Please Help me Understand Gondor Stewardship and Kingship

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by denethorthefirst

I can't really support your judgement of Cirion.

I agree, actually -- but.

But, Tolkien wrote a lot of his works as in-universe texts, which means 'Cirion and Eorl' may be presumed to come from a Gondorian source friendly to the steward (who, as you say, cemented a vital alliance by the oath). It would hardly portray him in a negative light - particularly since one of his descendants was still holding the position.

But, while Cirion was absolutely right to do what he did, and granting that he seems to have had the best and purest of motives... that still doesn't mean he had the right to do it. If I ask you to look after my house - or rather, if I ask you to look after my house while I'm away, and then I get kidnapped so you just keep on doing so - that doesn't give you the right to sell off my garden to developers, or move Grandad's ashes from the fireplace to the bedroom. Cirion may legally have had the authority to do what he did, but in a spiritual-ethical-moral sense, I'm not at all sure he did.

Taken to extremes: if Denethor II had made an alliance with Sauron and declared war on Lothlorien, on the grounds that it was in Gondor's best interests, would Aragorn have been bound to honour that alliance, because Denethor had the legal right to make it?

hS