you know what gets me about lord of the rings? evil is defeated by people who choose to fight against it without possessing absolute, or even very much, conviction that they can actually win. all the converging story threads that lead to the happy ending are carried out by people who are far, far more convinced that they will fail than that they will succeed, who had only the frailest, most foolish hope, who had blind faith and frequently wavering hearts not peace or ease or certainty.
middle earth isn’t saved because no one faltered or came close to despairing or who sank to their knees in weary defeat. it’s not saved by pride or conviction or even strength. it’s saved because enough people do what they have to do even if they have to do it in the darkness. in the dust. with the ashes of hopelessness and bitterness in their mouths. because enough people took another step. Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Theoden, Boromir, Faramir, Merry, Pippin. And many don’t. For every hero there is someone who gives into the “reasonableness” of despair—Saruman, Denethor, Grima, even Gollum—but enough. Enough people said “it doesn’t matter if we lose, I will keep fighting” and then they do.
And that GETS me. It is the most hopeful thing about the lord of the rings to me. There is so much that sums up its spirit, so many beautiful quotes and moments, but to me it’s never been the most famous of the quotes about hope and love that hit me hardest but a line from the films. Before the battle for minas tirith, one of the soldiers says “we cannot defeat the armies of Mordor” and Theoden answers “no. but we will meet them in battle nonetheless.”
And I—That is the spirit that leads to the conquering of evil when it comes down to it, when we’re talking about the part played by humanity alone in the fight against evil. Not the conviction you’re going to win, not farsightedness into a perfect future, not perfect inner peace or certainty. But acceptance of the real possibility of defeat, of that defeat being more the reality, the future, of your life than the victory, and then doing the damn thing anyway because goodness is worth fighting for even if you lose.
You have unlocked a LINGUISTIC SUBTEXT of LOTR which is very dear to my heart, Estel vs. Amdír. Lemme explain.
Estel is the alias Elrond gave to Aragorn in the books when he was a child to protect him until he came of age. It’s Sindarin Elvish for hope. But it’s a specific kind of hope. I don’t have my linguistic notes handy, so I can’t remember where Tolkien wrote out the full definition in his own notes, but it’s basically:
estel, n. hope, faith, trust, belief.
But there’s another Elvish word for hope.
amdir, n. hope, expectation, extrapolation. from prefix amto, toward + verb tirolook. Same root as in palantir, far-seer.
amdir is rational hope: you look at present circumstances, and look ahead to see what’s coming. It means calculating likely possibilities, outcomes. What’s the best you can expect to happen?
estel is irrational hope. You know there’s just no way to win. Amdir says you’re screwed, and you say, “I know, but I’ll keep going anyway.”
estel is a FOOL’s HOPE.
Ring any bells? Because you’re absolutely right. There are a lot of people who fail in LOTR because they only had amdir. Saruman was entrapped because he saw no hope of victory, so he threw in his lot with Sauron.
Boromir had been fighting a losing battle of defense against the forces of Mordor and knew there was no chance of defeating the overwhelming forces of Sauron save by some extraordinary means. He saw in the Ring a hope of saving his city by using it as a weapon. He knew “one does not simply walk into Mordor”… it’s too well-defended. Deep down, he wanted to try the amdir option, not the estel option.
And then there’s Denethor. Denethor, most of all, is the epitome of amdir. In the books he is a proud man, but rational. He’s the Steward of Gondor, and he takes the job damn seriously. His people are the bulwark defending Middle-Earth from being crushed by Mordor, which is visible from his window. He’s done a good job of marshalling forces and stockpiling resources for this battle — in the books, he does light the beacons to summon Théoden – and he actually has a palantir he uses to spy on Sauron.
His mind is strong enough to resist Sauron controlling him. So instead, Sauron controls the palantir, making sure it only shows off the greatness of Mordor’s armies, allies and weapons, and every last loss and setback of Denethor’s side. He knew very well Théoden had been held up at Helm’s Deep and would arrive too late. He knew Aragorn was coming to claim the throne, which didn’t thrill him: he thought Aragorn was just Gandalf’s puppet. And when he finds out Faramir had done what Gandalf wanted and sent the Ring into Mordor with a hobbit instead of bringing it to him flr safekeeping, he rails at Gandalf for risking everything on a “fool’s hope.”
The final straw is that, after Faramir is injured, Denethor looks into the palantir one more time to see if there’s any hope left… and he sees the fleet of black ships coming up the river. He thinks it’s more armies from Mordor. In fact, it’s Aragorn bringing a spare army to save the day. But Denethor thinks to himself, “checkmate. We’re toast.” And he decides to kill himself and his dying son rather than let them be seized as trophies by Sauron (or in his case, as a prisoner.)
Denethor gives into despair, but he is not a total madman in the books. He just has a meltdown because he only has amdir, not estel, and only a fool’s hope could win against impossible odds.
Also? Samwise is basically old English for “half wit.” He’s a wise Fool. Théoden and Aragorn do what they can to help, and in the and Aragorn leads his armies to the gates of Mordor to divert Sauron’s attention from Frodo and Sam as much as he can. But it’s Sam’s dogged determination to keep going even if it’s hopeless (amdir-less) that saves them all.
Note that I think Tolkien may have come up with the Elvish word amdir and written out its definition after LOTR was published. But the concept was obviously burbling around in his subconscious already. The more you look, the more you’ll see how the different flavors of hope show up in his writing
So yeah, @itspileofgoodthings , I’m tempted to say you’ve hit on the hidden meaning of LOTR. But like all the great stories, LOTR is a tapestry with multiple threads of meaning. Suffice it to say you’ve hit on a golden thread.
The best description of “estel” that I’ve come upon is “hope with trust.”
It’s the sort of hope that goes along with Tolkein’s concept of despair, which is that despair should be the product of nothing less than absolute certainty that everything is fucked, categorically, forever. But because no one can know that with any real certainty, by definition there is always hope. Not the hope of planning, or the hope of dedication, but the hope of “we don’t know how this is gonna shake out, but if we don’t know for sure then we can’t despair, and if we’re not despairing then we must still have hope left.”
Estel is not an active presence of positivity as much as it is the absence of despair, but because it’s that last thing in between you and giving the fuck up, it’s powerful. It’s also very often underestimated, or denigrated, or mocked. Oh, you still have hope? How cute, how pathetic, how naive.But it’s not. It’s the essence of all resistance. And it really is just showing up and giving luck an opportunity to be on your side.
“Now let us meet the knight of faith on the occasion previously mentioned [that is, loving a princess whom one cannot possibly attain]. He does exactly the same as the other knight did: he infinitely renounces the love that is the substance of his life; he is reconciled in pain. But then the marvel happens; he makes one more movement even more wonderful than all the others, for he says: Nevertheless I have faith that I will get her - that is, by virtue of the absurd….The absurd does not belong to the differences that lie within the proper domain of the understanding. It is not identical with the improbable, the unexpected, the unforeseen. The moment the knight executed the act of resignation, he was convinced of the impossibility, humanly speaking; that was the conclusion of the understanding and he had sufficient energy to think it. But in the infinite sense it was possible, that is by relinquishing it, but this having, after all, is also a giving up…The knight of faith realizes this just as clearly; consequently, he can be saved only by the absurd, and this he grasps by faith. Consequently he acknowledges the impossibility, and in the very same moment he believes the absurd, for if he wants to imagine that he has faith without passionately acknowledging the impossibility with his whole heart and soul, he is deceiving himself and his testimony is neither here nor there, since he has not even attained infinite resignation.”
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