Initially there was a demand by the survivng colleagues of the dead Civil Servants that the Tunic Printers should suffer the same fate as their own colleagues & be dragged up to the Viewpoint & ignited & catapulted from the edge (they were working on their own tunic designs but took so long to come up with a legend they could all agree on, submitting various versions, in triplicate, to their immediate & senior managers, bringing in third party consultants to 'think outside the box', advertising managers to choose the most effective colours & fonts for the lettering, that in the end nothing came of it, & the whole thing faded into blessed obscurity & everyone went back to what they had done before the whole thing had gotten so far out of hand.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Ah, cynicality is the spice of life, is it not, Davem?

'Cause Boromir is the man.

Okay, but Denethor is his father, thus Denethor having two children would inevitably split the man-ness (albiet in Boromir's favour) between the two. So Denethor's wife (who's name escapes me at this moment in time) had a significant contribution to the manliness. This raises some questions about her!

Perhaps instead of being born the-man, Boromir achieved the-man, or indeed had the-man thrust upon him?

I'm rambling here people..

[Knight of Gondor]

Originally Posted by davem

This being impossible one must suspect that it is not actually Denethor who is seen falling but one of his guards.

So what you're saying is, Elvis could still be alive???

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

So Denethor's wife (who's name escapes me at this moment in time) had a significant contribution to the manliness. This raises some questions about her!

Finduilas.

[alatar]

Have we considered that fire may have not even been real?

When Gandalf begged Saruman for information outside Orthanc, Saruman sent down a fireball to the new White Wizard. Gandalf astride Shadowfax was unharmed by the blast, and so:

• Gandalf is able to create a cloak of sorts that protects those so covered from fire, yet permits the fire to burn as it would on the outside, or

• Gandalf saw the fire for what it was, just another mind trick. Saruman's voice did not fool Gandalf, and though the others saw the flames, Gandalf did not and so was unharmed. There is precedent in at least two Star Trek episodes (original and NextGen), as well as in the 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' movie, and so I feel that I'm on solid ground here.

So were the flames that burned Denethor real? Did Gandalf cloak him, to protect the Steward in his madness, but the Steward ran off before Gandalf could continue to thump him senseless? Or, did Gandalf, a quick study, learn the spell from Saruman and decide that the Steward needed a lesson, thinking that the burned hand teaches best? Again, Gandalf may have started it off with good intentions, yet did not think that Denethor would take so long a dive.

[Beanamir of Gondor]

Honestly? Before RotK:EE, I thought the Movie!Hallows were situated right behind the Steward's chair in the Hall, or thereabouts.
Then EE came along, and the guards carried Faramir for about a mile back to the Hallows, and I thought... Wait a minute... The Leap of the Flaming Steward is totally impossible! Any of the above situations (Nazgul, Shadowfax, guard aid) seem more plausible than Denethor doing a three-minute mile while aflame.

And honestly? again? I thought the Leap of the Flaming Steward was cheezy. After the beautiful father-son moment in the Hallows, Denny had to go and ruin it all by getting us yet another long pan-out of Minas Tirith.
As if we hadn't gotten enough with Gandalf/Pippin's ride in.

[Essex]

notice the 'steps' just behind the flaming denethor in Knight of Gondor's last picture?

You see, that was the tradesmen's entrance and exit to the Hallows in Movie Middle-earth. All that walking around just leads them back to a point underneath where we see Denethor run in flames. - a quick run up some stpes and then out over the side.

And anyway, Denthor survived the fall. It obviously gave him a Russian accent, put about 4 stones on him and transported him to the Russian Embassy to have one of his fingers cut off by a CTU agent. (If you can believe he run that long from Rath Dinen then you can believe that!)

[Sarumian]

Originally Posted by Essex

And anyway, Denthor survived the fall. It obviously gave him a Russian accent, put about 4 stones on him and transported him to the Russian Embassy to have one of his fingers cut off by a CTU agent. (If you can believe he run that long from Rath Dinen then you can believe that!)

Moreover, he became a prominent Russian rock-musician...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBkx...eature=related

The song is "Mama, I cant drink any more".

[Knight of Gondor]

Originally Posted by alatar

Have we considered that fire may have not even been real?

I do not think this is plausible. The fire brought by the (senseless) guards was real enough. Pippin feared for Faramir's life because of the flames. And Denethor's groaning in pain couldn't be just put on.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Knight of Gondor

I do not think this is plausible. The fire brought by the (senseless) guards was real enough.

Sure, the fire was real, but was the fire that engulfed the running Steward real? In the scene where Shadowfax attacks Denethor, the film makers realized that the real horse would be afraid of the real flames. Virtual flames were tried, but didn't look real enough, and so a mirror was used - watch the Appendix material on the DVDs for more.

Anyway, so real flames appeared to be cooking Faramir, yet actually were elsewhere. Could Denethor's flames also be illusionary in the same manner? Gandalf did use a white light to chase off the Nazzies once on the Pelennor Fields, and so we can assume that he had knowledge of optics.

Pippin feared for Faramir's life because of the flames. And Denethor's groaning in pain couldn't be just put on.

Pippin was mostly concerned that his wardrobe's future prospects were protected. And, speaking of Pippin, I too groaned in pain when the hobbit and his partner bounced on Frodo's bed later in the movie, yet I wasn't on fire (though may have wished that it were so).

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Or else they are suggesting something about Denethor's sense of himself as having proportions almost approaching that of a deity.

But Denethor was consumed, both physically and mentally. And even the memory of the Leaping Steward of Fire will burn out eventually.

So, I'm not sure if the bush or the fire was actually doing the speaking,

No one reported any last words from the Steward, flaming or not, after he hit the ground, or at least more than "whoop!"

Originally Posted by davem

We know Denethor wore armour under his robes, so it is possible that the flames of the Pyre simply burned off the robes & that the 'flames' were actually a reflection of the fires burning the lower levels of the city.

Think that it would depend on what he wore under the armour. We bought a stainless steel tea kettle, more for looks than utility (who drinks tea?), and I've burned my fingers more than once when grabbing the steel handle, as the metal conducts heat rather well. If Denethor wore dish towels or a garment made of oven mitts under his steel rings, then he may have survived the initial fire well enough to run with the illusionary one as far as he did.

Freak atmospheric conditions...

In the world of Middle Earth, one only wonders what would be considered freak atmospheric conditions...

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

Think that it would depend on what he wore under the armour. We bought a stainless steel tea kettle, more for looks than utility (who drinks tea?), and I've burned my fingers more than once when grabbing the steel handle, as the metal conducts heat rather well. If Denethor wore dish towels or a garment made of oven mitts under his steel rings, then he may have survived the initial fire well enough to run with the illusionary one as far as he did.

It is a little know fact of Middle-earth history that Denethor was a bit of a fashion icon & began the short lived trend of wearing asbestos underwear. This accounts for his lack of fear at being around smokers like Gandalf, whose pipe tended to spew out large sparks when he got angry, igniting unwary bystanders. Gandalf usually explained this as the result of the Secret Fire but nobody believed him. In actual fact the story of Denethor lighting his & Faramir's pyre in a final desperate act of self immolation was Gandalf's own invention (supported by Pippin): the truth was that Denethor had taken the feverish Faramir to the Hallows because it was the coolest place in the city & Gandalf pursued him there to steal his underwear for protection among the fires raging on the First Level (Gandalf's exact words being, as reported by a drunken Pippin many years later, 'I need his pants more than he does!!'). In the angry confrontation that ensued sparks from Gandalf's pipe ignited the sheets on Faramir's bier which Denethor in a last, desperate act of fatherly devotion attempted to extinguish. This lead to Denethor's cloak & tunis bursting into flame. The Steward was of course immune to harm due to his protective undergarments & on seeing that Pippin had put out the fire, made a run for it with Gandalf in hot pursuit crying out to the guards to stop the fleeing Steward in the now infamous words 'Stop that man & remove his pants & vest!! I have a battle to fight!!'

Denethor managed to avoid the stunned guards & run out to the court of the Fountain where he hoped to extinguish the flames & steal a horse & make for his summer residence in the vales of Lebennin, but Gandalf was too close behind & Denethor chose Death rather than dishonour & hurled himself from the pinacle with the cry 'You'll have to pry them from my cold, dead botty!'

Thus perished Denethor son of Ecthelion......

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Have we considered that fire may have not even been real?

When Gandalf begged Saruman for information outside Orthanc, Saruman sent down a fireball to the new White Wizard. Gandalf astride Shadowfax was unharmed by the blast, and so:

• Gandalf is able to create a cloak of sorts that protects those so covered from fire, yet permits the fire to burn as it would on the outside, or

• Gandalf saw the fire for what it was, just another mind trick. Saruman's voice did not fool Gandalf, and though the others saw the flames, Gandalf did not and so was unharmed. There is precedent in at least two Star Trek episodes (original and NextGen), as well as in the 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' movie, and so I feel that I'm on solid ground here.

So were the flames that burned Denethor real? Did Gandalf cloak him, to protect the Steward in his madness, but the Steward ran off before Gandalf could continue to thump him senseless? Or, did Gandalf, a quick study, learn the spell from Saruman and decide that the Steward needed a lesson, thinking that the burned hand teaches best? Again, Gandalf may have started it off with good intentions, yet did not think that Denethor would take so long a dive.

Oh, gosh, I've just thought of something that might relate to fire things. I think we have a precedent of some sort here.

Moses is reported as seeing the Lord speaking to him out of a burning bush. I seem to recall that the bush was not consumed. So, I'm not sure if the bush or the fire was actually doing the speaking, but something along the lines of imperishable was part of the story.

So, in the hands of lesser writers than those of Holy Writ, we could have the Steward speaking to us out of flames and not being consumed. Thus we would be able to conjecture a very long run on the part of Denethor (whoops, almost wrote Denimthor there) unhampered by the flames.

This would suggest that PJ and the other filmic writers have a unique understanding of Flame Imperishable in Tolkien's works. Or else they are suggesting something about Denethor's sense of himself as having proportions almost approaching that of a deity.

[davem]

It is of course possible that the flames were an optical illusion. We know Denethor wore armour under his robes, so it is possible that the flames of the Pyre simply burned off the robes & that the 'flames' were actually a reflection of the fires burning the lower levels of the city. Freak atmospheric conditions could have easily produced this effect (as any fule kno this is the well known 'Molesworth effect' - named after the famous Prof. Molesworth, Old Boy of St Custard's skool, & formulated after a series of experiments involving a flamethrower & his long suffering assistant, one Fotherington-Thomas.)