Was Boromir a liberal?

[Comrade Jacob]

He seems to think that you can use a tool made by evil (and can only be used for evil) for good instead of destroying it.

I will now call liberals Boromir's (except they don't have heroic deaths)

[DDR]

He seems to think that you can use a tool made by evil (and can only be used for evil) for good instead of destroying it.

I will now call liberals Boromir's (except they don't have heroic deaths)

No, every single setient being who fights for the "free peoples" in LOTR (or Silmarillion for that matter) is a reactionary piece of crap.

[Futility Personified]

Gandalf isn't. Gandalf is magic.

[DDR]

Reactionary magic, is still reactionary.

[Futility Personified]

His fireworks were the highpoint of shiretarian revelry, not to mention the fact that his beard had great revolutionary potential. Is this because you perceive the council of the wise to be vanguardist?

[DDR]

No, it's because all of them are reactonaries, who fight to defend a reactionary system against progress.

[Remus Bleys]

Well thats the problem with analyzing literature.
Just cuz there is obvious anti-capitalist (from a feudalist pov, not a socialist one) themes in the book, whilst making it reactionary, doesn't make it a bad book.

edit: what definition of the word liberal are you using?

[DDR]

I didn't say it's a bad book, I really enjoyed reading it, hell I even love the Dragonlance series, which is even more reactionary, it just happens that I'm pro-orc in the LOTR. What I'm saying it's that Boromir in no way can be a liberal, since he's a reactionary.

[Remus Bleys]

Wasn't there a pro-orc spinoff of LoTR?

[DDR]

The last ringbearer by Kirill Eskov, good book BTW.

[Blake's Baby]

'The Last Ringbearer' it's called. There's a thread on Libcom (if you go there) about Game of Thrones that refers to it. EDIT: yeah, what DDR said.

Boromir might well have been a liberal. He was arguably a republican, rather than a monarchist (though to all intents and purposes the Stewards of Gondor were kings) and he was very into 'humanitarian' war. Boromir as Harry H Truman, perhaps? Or Eisenhower?

[DDR]

Seneschals of Gondor are hereditarian therefore he's a monarchist, it just that he opposes to lose power to another dinasty. And about his views on war I would say that he resembles McArthur more than anyone.

[Blake's Baby]

You don't think he'd be happy were there a 'true' king of Anarion's line, rather than Isldur's?

The ideology of the Stewards has them as decidely not being kings. Functionally yes, but ideologically, no.

[DDR]

You don't think he'd be happy were there a 'true' king of Anarion's line, rather than Isldur's?

No, I think he wouldn't be happy about it. Gondor needs no king is because his dinasty is defacto ruling the throne, and he doesn't want to lose his power to another guy. What it would make easier for him to apcet a king of Anarion's line is that the Seneschals of Gondor have a oath to that line, not Isildur's.



The ideology of the Stewards has them as decidely not being kings. Functionally yes, but ideologically, no.

Because they lack a claim and they made an oath. At a point it becomes more tradition than a real decision.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, indeed. The stuff about their throne being two steps below the empty royal throne etc; even though they have been de facto kings for 20 generations or whatever it is, they've never taken on the trappings of kingship, and they rule in the name of the royal house.

The line 'Gondor needs no king' doesn't appear in the books. Of course, he doesn't then have an epiphany on his deathbed either.

My own view is that he's an honourable man (by his own code) and would accept a king from Anarion's line. But it isn't worth getting into a quote-war about.

[DDR]

Don't worry, I'm too stoned to beging any kind of war right know :laugh: