CKII: Mercia-on-the-Nile

Last time, I took Mercia from a petty kingdom to an empire spanning the British Isles and including the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The year is only 971, so there's still a lot of time left. The one continuing objectice I have is improving the status of women; it'd be pretty cool to get absolute cognatic succession. Other than that, though, my only major goal is to survive to the end, so I'm going to see what life throws at us.

We begin in the reign of Emperor Gedalbert the Cruel (971-978), first Emperor of Mercia, King of Mercia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Jerusalem. Of these, I was very happy to immediately give away the crown of England to one of my vassals and just not have to care about the dukes of Wessex and Hwicce and what have you. They're now someone else's problem. Instead, my immediate plan is to broaden our holdings in the Middle East. Islamic Egypt is currently squeezed between Abyssinia, Italian North Africa, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. I'm going to try to make it worse for them.

We succeeded in securing a foothold in the Nile delta. However, life did have something to throw at us.

Before the plague struck, I had the opportunity to vassalize the Knights Hospitallers, because I'm King of Jerusalem. I absolutely recommend doing this! A vassal holy order won't fight for anyone else, and requires no maintenance; it's simply fantastic, and exactly what I need in order to expand my realm at the expense of the infidels.

Meanwhile...

The Pope wasn't exactly helpful.

Eventually, even the Emperor himself caught the plague.

At the age of 57, freed from his demons, Emperor Gedalbert the Cruel, founder of the Mercian Empire, died of the Black Death.

**

Of Emperor Gedalbert's twelve children, only two survived to adulthood: his daughter Viviane and his successor, Emperor Gléowine the Fat (978-1002). Not that even that was immediately obvious, because Gléowine also caught the plague during an inconclusive campaign in the Sinai.

Unlike his father, however, Gléowine got better.

Now that I have the Reaper's Due, pandemics are really something. They don't just kill characters; they ravage provinces, decimating your levies and wrecking the economy, and even dropping the province's supply limit, meaning armies will just melt away. So the Black Death shut down our conquest of the Middle East completely.

Once the plague passed and everyone began to recover, we selected a slightly softer target for expansion: Portugal.

It was a success!

As you can see, we barely got in on the carving up of Muslim Iberia, with Acquitaine already making inroads on North Africa. I just like the idea of Portugal as a stopping-off point to the Holy Land. Soon after, we also completed the conquest of the Nile delta.

While this was happening, England somehow became a republic.

As near as I can figure it out, this is what happened. The King of England also ended up with a duchy in the Holy Land, because I only had so many Iceling men to hand all the titles to at the time. He launched a series of more or less ill-advised holy wars on his Muslim neighbors, and managed to deplete his treasury and forces so badly that the merchant republic of Man pressed a claim on England and won. Hence, the Most Serene Republic of England.

Meanwhile, Gléowine arranged a diplomatic marriage for his son, and went mad.

Even as a lunatic, he was able to consolidate our hold on Egypt.

The imperial demesne is now the duchies of Mercia (actually only the county of Leicester) and Damietta. Shortly after crowning himself King of Egypt, Emperor Gléowine passed away. He died King of Mercia, Ireland, Portugal, Asturias, Egypt and Jerusalem.

**

Emperor Mordred the Confessor (1002-1056) took the throne at the age of 7, with the Queen of Scotland as his regent. I don't know why the Mordreds get the cool nicknames, but I'm okay with it. This is what Mercian Egypt looked like on his accession:

In addition to expanding our holdings in Egypt, we were also able to raise the status of women to Notable, meaning I can now have a female marshal if I want to. This is actually the biggest thing holding me back from moving my capital to Egypt: as technology is county-based, I need one more level of Tolerance in Leicester to unlock full gender equality and cognatic succession in the empire. If I moved to Damietta, we'd be stuck with their tech levels. I'm actually not entirely sure how this works. If I achieve full equality, the realm law will stay in force even if I lose the underlying technology. However, if I do that and usurp an existing kingdom, I don't think I'd be able to change the succession to cognatic there. So that might be a problem. Luckily, technology does spread between demesne provinces, so we don't need to abandon all the tech points we invested in Leicester.

To speed our technological progress, I decided it would be a good idea for Emperor Mordred to join the Hermetic Society. This had some very tangible benefits:

I've complained before that warfare in Crusader Kings 2 isn't really all that interesting, and I stand by that. However, Mordred did manage to have an interesting war. While most of the great Muslim powers were waging an unsuccesful jihad against Abyssinia for Yemen, I figured this was a good time to make a grab for the duchy of Nefoud, i.e. the counties between the Syrian desert and the Empty Quarter, right in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. As it turned out, Abyssinia defeated the jihad sooner than expected, and everyone turned on us instead. My army, including the Hospitallers, was soundly defeated by a gigantic Muslim force from as far as Nepal.

While they retreated back to the Holy Land, I rounded up all the available holy orders - the Knights of Santiago and Calatrava - and started shipping them to the Middle East. The Muslim forces started besieging my holdings in Arabia, and to be honest, I'd have taken a white peace, but my defeat put the warscore too far underwater. However, the Muslim army split up, and when the holy orders arrived, I figured I'd see if I could beat at least some of the isolated armies, maybe that would raise my warscore enough for a white peace.

Shockingly, we did rather better than that. The Muslim armies came at us piecemeal, and with our heavy cavalry, we were able to beat all of them one by one. After the last force was routed and a Nepalese nobleman captured, the warscore was so firmly on our side that I started besieging the target counties again, and ended up winning the whole thing.

Here's Mercian Arabia:

Also, while I was busy in Arabia, the Queen of Scotland launched a holy war on Prussia, and won.

And somehow, the Kingdom of Italy was taken over by the Byzantines, with the former Iceling kings of Italy now ruling the Kingdom of Africa.

Holding Nefoud let us create the Kingdom of Arabia.

Unfortunately, our expansion in Egypt and Arabia was so succesful that we accumulated a horrible threat score, which meant defensive pacts against us everywhere. So I figured Mordred could have a quiet semi-retirement, maybe writing a book:

Or splurging the entire treasury on some imperial regalia.

Meanwhile, an Iceling somehow secured the throne of Acquitaine.

So here I was, actually kinda enjoying the breather. Until the Pope had other ideas.

So off we went.

Eventually, after half a century on the throne, Emperor Mordred passed away during the crusade. Here he is after a disastrous and unsuccesful surgical intervention. Mordred leaves behind some pretty impressive regalia, a secure demesne in Egypt and the kingdom of Arabia.

