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[andrewducker]

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• Whatever happened to television’s most famous couples? (No, really, you want to read this. All of it.)
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Comments

The Illegitimacy of Aragorn's Claim to the Throne

[cartesiandaemon]

I'm often annoyed by the way people sometimes write about fiction. I think the essay has a good critique of what happens in fantasy that's a bad model for the real world.

But it's odd to me to call it out in an in-universe way. To me it's like saying "Harry Potter is obviously delusional to think he can cast spells because magic doesn't exist", or "all the Ewoks died because [orbital mechanics]". Yes, probably the author made bad choices, either morally or factually. But that's the world they wrote. Say it's a bad role-model, or toxic, or implausible, or inconsistent. But how can you say it's wrong? As best as I can remember (i) everyone accepted Stewards as holding the throne for the king in waiting (ii) Aragorn's lineage gives him all sorts of special powers, both in nobility, and good judgement, and strength of will, and leadership (iii) he does a really good job (iv) I'm not sure if it's true in this particular case, but many things in the books are literally fated by God because that's how this universe works. How is that illegitimate? I think I may misremember some of the older history, but in LOTR, everything screams "the king returns"...

RE: The Illegitimacy of Aragorn's Claim to the Throne

[andrewducker]

"But it's odd to me to call it out in an in-universe way"

Surely that's the only way to critique fantasy/sci-fi? You have to work with the rules laid out in the book, not the rules that "real life" works with, because it manifestly isn't real life.

And what the post-author is pointing out is inconsistency - "Gondor’s own laws and rulers even recognized how ridiculous Aragorn’s claim was" is pointing exactly that out.

I'm not convinced you actually read the article here, as your points are actually refuted in it:
everyone accepted Stewards as holding the throne for the king in waiting
"Arvedui, the last king of Arnor before he drowned in a shipwreck, once claimed the throne of Gondor, but the Council of Gondor rightly rejected him, saying the royal line of Gondor was descended from Anárion, not Isildur."

Aragorn's lineage gives him all sorts of special powers, both in nobility, and good judgement, and strength of will, and leadership
See the whole paragraph starting "Even worse, Aragorn’s supposed suitability to rule is directly tied to his pure Númenorean blood. Despite how much the Gondorrim valorized Númenor as the high tide (pun intended) of Mannish civilization, it was an island of stunted man-babies at best and bloodthirsty, devil-worshipping imperialists at worst."

he does a really good job
At the point he's crowned king he has done a really good job of turning up at the head of a massive army of ghosts, I'll give you.

I'm not sure if it's true in this particular case, but many things in the books are literally fated by God
But individuals, in the book, are only aware of things that are fated by God when God intervenes. By sinking Numenor, for instance. Unless Eru writes in 50-foot letters of fire "He's the one true king, you idiots", I don't see how the Gondorians are going to base their decision about his legitimacy on that.

[kalimac]

What's actually going on here is that cartesiandaemon knows Tolkien better than the author of the article does, despite only claiming to remember it vaguely.

everyone accepted Stewards as holding the throne for the king in waiting
Yes, in fact that's true, and the symbolism upholds it. Denethor holds court from the plain Stewards' chair below the empty throne, and says things like "The rule of Gondor is mine and no other man's, unless the king should come again." The question at issue in Arvedui's claim was whether the line of Isildur should be considered legitimate claimants to the throne of Meneldil. Arvedui argued that it should be, and "To this Gondor made no answer."

Aragorn's lineage gives him all sorts of special powers, both in nobility, and good judgement, and strength of will, and leadership
It did indeed. The whole paragraph about the corruption of the later rulers of Numenor ignores the fact that the entire house of Elendil - kings of Gondor, Aragorn, and all - are not descended from the later rulers of Numenor. They are in fact an elder line, and there's a hint that, if the laws of succession had allowed for it then, they would have made better kings. That may seem ridiculous in the primary world (though even the New! Improved! Nonsexist! British rules of royal succession still give automatic preference to the eldest, and are exactly the same change that would presumably have made Elendil King of Numenor), but that's the way the invented universe works. Further, it is also a rule of the invented universe that everything corrupts in this fallen world over time. That their distant descendants would become corrupt would have been no reason for not rewarding the Edain with Numenor in the first place.

