Let's Read Tolkien 72: The Black Gate Opens

Two days later the army of the West was all assembled on the Pelennor.

Aragorn leads the army of Gondor and Rohan, with assorted hangers-on, toward Mordor. They pass over the Great River at Osgiliath, where it's suggested that they should assault Minas Morgul. Gandalf vetos the idea, because if that's where Frodo is trying to get into Mordor, they need to make sure Sauron is busy somewhere else. So they head for the Black Gate itself. On the way there, as they enter the wastes of Dagorlad, some of the soldiers refuse to go on. Aragorn takes pity on them, and suggests that if they don't want to go on, they should head southwest and capture the island of Cair Andros from the enemy.

Somewhat reduced, Aragorn's army arrives at the Morannon, where they parley with Sauron's herald. He makes even Gandalf completely lose his shit when he presents them with Sam's sword and Frodo's mithril-coat. The parley is unsuccesful, but Pippin comes away from it believing everything is lost, and feeling a sudden sympathy for Denethor. Sauron's armies attack, and in the mêlée, Pippin stabs a troll, but is crushed underneath it.

**

So, the climax of Book Five could hardly be more dramatic!

I talked about the, in my mind, anachronistic industrial wasteland outside the Black Gate when Frodo passed through it, but I'll also repeat another observation: Tolkien is remarkably uninterested in the geography of Gondor. Aragorn's army passes through Osgiliath, the former capital of Gondor, and its heartlands - and pretty much the only thing we hear about is the king's head at the crossroads. We're just about done with Gondor, and I still have no real idea what it's like there.

At the Black Gate, the captains meet the Mouth of Sauron. In Chapter 1, Book III, when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are examining the remains of some Uruk-hai, they have this conversation about the S-rune on their helmets:

"S is for Sauron," said Gimli.
"That is easy to read."
"Nay!" said Legolas. "Sauron does not use the Elf-runes."
"Neither does he use his right name, nor permit it to be spelt or spoken," said Aragorn.

Yet the Mouth of Sauron freely invokes his master's name. Maybe Aragorn was wrong, or the Mouth had a special privilege in this. Either way, the inconsistency isn't explained.

I wondered earlier if Gandalf's and Denethor's contrasting leadership styles weren't a commentary on British generalship in the First World War. I'm almost sure that Aragorn's humane treatment of his wavering troops, and especially their positive response to it, is a commentary on British military discipline in the same war. The British army initially dealt with PTSD and other psychiatric problems as cowardice and handed out death sentences very liberally, although not nearly all of them were carried out. Later - I suspect because they realized they couldn't shoot so many thousands of men! - the diagnosis of "shell shock" was invented, and both traumatized soldiers and conscientious objectors like Siegfried Sassoon were put in what passed for psychiatric care at the time. It would have been extraordinary if Tolkien had had no idea of the brutality of British military discipline, and the ferocious hatred of "cowardice"; Aragorn's conduct in this chapter is so diametrically opposed to it that I don't think it's an accident.

**

That was Book Five! It's certainly the most action-packed of the six, with climactic battles, a role reversal where a hobbit stabs a ghost, and a shameless cliffhanger. For all we talk about Tolkien's scholarship, he knows how to pace a story with the best pulp authors.

Thematically and, in a sense, theologically, the main point of Book Five is to showcase Tolkien's idea of "northern courage". I've talked about it before, but briefly, it's the idea that you do the right thing, whether you think it's going to work out or not. Théoden goes to war; Éowyn stands up to the Witch-King; Aragorn leads his army to certain defeat to buy time for the Ring-bearer. The point is made several times that this isn't a courage people should or even can be coerced into, although we retain some doubts about whether anyone really asked all six thousand soldiers who ended up at the Morannon. It is emphatically not the kind of fascism Tolkien gets accused of, where very important men decide what's best for the people, and force them there at gunpoint - a theme we'll be returning to in the next book.

Finally, for all the valor and martial heroism of Book Five, it does need to be remembered that it's all in the service of Frodo's errand. There's been great and glorious battle, the sagas winning out over Christianity completely there, but at the end of the day, theology prevails: brute force can't defeat the Dark Lord. This isn't Harry Potter and the Ring of Power.

Next time: the last book of the Lord of the Rings.