**

So, in about a century, three Mercian emperors conquered Egypt and Arabia. The Muslim dynasties that used to control the Middle East are now pretty much gone, with the Arabian peninsula split between Mercia and the Abyssinians, with some Muslim provinces still clinging on to the coasts of the Persian Gulf. They're not the problem, though: the problem is that I now have a land border with the Seljuk empire. A massive Turkish realm stretching out into the steppes, the Seljuks can mobilize over 40 000 warriors. I won't be succesful against them on my own. If they get engaged elsewhere, however, I might have a chance at grabbing the last few provinces of Arabia.

To take full advantage of these opportunities, I've effectively moved the imperial demesne to Egypt. I'm still planning to move my capital there, as soon as we've finished researching Tolerance in Leicester. Right now, though, there's a crusade in Finland, and that will be the subject of my next post.

Let's Read Tolkien 43: The Riders of Rohan

Dusk deepened.

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli trail the orcs deep into the night, leaving the river behind and entering the highlands of the Emyn Muil. There they rest for a while before dawn, and rediscover the trail when they come across five dead Mordor orcs, who they judge were killed by the larger orcs of Isengard.

As dawn breaks, the three hunters descend from the Emyn Muil to the grasslands of Rohan. Aragorn sees the White Mountains of Gondor to the south, and gives them a bit of poetry, but the orc-trail leads away northwest, and they follow it. Suddenly Aragorn spots tracks leading away from the trail: a hobbit's bare feet, and a brooch from Lórien, and orc-boots returning to the trail. So they judge that at least one hobbit was still alive.

As night falls, the Three Hunters have a choice to make: do they pursue the orcs in the dark, or rest? By night, they might lost the trail or miss something like the brooch, and they need rest; but the orcs are unlikely to stop, so they may lose any chance of catching them.

"You give the choice to an ill chooser," said Aragorn. "Since we passed through the Argonath my choices have gone amiss."

No argument here. They rest, which is to say Aragorn and Gimli sleep, and Legolas kind of hangs around. At dawn, they resume the pursuit for another day, but they feel the malice of Saruman slowing them down.

The orc-trail leads into a line of downs, which rise toward the uplands of Rohan and beyond it, the forest of Fangorn. On the fourth morning of their chase, the Three Hunters spot a body of riders heading back along the trail. Behind them, smoke rises into the sky. Aragorn decides they might as well wait for the riders, and gives a worried Gimli a short briefing on Rohan and the Rohirrim.

They are proud and wilful, but they are true-hearted, generous in thought and deed; bold but not cruel; wise but unlearned, writing no books but singing many songs, after the manner of the children of Men before the Dark Years.

We also learn that the Rohirrim are kin to the men of Dale and the Beornings, and Eorl the Young led them out of the North long ago. The rumor Boromir had mentioned, that they send tribute to Mordor, is brought up, but Aragorn firmly disbelieves it.

Soon enough, the mail-clad riders approach, and ride right by the three hunters in their elven-cloaks. As the last of them are passing by, Aragorn calls out to them, and they quickly surround the trio. The leader of the riders interrogates him, and Aragorn identifies himself simply as Strider, who hunts orcs. When he's asked why the riders didn't see them, with a suspicion that they're elves, Aragorn reveals they passed through the Golden Wood and have the favor of its Lady. This makes Éomer, who now introduces himself, suspect them of being sorcerers, and Gimli and Legolas nearly commit suicide by Rohirrim by trying to pick a fight with him over Galadriel's honor. Aragorn saves them from their idiocy by intervening and apologizing to Éomer.

Éomer demands to know Aragorn's real name, and assures him that the people of Rohan do not serve Sauron. Aragorn then introduces himself as the Heir of Isildur, and shows him the Sword that was Broken reforged. Éomer is impressed, but when Aragorn asks after the hobbits, his lieutenant laughs and scorns the Three Hunters as "wild folk" with fairy-tales. Éomer dismisses his troops and continues the conversation alone.

He assures Aragorn and company that there were no halflings among the orcs they killed. Aragorn tells him they set out from Rivendell on a secret errand with Boromir and Gandalf. Éomer warns him that Gandalf isn't popular in Rohan, but is distraught to hear that both Gandalf and Boromir are dead. They speak of the coming war against Sauron, and Éomer confides that there is division in Rohan. Saruman they are already at war with, as he has claimed lordship over Rohan. The trouble is that the law of Rohan forbids strangers to wander the land without leave from the king. Eventually, they strike a deal: Éomer lends them horses (Legolas and Gimli share), in exchange for Aragorn's promise to return them to the king's seat in Edoras when their hunt is complete.

Riding down the orc-trail, the hunters find a burial-mound for the fallen riders, and a smoking pile of ashes where the bodies of the orcs were burned. They search, but night falls without any of them finding any trace of Merry or Pippin. They make camp by the edge of the forest. Early in the night, a cloaked old man appears at the edge of the firelight; Aragorn rises to greet him, but he vanishes, and the companions find their horses gone. Gimli is convinced it was Saruman, stealing their horses; whoever it was, he does not return.

**

As with the first two books, the second chapter of Book Three also contains a lengthy conversation that sets the scene for the rest of the book; this time, it's Aragorn's briefing on the Rohirrim and his talk with Éomer.

I've always understood Rohan and the Rohirrim to be based on the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia; their names and language are essentially Old English (Letters, 144), and the two kingdoms share the same name: the Mark, as in march, borderland. Éomer himself takes his name from a probably mythical king of the Angles from before they came to Britain. For whatever reason, though, the Rohirrim have a more intimate bond with their horses than the Mercians ever had, seeming almost nomadic in this first encounter.

Tolkien was insistent that Middle-earth wasn't intended to be an imaginary place, but rather our world:

I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. The name is the modern form (appearing in the 13th century and still in use) of midden-erd > middel-erd, an ancient name for the oikoumenë, the abiding place of Men, the objectively real world, in use specifically opposed to imaginary worlds (as Fairyland) or unseen worlds (as Heaven or Hell). The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.
(Letters, 183)

So if we take Tolkien seriously, then in some real sense, the people of Rohan are some kind of equestrian pre-Mercians. Where the Shire is a comfortable and middle-class anachronism of the English countryside, Rohan is proto-England: a land of warriors, songs and horses. It's worth remembering this, because in my mind at least, it means that to the extent that Tolkien intended the Lord of the Rings to be a mythology for England (Letters, 131), the bearers of that mythology to the future - and in that sense, the central people of the story - are the Rohirrim. This is why I quoted their description at length: they're Tolkien's own, white noble savages, as it were: a simpler, idealized, Northern Englishness.

