Boromir

This is the story some might find controversial, but we think it’s consistent with what was intended. We ended up consulting the appendices in great detail. In the appendices Boromir is described as follows:

“So time drew on to the War of the Ring, and the sons of Denethor grew to manhood. Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles.”

Then we wondered what a “man after the sort of King Eärnur of old” might betoken? The Appendices say the following regarding Eärnur:

 “Eärnur was a man like his father in valour, but not in wisdom. He was a man of strong body and hot mood; but he would take no wife, for his only pleasure was in fighting , or in the exercise of arms.”

 He died at age 122, unmarried and without any children (despite being the sole heir to the Kingship of Gondor) after single-handedly attacking the Witch King of Angmar against the advice of the Elves. Obviously he was headstrong and somewhat foolish.

Then we thought about the speech Faramir gave to Éowyn when he was persuading her to marry him where he says to Éowyn:

“You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. … And as a great captain may to a young solider he seemed to you admirable …”

We wondered whether Faramir was talking about his own experience as Captain. What if he was in fact talking of the way he’d seen young soldiers behave towards his brother?

It’s notable that there was another prominent male character, heir to a throne, who was apparently unmarried: Prince Théodred of Rohan. When we get to Rohan he has been slain and—no one really mentions him in any detail—and we never get a sense of him. He is around Boromir’s age, has no children, and there’s no grieving widow.

We came up with a theory about what a “man after the sort of King Eärnur” might be (bearing in mind the euphemism “he never married”). Everything we’ve written is consistent with canon.

The story here is a work in progress. It also explains the oddity that Boromir only has the dream about Imladris once, and why Faramir is so very upset by the fact that Boromir went in his stead on that quest.