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A reply wrt Osgiliath
animate-mush on Tumblr responded to my "the fight at Osgiliath was not a suicide mission" post with:
My question is - does Faramir believe it to be a suicide mission?
They have the exchange:
Faramir: If I return, think better of me
Denethor: That depends upon the manner of your return
And apparently Faramir is visibly upset enough by what’s going on that Gandalf needs to reassure him: “your father loves you, and will remember before the end.”
Like, Faramir’s not suicidal, and he’s going to do his best, but he thinks this is a bad plan that’s gonna get everyone killed, and he thinks Denethor is okay with that, enough so that the people who know him best worry that it might affect his judgment
Would he have done better with his Father’s blessing, instead of a dismissive “with your shield or on it” type line? Maybe. Denethor almost certainly would have.
All this to say, I can see where the other reading is coming from
I replied:
I think the very phrasing of “If I return” suggests that Faramir does not believe it’s a suicide mission, but rather a high-risk one which he could, theoretically, survive, even while it’s very possible he might not. He’s asking a question about a scenario where he comes back. Denethor’s answer is clearly, as you say, a ‘with your shield or on it’ sort of thing—Faramir has to die heroically or succeed heroically to win his good opinion. Death is not the only option.
And IMO it’s very doubtful that Faramir thought it would get everyone killed; among the captains, he says the problem is that even if they kill many more people than they lose, they can afford losses much less than Mordor. In the event, 1/3 of his men are killed, which is a drastic loss but nowhere near a total wipe-out. I think he definitely would have known that Imrahil’s sortie was coming to bring his(Faramir’s) forces back.
I certainly agree he would have done better with Denethor’s blessing; Aragorn says later that grief for his father’s mood is partly what deepened the Black Breath’s grip on him. But that’s different from thinking he was literally sent to die.
(TBH I think the other reading is … strongly influenced by the movies, let’s say.)
My question is - does Faramir believe it to be a suicide mission?
They have the exchange:
Faramir: If I return, think better of me
Denethor: That depends upon the manner of your return
And apparently Faramir is visibly upset enough by what’s going on that Gandalf needs to reassure him: “your father loves you, and will remember before the end.”
Like, Faramir’s not suicidal, and he’s going to do his best, but he thinks this is a bad plan that’s gonna get everyone killed, and he thinks Denethor is okay with that, enough so that the people who know him best worry that it might affect his judgment
Would he have done better with his Father’s blessing, instead of a dismissive “with your shield or on it” type line? Maybe. Denethor almost certainly would have.
All this to say, I can see where the other reading is coming from
I replied:
I think the very phrasing of “If I return” suggests that Faramir does not believe it’s a suicide mission, but rather a high-risk one which he could, theoretically, survive, even while it’s very possible he might not. He’s asking a question about a scenario where he comes back. Denethor’s answer is clearly, as you say, a ‘with your shield or on it’ sort of thing—Faramir has to die heroically or succeed heroically to win his good opinion. Death is not the only option.
And IMO it’s very doubtful that Faramir thought it would get everyone killed; among the captains, he says the problem is that even if they kill many more people than they lose, they can afford losses much less than Mordor. In the event, 1/3 of his men are killed, which is a drastic loss but nowhere near a total wipe-out. I think he definitely would have known that Imrahil’s sortie was coming to bring his(Faramir’s) forces back.
I certainly agree he would have done better with Denethor’s blessing; Aragorn says later that grief for his father’s mood is partly what deepened the Black Breath’s grip on him. But that’s different from thinking he was literally sent to die.
(TBH I think the other reading is … strongly influenced by the movies, let’s say.)