Re-reading this, I'm struck by how truculent Gimli and Legolas are toward Éomer. Legolas especially! You'd think that at his age, he'd have picked up better manners somewhere along the way. Luckily Aragorn makes a succesful diplomatic intervention, or one part of the Fellowship would have come to a catastrophically stupid end.

Finally, there's a nice quote from Éomer's conversation with Aragorn that I think speaks to one of Tolkien's great themes:

"The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and Sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?"

"As he ever has judged," said Aragorn. "Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house."

In the foreword, Tolkien mentions the oppression of the shadow of war, and while the whole conversation between Aragorn and Éomer concerns it, to me, this is one of the exchanges that really gets to the gist of it: when times get tough, so to speak, what are we to do? In a time when the particular evil that Tolkien's Britain was at war with when he wrote this is rising again, I find both Éomer's confusion and Aragorn's answer quite poignantly contemporary. In terms of the story, Aragorn and company's time in the wilderness is over, and they're now caught up in the buildup to war.

Also, Aragorn is effectively saying that the personal is political, which I find absolutely delightful.

**

Next time: orcs.

LotR LCG: Against the Shadow cycle

"If a man must needs walk in sight of the Black Gate, or tread the deadly flowers of Morgul Vale, then perils he will have.
- Aragorn, in the Lord of the Rings, Book II, chapter 2

It's been ages since I've done one of these posts! I've been taking a bit of a break from the Lord of the Rings LCG, but the Wilds of Rhovanion announcement got me excited to play again, and while we were waiting for the Haradrim cycle adventure packs to turn up, we finished working through the Against the Shadow cycle, where our heroes become involved in Gondor's war with Sauron.

John Howe: The Witch King, no date given.

**

The Steward's Fear - DL 5

In the first adventure pack of the series, our heroes have been sent to investigate a conspiracy in Minas Tirith. The setup is a little fiddly, with an encounter deck, an underworld deck and a secret randomly selected villain and plot. The fiddliness is worth it, though, for the extra replay value, since each combo of plot and villain will be different. The quest itself is fairly straightforward; you fight off various brigands and whatnot, and advance by exploring locations. Funny how people hate Hills of Emyn Muil because it's all about clearing locations, but The Steward's Fear is very popular and the key mechanic is... clearing locations.

We first tried this three-handed with a friend's hobbit deck, and had a blast. It's like Peril in Pelargir, only better, and because of both theme and replayability, I'd give it an edge over Escape from Umbar as the best urban quest in the game. Highly recommended!

Card spotlight: Gondorian Shield

Outlands are all well and good, but where would we be without Gondorian Shield? Buff Beregond up to a ridiculous defense of 6 for free, give good old Eleanor a respectable 4 defense, or best of all, turn Boromir into a monster defender. Such an excellent, straightforward little attachment that's never gone out of use since it turned up.

**

The Drúadan Forest - DL 6

After uncovering the plot in the last scenario, our heroes are pursuing the conspirators into the Drúadan Forest, the home of the Wood-Woses. The first stages are hard questing, harassed by Woses who use the Prowl mechanic to steal all your resources. Soon enough, you find the villains you were looking for: riddled with wose arrows, as you're about to become. At one point, we managed to soak up a ridiculous 12 points of archery damage! If you survive, the last quest stage is a siege quest, where you quest using Defense, and as a surprise twist, use Willpower instead of Attack.

We enjoyed ourselves! Jubayr was excellent here with his shadow-discarding ability, and a surprisingly welcome contributor to the siege questing in the last stage. If your decks can handle archery, this is a pretty good quest. Hobbits, I imagine, would pretty much be mowed down immediately. DL 6 feels a bit high, but maybe our decks were particularly well suited to the challenge. In terms of both theme and mechanics, this is actually what the Dunlending quests in the Voice of Isengard and the Ring-maker cycle should have been like.

Card spotlight: Mighty Prowess

The big theme of the player cards in this cycle was mono-sphere, so most of the cards in this adventure pack and quite a few in the others ones as well are tied to decks with heroes from one sphere only. The most noteworthy exception here happens to be the one we've made use of: Mighty Prowess. Since most quests tend to have enemies that share a trait or even two, you'll tend to find a recipient for the damage, at least in multiplayer games. Combine it with Thalin and any kind of readying to wipe out weaker enemies with ease.

**

Encounter at Amon Dîn - DL 5

On their way back to Minas Tirith, the heroes come across a nobleman, Lord Alcaron, busy trying to defend some Gondorian farmers from ravaging orcs. Obviously our heroes help out.

This is a fairly simple quest, with just two quest stages and a focus on saving villagers faster than the orcs can kill them. I know commenting on the official difficulty levels is kind of pointless, but DL 5 is a particularly egregious overstatement even for them. This quest is in the top 3 easiest quests in the game on the Quest Companion and for good reason; I'd have considered something like DL 2 myself. There's a couple of unpredictable shadow effects and it's not impossible to fail at protecting the villagers, but at least decently built decks should have an easy time of it.

This is a fairly thematic quest, though, and some of the encounter card art is quite nice. Because it's also quite easy, this really wouldn't be a bad quest for new players to try out. In the end, I think the fairly thin encounter deck and rather uninspired quest deck keep this from being a particularly good quest, but there's really nothing wrong with it either.

Card spotlight: Ithilien Archer

There's not a whole lot of ranged attack outside Tactics or Leadership, which immediately makes this a useful card to have in multiplayer games. Only 2 attack isn't much, but with several players, it's what you combine it with that counts, and it's that much more likely that you'll get to make use of the ability as well. If I ever get around to building one of those trap decks, I'm pretty sure I'll be including this guy in it.

**

Assault on Osgiliath - DL 8

After rescuing villagers, our heroes take part in the fighting around the ruins of Osgiliath. Another slightly different quest, this one revolves around trying to claim locations from the enemy and defend them.

