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The Men Who Would Be Steward - Page 5

© Michael Martinez

The Stewards were thus left in a peculiar state. Earnur doesn't seem to have left any instructions about what should happen if he failed to return. Mardil Voronwe ruled in his name for many years, and though Gondor's council probably debated how to choose a new king, the fear of a new Kin-Strife prevented them from choosing a new monarch. Technically, there is no reason to believe that the Line of Anarion really ended with Earnur. That is, there must have been men descended of the male line whose forefathers had married women from non-Numenorean families. But their ancestors had foresworn their heritage, and the tradition-bound Gondorians would not allow those families to repudiate the choices of their fathers. The root of such an iron-clad adherence to tradition must lie in the choices made by Elrond and Elros at the beginning of the Second Age. When Elros chose to be of mortal kind, he bound his descendants to that choice forever, even though some of them later decided they would rather be Elves. The Faithful Numenoreans who founded Arnor and Gondor longed for perpetual youth and immortality, but they accepted the choice of Elros (in fact, most of them probably weren't descended from Elros, but their leaders were). The Faithful would thus have brought with them an understanding that the choice of a father affected all his descendants. Hence, in any matter of law, a family's fate was decided by its current generation. Unborn generations were given no leeway. And that is the truth Boromir had to face, when his father pointed out to him that he was not royal enough to be king. It wasn't that he was deemed to be less of a man, whether by virtue of blood or deeds. Rather, Boromir's ancestor had made a choice which bound all future generations of the family. Boromir may have resented that choice. In one letter, Tolkien referred to Boromir as Faramir's "bossy brother". Boromir's bossiness does reveal itself in numerous passages throughout the text. For example, when the Company of the Ring is trapped in the snow on Caradhras, it is Boromir who takes the initiative and decides that he and Aragorn will forge a path through the snow for the others. When the Hobbits despair of following that same path, Boromir decides that he and Aragorn will carry them. He asserts himself again when the Company is outside of Moria's West-gate. When it becomes apparent that Gandalf has no clue about how to get into Moria, Boromir orders Sam not to let Bill the Pony go just yet. Aragorn is silent on both occasions. Why is that?

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