The Spares, Part 1

Based on this post. Thanks for the inspo @torchwood-99!

I feel like we as a society don’t talk enough about the fact that Faramir and Boromir could see the future, and that Faramir might have been a fucking psychic??

No listen now I’m finding page references because I honestly can’t believe I didn’t find this weirder the first million times I read these books

So we all know that the reason Boromir goes to see Elrond in the first place is because Faramir has been having these dreams about “seeking the sword that was broken” in Imladris and that Isildur‘s bane is there and such. Presumably after Denethor ignores him for long enough, whoever is sending out these prophetic dreams gets fed up and sends one to Boromir so Denethor will actually finally listen and take action (my complex feelings about Denethor are for another post lmao)

So there’s some solid evidence that Faramir, and at least to some extent Boromir can fucking. SEE THE FUTURE. And that little fact just doesn’t really get brought up again AT ALL in Fellowship of the Ring? (JRR Tolkien I love you but why were we deprived of the random travel conversations the fellowship must have had while traveling all over middle earth together)

Later on, Faramir describes seeing Boromir’s body in the boat he was sent down the Anduin in, and he knows way ahead of time that Boromir was dead – another instance of somehow knowing about things that happened hundreds of miles away when there is ABSOLUTELY no way he should have.

BUT THEN things get a lot weirder in The Two Towers when Faramir captures Frodo and Sam and Gollum. Faramir is interrogating Gollum about whether he had ever been to Henneth Annun before, and this is what happens: 

That’s kind of a really weird thing to say. Maybe Faramir is being poetic and not literal when he says he can see into Gollum’s mind, but the elaborate description of their eye contact almost makes it seem like there’s something else going on here. Plus, somehow the eye contact alone is enough for Faramir to judge definitively that Gollum is telling the truth. This brings up something Gandalf says to Pippin about Denethor:

Like father, like son, it seems. I bet Denethor just loved that. 

Again, maybe Gandalf is just speaking figuratively and is saying that Denethor is just really insightful. But it’s kind of weird to interpret it like that that in light of Gandalf putting that right next to a statement about Denethor’s bloodline that makes him and Faramir “different” somehow. Is Gandalf saying that they both can literally perceive “what is passing in the minds of men”??

BACK TO ITHILIEN (sorry this is more of a ramble than a well structured essay)

Faramir is asking Gollum if he knows what Cirith Ungol really is:

“As if something had stabbed him”?? There’s really no indication of what this “stabbing” could be in this context. It’s not Smeagol trying to keep Gollum from spilling the beans, because Gollum is the one who wants to keep the hobbits in the dark about Shelob. So who/what is stabbing his fucking mind?

Faramir sends Gollum away with Anborn and is talking to Frodo about Gollum.

Gollum leading Frodo to no good might be the understatement of the year, as well as an incredibly accurate one. I don’t need to keep saying this but of course he could be speaking poetically or figuratively. It just seems to me that there’s a LOT of these instances over the course of these books.

Putting Denethor and Faramir in a room together is, of course, always fucking wild for a MYRIAD of reasons, but let’s look at (the part that always fucking kills me) this scene:

I’m pretty sure this is the first(?) instance of Faramir being referred to as Gandalf’s pupil. I’m highlighting this point because it kind of sets a precedent as to why Faramir and Denethor, despite both seeming to have these supernatural abilities to read people and situations, come to SUCH different conclusions about what to do with The Ring. Faramir has been studying with Gandalf, a magical wizard, since he was a kid. I really don’t think it’s that far of a stretch that Gandalf, who once again is literally a god or Maia or whatever, was able to teach him how to actually use this ability to read and/or influence minds. (Plus he wasn’t wrecking his own mind by staring into a palantir 24/7 but I digress)

I’ve been writing for too long, so here’s just a couple of other points that come to mind.

Anyway. Those are my two cents on the subject. Everyone in the line of Stewards is a fucking psychic to some extent and that’s what Tolkien intended

Psychics are a thing in Tolkien – there’s foresight, which seems to be a combination of precognition and remote viewing, and there are also Seers, who have mystic visions and prophecies. It’s stronger in Numenorians and Elves than regular Men, but the noble houses of Gondor are descended from the Numenorians. So yes this is very possible within the existing worldbuilding.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) dir. Peter Jackson

the men of middle earth + first appearances

“(…)and Boromir had a long happy life”. ROTK Appendices (I WISH)

The Fellowship gets on the topic of their ages one night and Boromir comes to the dawning realization that he has absolutely no idea how old any of his companions are supposed to be at all

Boromir, pointing at the hobbits: I don’t know how your ages work

Boromir, pointing at Legolas and Gimli: I definitely don’t know how either of your ages work

Boromir, pointing at Aragorn: I thought I knew how your age worked but apparently I was wrong

Boromir, pointing at Gandalf: I especially don’t know how your age works

Gandalf: It doesn’t, but carry on

You know, ‘a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old’ definitely sounds like a coy gondorian slang term for gay men, on par with ‘a friend of Dorothy’ and ‘a confirmed bachelor’ and whilst this feels good just on a ‘Boromir’s gay in canon’ level I’m also deeply intrigued now to consider the ways in which Gondor’s society and culture was influenced by having a sort-of-not-completely-out-but-basically-a-lot-of-people-knew gay Hero-King for a while. The whole thing gives off a very ‘1920′s Berlin’ or ‘James VI’ vibe, possibly all the way down to the hypocrisy, it’s just neat!

Foolish to leave this out but the sentence literally continues with ‘taking no wife’. Like it gives us the innuendo and then, just to make sure we all understand what’s being said here, ‘a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms’. Establishing both that Boromir’s unwed status is his personal choice and that there are many more men like him. They are a ‘sort of man’. This feels SO MUCH like something you’d find in a historical document where the author alludes to something like wink wink nudge nudge all my historian fellows know what THIS means ;) And… LoTR IS an in universe historical document!! Have I mentioned how much I love that LoTR is an in-universe historical document with an actual prelude? I love that.