We gave this a few shots, and it's not a bad quest; it's fairly combat-focused, with some pretty tough enemies, but DL 8 still feels a bit high. The weird thing about this quest is how random the actual difficulty can be; because the victory condition is holding every Osgiliath location in play, games can end very quickly if there are only a couple. Especially solo games can end very suddenly, while multiplayer games can degenerate into massive slogs through hordes of enemies. Unpredictability aside, this isn't a bad quest, but perhaps a little more like the huge battles of the Heirs deluxe than we'd like.

Card spotlight: Palantír

The most interesting card in the game that I've never gotten around to using. When I eventually get bored with my current deck,I'm going to come up with something focused on encounter deck manipulation, and it will definitely include a Palantír.

**

The Blood of Gondor - DL 7

With Osgiliath retaken, our heroes pursue the retreating enemy into Ithilien, with the help of Lord Alcaron and Objective Ally Faramir. With both battle and siege questing on offer, this is another fighty quest where you get ambushed by orcs through a hidden card mechanic. Special bonus points for very atmospheric card art.

This is a fairly straightforward quest, and either we got very lucky, or the difficulty level is a bit on the high side, because we passed this on our first go, despite losing a hero early. The hidden card mechanic isn't bad, but the enemies are oddly lackluster for this cycle, and the whole thing feels a bit short and sort of like a missed opportunity to do something more interesting.

Card spotlight: Caldara

Not every hero in this game gets a deck type named after themselves, but Caldara decks are an entire world of their own. All you need is a reliable way to get lots of expensive Spirit characters into the discard pile, Sword-thain for an extra hero and ally Imrahil to fill in while Caldara's gone, and you're in business.

**

The Morgul Vale - DL 7

In the climactic finale to the cycle, Faramir has been captured by the orcs, and our heroes pursue them into the valley of Minas Morgul itself. There, they must fight their way past three end bosses I mean captains to free Faramir.

This is a somewhat combat-heavy quest, but it's well executed and pretty atmospheric. We threated out on the last quest stage, but definitely enjoyed ourselves! A proper end to the cycle, and a fitting bookend to the Steward's Fear.

Card spotlight: Spear of the Mark

I don't know why Dúnhere decks are so much fun, but they just are. There's something deeply satisfying about charging into the staging area to beat up on an enemy that can't attack back, or trigger some horrible ability contingent on engaging you. Because Dúnhere's attack isn't actually that high, he needs some help to knock out tougher enemies, and that's why you get this spear. Simply an indispensable accessory to a fun deck.

**

So, that's an adventure pack cycle. We didn't particularly enjoy the Heirs of Númenor deluxe expansion, with its heavy emphasis on combat, but the associated cycle is much better. The Steward's Fear is an excellent quest, as is the Morgul Vale, and Encounter at Amon Dîn is a fun enough adventure for less experienced players. So there's something here for everyone. Definitely a pleasant surprise after the deluxe!

**

Finally, my deck. It's been so long I can barely remember what's in it! One thing I'm sure of, though, is that now that we've got a copy of the last saga expansion, the Mountain of Fire, there's no way I'm not including Elladan and Elrohir in my unique character -themed deck. Other than that, I'm quite happy with what I've got.

56 cards; 29 Spirit, 23 Lore, 4 neutral; 26 allies, 12 attachments, 16 events, 2 side quests. Starting threat 28.

Arwen Undómiel (TDR)
Idraen (TTT)
Rossiel (EfMG)

Allies: 26 (17/8/1)
Jubayr (TM)
Northern Tracker x2
Súlien (TCoC)
Elrohir (TMoF)
Lindir (TBoCD)
Rhovanion Outrider (ToTD) x2
Bilbo Baggins (TRD)
Galadriel's Handmaiden (CS) x3
West Road Traveler (RtM) x3
Dúnedain Pathfinder (RAH) x2
Elladan (TMoF)
Gléowine x2
Mablung (TLoS)
Warden of Healing (TLD) x3
Ioreth (ASoCH)
Gandalf (OHaUH)

Attachments: 12 (6/6)
Unexpected Courage x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x2
Light of Valinor (FoS) x2
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Cloak of Lórien (CS) x2
The Long Defeat (TBoCD) x2

Events: 16 (5/8/3)
A Test of Will x3
Elven-light (TDR) x2
Leave No Trace (EfMG) x2
None Return (AtE) x3
Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) x3

Side quests: 2
Double Back (EfMG)
Scout Ahead (TWoE)

**

And here's my partner's mono-Tactics deck.

Team Boromir Mk.4 (57)

Boromir (TDM)
Legolas (Core)
Éowyn (TFotW)

Allies: 15 (11/4)

Eagles of the Misty Mountains (RtM) x2
Honour Guard (TwoE) x3
Winged Guardian (ThfG) x3
Vassal of the Windlord (TDM) x3
Gandalf (Core)
Radagast (AjtR)
Steward of Orthanc (RAH) x 2

Events: 16 (12/4)

Wait No Longer (TM) x3
Feint x3
Foe-Hammer (OhaUH) x3
Sterner than Steel (TFofW) x3
Keen as Lances (EfMG) x3
Justice Shall Be Done (ASoCH)

Attachments: 24 (21/3)

Support of the Eagles (RtM) x2
Vigilant Guard (ASoCH)
Great Yew Bow (OtD) x2
Spear of the Citadel (HoN) x2
Captain of Gondor (TAC) x2
Gondorian Shield (TSF) x2
Grappling Hook (TGH) x3
Mighty Prowess (TDF) x2
Rivendell Blade (RtR) x2
Rohan Warhorse (TvoI) x2
Black Arrow (OtD)
Favor of the Valar x3 (TboCD)

Side quests: 2 (1/1)

Keep Watch (BtS)
Gather Information (TLR)

Let's Read Tolkien 42: The Departure of Boromir

Aragorn sped on up the hill.

Book 3 opens with Strider running up the Hill of Seeing, trying to find Frodo's trail. He spots it, and sees that Frodo went up the hill, and then back down again. Aragorn is indecisive, but finally opts to go up to the hilltop, where he sees nothing. However, soon enough he hears a commotion and orc-cries in the woods below, followed by the horn of Boromir. At the foot of the hill, he finds only Boromir, surrounded by over twenty dead orcs but dying from his wounds. Boromir admits he tried to take the Ring, and reports that the orcs captured "the Halflings". He dies before he can answer Aragorn's questions.