At the point he's crowned king he has done a really good job of turning up at the head of a massive army of ghosts, I'll give you.
Sorry, but this is so mindbogglingly inadequate an argument it's hardly worth refuting. In the book, the ghost army is not a plot token that Aragorn carries around, the way he does in the moooovie.

But individuals, in the book, are only aware of things that are fated by God when God intervenes
Not true, if by "God" you include "the gods," i.e. the Valar, the vicegerents of God, whose wills are the ones at issue in all cases except the destruction of Numenor, because that was the one thing above the Valar's pay grade. All kinds of comments like Gandalf's "Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker" are observations of the Valar speaking in considerably subtler tones than 50-foot letters of fire.

[andrewducker]

All of which are good, well-evidenced critiques of the article. No problem there. (And my memory of the books from about 30 years ago are not great, so I'm perfectly happy to accept your superior knowledge here.)

But the original comment by Jack ignored the fact that the article had referenced them at all. Which I found odd.

[kalimac]

Because they're trivial and irrelevant?

[andrewducker]

Not to the uneducated observer they aren't.

I can't tell the difference between "Jack read this, and thought that the arguments weren't worth responding to, for reasons which make perfect sense." and "Jack completely failed to read those bits, because he was horribly distracted."

Also, without some kind of explanation, I have no reason to take Jack's opinion over the author of the article.

So if Jack wants me to reach enlightement concerning the article then he needs to engage with it, much as you did.

[skington]

Jack's mostly reading the Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn is indeed the rightful and just king. ISTR in the Appendices it's mentioned that his reign was a spectacular success.

The article is mostly reading the Silmarillion, where the Númernóreans (although possibly not the ones Aragorn is descended from) turn into terrible people.

[kalimac]

Uh ... no. Nothing in the Silmarillion undercuts LOTR's picture of Aragorn's reign. And the LOTR appendices tell, albeit very briefly, the same picture of the growing arrogance and folly of the Numenorean kings that the Silmarillion does. And both make clear that Aragorn's direct ancestors, the Lords of Andunie, didn't go along with that stuff.

I see nothing in the article that comes from the Silmarillion. It's all from Appendix A of LOTR except for the part about Erendis, which is from Unfinished Tales. But to picture that as depicting Erendis as completely right and Aldarion (and even Meneldur?) as completely wrong is a distortion of Tolkien's story. Aldarion and Erendis are both right, and that's the tragedy.

[skington]

OK, fair enough; I assumed the article was reading the Silmarillion but I haven't actually read it myself.

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah, I think it's 50% "I had that rant pent up and ready to go and it got triggered by the title, even though it wasn't entirely appropriate to the article" and "I got the feeling the author was cherry-picking bits of ME history that seemed to support their point, but I wasn't sure and was super lazy because I knew if I did a half-arsed job, someone who knew Tolkien much better than me would come along and make a better case one way or the other."

I wish I'd had the common sense to just say "I'm not sure if this holds up or not, does anyone else know". I'm trying to cut down on thoughtless comments, but it's a long road :)

RE: The Illegitimacy of Aragorn's Claim to the Throne

[cartesiandaemon]

"Surely that's the only way to critique fantasy/sci-fi? You have to work with the rules laid out in the book, not the rules that "real life" works with, because it manifestly isn't real life."

Well, that was part of my point, that you _should_ do that, but it seemed like the article wasn't doing that even if it tried to find a justification. (Not sure if I was right about that or not.)

But I don't think that's the only choice, I think it's valid to criticise the CHOICE of rules. It's perfectly consistent to write a bunch of books on Gor where men are naturally dominant and women are naturally submissive, both sexually and in every day life. But it's a problem, because it definitely sends the vibe that this isn't a counterfactual premise, the books are implying it's actually true. And the same is true to a lesser extent with "the divine right of kings" or "fate" -- I think we DO have too many books where kings are just naturally superior, even though I think it's fine to have some of them.

In fact, I think books do confuse the two, accidentally inserting assumptions without considering them, which sometimes works fine, and sometimes creates problems, so it's natural that reviews also conflate the two. So maybe it shouldn't bug me, but it often does anyway...

(I think we covered the rest of the reply elsewhere :))

RE: The Illegitimacy of Aragorn's Claim to the Throne

[bashou]

“Wait, why are we disagreeing with the guy in charge of the deadly ghost army again?”