Legolas and Gimli find Aragorn weeping by Boromir's corpse. They feel they have to give Boromir some kind of burial, and decide to send his body over the falls of Rauros in a boat, with the weapons of his slain enemies at his feet. As they prepare the boat-burial, they make several discoveries. First, Aragorn finds two of the barrow-knives the hobbits carried, no doubt discarded by the orcs. Among the orcs, they find several that are larger and better armed than the others; their shields bear the device of a white hand, and their helms have white S-runes. Sauron, Aragorn notes, does not use his "right name", or permit it to be spoken; they deduce that the orcs are in the service of Saruman. Finally, when they reach the shore, they find one of the boats missing.

First things first, though: Boromir is put in a boat and launched into the river. The boat floats down the river, and Aragorn and Legolas sing a dirge for Boromir.

After the funeral boat disappears from view, Aragorn tries to interpret what happened to the missing boat. They deduce that Sam and Frodo left on their own, which means Merry and Pippin have been captured by orcs. With the Ringbearer gone, Aragorn decides to follow the orcs, hoping to rescue the hobbits. The three hunters pick up the orcs' trail and take off after them.

**

So, the Two Towers starts off with the final collapse of the Fellowship: Frodo and Sam go off one way, everyone else the other, and we start off following everyone else. With the identification of Saruman's orcs, both of the titular towers make an appearance.

In the History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien notes the very different experiences of Frodo and Aragorn on Amon Hen: Frodo sees far and wide, while Aragorn sees practically nothing (The Treason of Isengard, HarperCollins 2002, p. 380-381). In an earlier draft (p. 374), J.R.R. Tolkien had specified that the Ring made it harder for Frodo to see, and it was the power of Amon Hen that gave him his vision; some of this survives in the final narrative ("the Ring was upon him"), and leaves it entirely unclear why Aragorn, without the interference of the Ring, sees nothing. Maybe he's just too distracted.

Speaking of Aragorn, his leadership of the Company of the Ring really didn't go great. He was indecisive, and when panic broke out at Parth Galen, he failed to lead and instead ran off with everyone else. At least he tried to track Frodo, but he learned nothing from his ascent of Amon Hen, and instead missed both Frodo's departure and Boromir's final battle. "All that I have done today has gone amiss," he says, and he's not wrong. In a way, the decision to chase the orcs instead of trying to find Frodo is also a bit of an abdication of duty, and the joy he takes in it reinforces this. Aragorn never wanted to lead the Fellowship, after all: he wanted to go to Gondor with Boromir, to be king. Here he leaves the Ring to Frodo and Sam, and heads for his own destiny instead.

Luckily, though, not before giving Boromir a moving and delightfully pagan funeral.

Next time: horses.

CKII: The Mercian Supremacy

I did a sort of stress-relieving project over the new year where I finished Bethesda games I hadn't gotten around to finishing, i.e. Skyrim, Fallout 4 and - finally! - Morrowind. With that out of the way, my next gaming project had to be another shot at Crusader Kings 2. With so many new DLCs and patches out, I figured I needed to get reacquainted with how it all works, especially now that Monks and Mystics promises to make playing in Catholic western Europe a little more interesting. I'm hoping I get the opportunity to be a crypto-Cathar or a demon worshipper!

As a faithful Tolkien fan, I'll be playing as Mercia from the 769 start, looking to recreate the Mercian Supremacy and make it last. In Tolkien's Middle-earth, Rohan (the Mark!) is basically Mercia with more horses. In Crusader Kings 2, Mercia in 769 is actually a fairly auspicious start; you have a decent realm and a strong king in Offa, and many of the neighboring counties and petty kingdoms start as your tributaries. The biggest problem is that the Iceling dynasty is absolutely tiny: it's just Offa and his family. So expanding the dynasty is very much a priority. Other early game goals are founding the kingdom of Mercia and instituting primogeniture. Later on, I plan to take a shot at the achievement for holding the kingdoms of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, which I hope to unify into the Mercian empire. Also, with the Conclave DLC in play, I'll be trying to advance the status of women in Mercia.

**

A historical figure, the real Offa was the greatest king of Mercia, perhaps best known for Offa's Dyke, which you sadly can't replicate in the game. Here, he was King Offa the Wise (769-810).

He was my starting character, and managed a longer reign than the real Offa. As you can see, he had two sons and eight daughters, and lived to the considerable age of eighty. Offa expanded the realm to Lindsay and usurped the duchies of York and Hwicce, and used the tribute money to lay down an excellent foundation for the Mercian economy. His daughters made advantageous marriages, some in France and Byzantium, some matrilineally to bring great warriors to Mercia. He earned his sobriquet from his dedication to learning, as I worked to collect enough cultural technology points to unlock primogeniture succession.

Realistically, I wasn't looking to achieve anything spectacular in Offa's reign. The Mercian start, with nearly all of the neighboring kingdoms starting as tributaries, is pretty darn good, and my goal was to build up the realm for the future and weather the storm:

We caught a huge break early in Offa's reign, when the petty kingdom of Essex surprisingly decided to become Waldensians. As a good Catholic, Offa obviously wasted no time before launching a holy war against the despicable heretics, adding the duchy of Essex to his titles and Essex and Middlesex to the royal demesne.

Soon enough, the Vikings showed up. The small raiding parties are only a nuisance, but then the Danes launched a prepared invasion against us. There were a lot of vikings, but luckily for us, not only could we call all of our tributaries into the war, but most other realms in the British Isles joined us as well. Maybe all of them don't like Mercia, but apparently they liked the prospect of a kingdom of Danish pagan vikings in their midst even less. We threw the unbelievers back into the North Sea.

**

The historical Offa's first son, Ecgfrith, only ruled for five months before passing away. In the game, Offa was succeded by his second son, King Eadsige I the Chaste (810-832), who reigned for over twenty years and added the Isle of Man to the realm.

Eadsige inherited his father's passion for learning, to such an extent that when he became king, he was a member of the Hermetic Society. This was my first experience with the secret societies introduced in Monks and Mystics, and to be honest, it was a bit underwhelming. As a Hermetic, you get occasional prompts to do a mission, which usually consists of exchanging money for secret knowledge points that advance you in the society. I found the events pretty repetitive and boring; apparently it's possible to get some useful artifacts as a hermeticist, but I never saw any of them.

**

Eadsige's son, King Eadsige II (832-842) was destined for a short reign, but there was one exploit I'm particularly proud of, and it took place on the Isle of Man. I wanted to set up a vassal merchant republic fairly early, so they'd have plenty of time to expand and make me lots of money. As a coastal one-county duchy, the Isle of Man is a great place for a vassal republic.

The problem was, I was holding the castle, when creating a republic requires handing the county title to the mayor holding the city. He was just some random lowborn dude, and I didn't want the glorious Manx Hansa to be run by House Random. But I can't just revoke his title for no reason, since that would constitute tyranny and make all my vassals hate me. What to do?

What I did was have my king pick the Intrigue focus and start spying on the hapless mayor. It soon became apparent that there was absolutely nothing to find, but of course I didn't let that stop me. In a surprisingly short amount of time (i.e. luckily), we managed to have him framed for treason, which meant I could arrest him and revoke his title with no protests. And now House Iceling runs a merchant republic on the Isle of Man.

Sorry, Mayor Random.

**

King Eadsige II died in suspicious circumstances only ten years into his reign, when his heir Éomer was less than a year old. After a fifteen-year regency, during which two civil wars broke out (which I barely won), King Éomer the Strange (842-909) took the throne. That's not a Tolkien reference, by the way; rather, Tolkien was making a Mercia reference: Eomer was supposedly the father of the Icel after whom the dynasty is named. I did, however, at this point decide to start taking some liberties with the names of my character's children, especially since Éomer, like his great-grandfather, had so many of them.

They were lucky children, too, because Éomer was spectacularly succesful at expanding the realm, with the very competent help of his Irish chancellor, Cronan, a master at forging claims. Éomer seized Wessex and handed it to his son Wulfhere; we made inroads into Wales by conquering the duchy of Powys and Perfeddwlad, the latter going to Éomer's son Grimbold. We were even able to secure a foothold in Ireland by capturing Dublin, which went to Grimbold's twin brother Helm. Cronan was rewarded for his efforts by a matrilineal marriage into my dynasty, and after we subjugated Kent, his son Sæxbald was made Earl of Surrey.

Other children made succesful marriages abroad, none more so than Accolon, who married the Queen of Italy. She passed away fairly soon afterwards, but not before they produced several Iceling children; she was succeeded to the throne by Éomer, the first Iceling king of Italy. On the queen's death, Accolon returned to Mercia to head the merchant republic of Man and serve as his father's spymaster.

Annexing Wessex brought enough English land under our rule for Éomer to crown himself King of England. To my great surprise, our northern neighbors agreed to swear fealty to him: not just our old rivals, the kings of Northumbria, but lords all the way north to Teviotdale. This gave us a foothold in Scotland, and with the Pictish kingdom wracked by a civil war and fighting off viking invaders, we grabbed Lothian and had to reach out to the next generation, appointing one of Éomer's grandsons the Duke of Lothian.

Éomer also continued his predecessors' work on improving the demesne, with excellent results. Since I have the Reaper's Due DLC, our demesne provinces were able to keep accumulating prosperity even as we fought wars on our borders, and we were getting some pretty decent taxes from our merchant republic. Éomer built a new castle in Leicester, founded a city in Northampton, and even managed to trigger the event for adding a new holding slot in Leicester. Also, Éomer advanced the status of women in Mercia from Traditional to Marginal.

The one cloud on this excellently succesful horizon was the vikings. On the continent, Charlemagne's legacy had collapsed into something like half a dozen kingdoms, and at some point (I wasn't really paying attention), the vikings had conquered Germamy. I only really noticed this when they conquered a couple of independent provinces in England with worryingly large armies. Luckily, those provinces later rebelled and threw off the heathen yoke, but the prospect of an invasion from Germany became alarmingly real.

However, this also meant that Germanic pagans were holding Cologne, one of the holy sites of Catholicism, in the year 900. Therefore:

Crusades are a wonderful thing: not only do you have a chance to secure a kingdom title, but every character who commands troops in the de jure kingdom that is the crusade's target gets the Crusader trait, which gives +15 opinion with anyone else who also has it. Therefore, a Crusade is a great opportunity to make your realm run smoother: go yourself, bring your heir and try to rotate every powerful vassal in, especially if they're young, so that everybody has the Crusader trait. It's amazingly useful if a young Crusader heir succeeds.

Seeing as how Éomer was already going on sixty and had gone mad from studying the stars - hence the sobriquet - I was determined to make the most of this opportunity. Éomer, his heir and even his heir's heir, and all his dukes, came away Crusaders. Even though the Mercian army was the one to capture Cologne, the kingdom of Germany went to the Queen of Burgundy, Swanahild the Daughter of Satan. I question this decision! But at least the immediate pagan threat was gone. King Éomer died at the age of 67, having been king for basically his entire life. He left a much larger realm than he inherited.

**

Unfortunately, his son, King Mordred the Lawgiver (909-932), would find that not even crusader traits help much if your dukes are hell-bent on being complete assholes. Mordred earned his nickname by having a witch burned, but his vassals weren't too keen on having laws given to them. I lost a civil war to increase council power, which I can live with but is annoying. Some Crusader solidarity!

Before the first civil war, Mordred had conquered Clydesdale and Kildare, taking us one step closer to the crowns of Scotland and Ireland, and the annexation of Cornwall let him crown himself King of Wales. After the civil war, I forswore expansion and gathered a war chest for when the bastards tried again, and when they did, our mercenaries crushed them. The rebel Duke of Kent died in my dungeon before I could even decide what to do with him.

Eventually the dukes calmed down, and with Mordred still sitting on a sufficient war chest to kick their ass if they act up, we could resume building the empire. I can't fucking wait to be emperor and delegate all this squabbling to my vassal kings. Here's what the British Isles looked like when Mordred passed away:

Scotland is still in chaos. One of my vassals is trying to seize Carrick from the King of Scotland, and if he succeeds, we're a stone's throw away from usurping the Scottish crown. Ireland is also within reach; we'll start working on a Mercian Ulster. This means I also need to start saving money, because founding a custom empire costs 1000 gold. If I get my hands on the four crowns, I could just form the empire of Britannia, but where's the fun in that?

So far, the game has gone very well! The civil wars in Mordred's reign have been the lowest point, but he recovered. I'm particularly pleased that we've managed to build a fairly stable realm based on primogeniture, while the Karling legacy on the continent keeps falling apart again and again.

**

Back what seems an eternity ago, when Mordred came of age, it transpired he'd fathered a bastard with a maid or something. His father, King Éomer, packed him off to be Baron of Southwell, and made him legitimize the kid. That child grew up to be King Genobaud (932-932).

Also, a satanist. I was somewhat startled after his succession when I got a prompt that said he was alarmed that a fellow devil worshipper was caught! It was the first I heard of this.

Now that I found my side chosen for me, I decided to roll with it and do a satanic ritual to get a demon to possess the Duke of Wessex.

It worked, too! Whether coincidentally or not, Genobaud passed away soon afterwards, having reigned for barely a year. But I did say I hope I get to play as a devil-worshipper, and so I did.

**

Genobaud was succeeded by his possessed son, King Gedalbert the Cruel (932-971), who came to the throne as a minor. What I can only presume were his late father's activities resulted in some interesting childhood experiences.

After young Gedalbert acquired a character modifier called Voice of Satan, I have to admit I wasn't all that surprised when his vassals decided to rebel. They were handily defeated with the aid of Mordred's war chest, but if I'm honest, I'm not sure how well my dukes are going to acclimatize to being ruled by a demon-possessed king. Because stuff like this keeps happening:

To top it all off, shortly after his marriage, Gedalbert discovered he's gay. I'll admit: at that point, things didn't look great. However, the realm was in decent shape, we had a pretty good income, and an opportunity came along: presumably since the previous crusade went so well, the pope called a new one for Jerusalem. Obviously as a gay demon-possessed king, I participated.

It went surprisingly well!

So well, in fact, that we won, making catholicism 2-0 on crusades, and demon king Gedalbert became King of Jerusalem, Voice of Satan and all.

Since literally every single holding in the Kingdom of Jerusalem was now mine, the dynasty-building work done by Gedalbert's predecessors came in damn handy as I scoured the realm for Iceling men to give out the counties and duchies to. I barely found enough to be able to leave our newest kingdom to its own devices for a while. At this point, I had no idea what the life expectancy of the Kingdom of Jerusalem would be, and briefly considered giving it away to a relative, but if I could get at least some tax money out of it to finance my wars in Britain, I figured I was winning. So I stayed King of Jerusalem.

Speaking of the British Isles, Gedalbert's chancellor brought off a real coup when he forged a claim to the duchy of Ulster. A short war later, I was able to create the Kingdom of Ireland. Now only Scotland remained, and Scotland was a mess. Several families had claims on the crown and kept fighting for it; at one point there was a Scandinavian invasion, and even the Manx merchant republic grabbed itself a piece of Scotland. I managed to forge some claims and press others, but with the crown itself constantly under contention, we had to wait to usurp it.

In the meanwhile, a miracle happened.

After I picked the Theology focus for Gedalbert, to try to get rid of at least some mortal sins, I got a random event where a priest offered to exorcize my character. I agreed, but unfortunately nothing happened. The second time, though, the exorcism was a success! The Possessed trait and the Voice of Satan were gone, Leviathan stopped whispering from the fish course, and Gedalbert stopped developing new predilections for heresies or mortal sins. Best of all, he got to keep his military advice from Jesus; a staggering +20 Martial.

Now that he was demon-free, it was an easier task to get the council to approve an improvement in the status of women. Now we should be able to appoint women who are either landed vassals, relatives of the ruler or nuns to serve as spymaster, chancellor or steward on the council, which broadens the talent pool quite a bit.

After all this, there was finally a moment when one of the pretenders to the Scottish crown managed to grab it and be at peace - just long enough for me to usurp their title. And so, on February 13, 971, Gedalbert, King of Mercia, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Jerusalem, crowned himself Emperor of Mercia. That's an even bigger Mercian Supremacy than I was aiming for, so I'll take it!

Here's the first Emperor of Mercia, in all his post-demonic glory.

You'll notice that despite declaring himself gay, Gedalbert was strongly motivated to continue the dynasty, fathering ten children. Sadly, six of them died, most in childhood and of diseases, but I'm hoping at least someone will survive to inherit the throne.

Here's the Mercian Empire on the British Isles, or should that be Mercian Isles?

**

So, we went from the duchy of Mercia to an empire dominating the British Isles in just over 200 years. How? Mostly the slow, costly, old-fashioned way: forging and pressing claims. I did once nearly succeed in uniting the Mercian and Scottish crowns by marriage, but the other side broke the betrothal. So mostly it was a case of forging enough claims to flip a duchy, and flipping enough duchies to take a kingdom.

For those of you who are new to this, that means spending some quality time with the de jure duchies and kingdoms maps, figuring out the optimal path to your goal. It also means money and capable chancellors. Of the latter, I found several through the character search, as well as my best commanders and other specialists. If you matrilineally marry them to women of your dynasty, they'll hopefully produce some capable children as well; the first Mercian earls of Somerset, father and son, served the realm excellently as stewards, while the dukes of York are descended from one of Offa's Khazar commanders.

Also, never neglect your war chest. It is such a relief to have vassal kings to insulate you from the constant squabbles and factions of the dukes. Until you do, you need money on hand: they're only going to rebel when they have more troops than you, and you need mercenaries to make up the difference. Later, the same will be true of the kings. A big reason I've done so well with Mercia is because we had a pretty good income from the beginning with the various tributaries, a lot of which I invested in my demesne. Especially in the earlier starts, you have to invest in the future.

**

Now that I've achieved what I set out to do, what's next for the Empire of Mercia? Here's what Europe looks like in 971:

Looking at how the Iceling kings of Italy are carving up North Africa, and judging from both a failed jihad against Byzantium and the continuing existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Muslim world is in some disarray. So, given that we have a pretty strong foothold in the Middle East, there might be some potential there. Then again, I could also try to get in on the Reconquista, if only to stop Acquitaine from grabbing all of Spain. Scandinavia also looks promisingly fragmented... I don't know! We'll see how long Jesus keeps giving Gedalbert military advice, and where that takes us.

Let's Read Tolkien 41: The Breaking of the Fellowship

Aragorn led them to the right arm of the River.

The Fellowship camps out at Parth Galen, a lawn on the shores of the River. In the night, the edges of Sting glow faintly, meaning orcs are somewhere nearby. On the next day, the Fellowship can no longer postpone their decision: they must choose where to go next. Boromir will head west to Gondor (although if you look at the map, it's southeast; presumably Aragorn, who says this, means the west bank of the river), but should the rest of the Fellowship accompany him, or should they head east, to Mordor, or break up and each go their separate ways? As Ringbearer, it falls on Frodo to make his choice. He asks for a moment alone, and steps away into the woods at the foot of Amon Hen next to them.

Frodo wanders up the hill, which is dotted with old ruins. He sits for a while, thinking, until he finds that Boromir has followed him. Boromir tries to persuade Frodo that the Ring has to be used, not thrown away like "these elves and half-elves and wizards" think; the true Men of Gondor would not be corrupted. Frodo refuses, and as Boromir tries to lay his hands on Frodo, he puts the Ring on and vanishes.

Boromir falls, and realizing what he's done, calls out to Frodo. The hobbit is already gone, though: Frodo is running up the hill and soon reaches the summit. There he finds a high stone seat, the Seat of Seeing that the hill itself is named for. True to its name, he sees a whole lot of stuff, from Mirkwood to the Sea. To the south are the white walls and towers of Minas Tirith, but from there, his eye is inexorably drawn east, to Mordor, where Sauron perceives him. Frodo feels Sauron's gaze looking for him, and throws himself off the high seat. Frodo is torn, terrified by the Eye and at the same time drawn to it. He also hears a voice, imploring him to take off the Ring. For a moment, Frodo is balanced between the Eye and the Voice, until suddenly he is free to choose, and takes off the Ring.

As Frodo finds himself back on the hilltop, his decision is clear: he must go to Mordor and go alone, before the Ring corrupts more of the Company. He hears cries from the wood below, and puts the Ring back on as he heads for the boats.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Fellowship have been talking at the riverside. Legolas suggests they take a vote, and votes for Minas Tirith. Gimli agrees, but adds that he would not leave Frodo. Aragorn suggests that not everyone should go east with Frodo: at least Merry and Pippin should go with Boromir, but they absolutely refuse. Sam makes an intervention, and states that none of the others understand Frodo at all: he isn't debating where to go, he's gathering the courage to say they're going east, and also that he wants to go alone.

Just as they've decided to call Frodo back, Boromir returns. Upon being questioned, he reports he spoke to Frodo, and he put the Ring on and fled. The rest of the Fellowship has a fit and runs off into the woods, shouting for Frodo. Aragorn completely fails to restore order, and entreats Boromir to watch over the young hobbits. He himself runs after Sam, heading for the hilltop.

As in the conversation by the river, so now Sam is the only one who uses his head. Aragorn soon overtakes him, and Sam realizes that Frodo needs a boat to cross the river. He heads back to the boats, and sees one of them heading into the water all by itself. Sam leaps into the water after it and has to be rescued by Frodo. They then cross the River and head east, for Mordor.

**

True to its title, this is the chapter where the Fellowship falls apart; quite literally, when most of them panic and run off into the woods to find Frodo. Like I said earlier, there's no indication that Gandalf had any plan beyond Moria and possibly traveling down the River, and no-one really seems to know what to do next.

Well, okay, Boromir does. I like his dismissive attitude to "elves and half-elves", because he's hitting back at Elrond's racism. In general, Boromir lays out the case for using the Ring - and the corruption of the Ring - very well: the Ring would make him the greatest commander in the world, and with its power he would overthrow Mordor and set himself up as king. Boromir would be no Cincinnatus, nor does he even claim he would be: he wants Power. Again, if this was Harry Potter and the Ring of Power, the objection would be that Boromir is just the wrong person to use the Ring. In Tolkien's world, everyone is the wrong person.

I only started reading Christopher Tolkien's History of the Lord of the Rings when I was already well into this series of posts, and I haven't really referred to it much because I want these posts to focus on the text itself rather than its composition or history. Here, though, I do want to point out that J.R.R. Tolkien at one point planned for Boromir to survive the breaking of the Fellowship and head to Gondor with Aragorn. At this point, Boromir was the son of the king of Gondor -
the idea of Denethor as steward was yet to come - and when the king died in battle, Aragorn would be chosen as his successor and Boromir would defect to Saruman (The Treason of Isengard, HarperCollins 2002, pp. 210-211, 330). Maybe the most interesting thing I've learned from the History is how few of what we now think of as the basic facts of Middle-earth existed when Tolkien started writing, and how late some of them showed up.

Finally, a theological inquiry. Back when I was talking about Chapter 2 of the first book, I made the point that in my opinion, Tom Shippey is wrong when he posits that there are two contradictory theories of evil in the Lord of the Rings: evil as an external force and evil as internal corruption or sin. In fact, these two aren't contradictory at all, and in my mind, the best way to illustrate this is to look very closely at what happens to Frodo on Amon Hen.

When Frodo is caught between the Eye and the Voice on the high seat, he initially can't tell what he himself is saying: is he rejecting Sauron or promising to come to him? He's then very graphically described as "writhing" between the two points of power, namely Sauron and - at least judging from the fact that the Voice calls Frodo a "fool" - Gandalf. Suddenly, though, there's a moment when Frodo can choose for himself, and he takes the Ring off, dispelling the conflict.

If you follow Shippey in wanting evil to be either internal or external, this is all very contradictory. I maintain that this is an absolutely key scene in the book for understanding that for Tolkien, as a Christian, evil is both. Clearly Sauron is an external evil working on Frodo. Even though Frodo passionately wants to resist him, he's not sure he can. Even with Gandalf on his side, he still can't bring himself to reject Sauron. In theological terms, this is because Frodo is fallen: he simply can't reject evil on his own, because to be able to do so would be Pelagianism, a heresy. It's only in a single exceptional moment that Frodo gains the ability to choose. That moment is grace: it is literally God, Eru, reaching down and allowing Frodo to transcend his fallen nature for a split second, and choose. Only God can do this; fallen beings can't transcend the Fall on their own, but only with a divine assist.

So yes, Sauron is certainly an external, active evil who can be resisted, but ultimately, the internal evil of the Fall means that no-one can ultimately defeat evil through their will alone. Boromir was the first of the Company to be corrupted, but Frodo is probably right to think that he wouldn't have been the last - or indeed that Gondor would be no refuge. The message of Amon Hen is that in the end, only divine intervention will save fallen creatures from evil.

**

Whew. This chapter concludes Book Two of the Lord of the Rings, and the first volume: the Fellowship of the Ring. In the first book, Frodo and his hobbit pals traveled with the Ring, but in the second, they got the whole Fellowship, which started tying the story into the broader picture of Middle-earth: dwarves, elves, Gondor - and Mordor. Now the Fellowship is broken, with Frodo and Sam going their own way and everyone else left to fend for themselves.

Next time: the Two Towers.