I’m doing my annual re-read of LOTR, and I have a few questions
-Why didn’t someone in Aragorn’s family go to Gondor and reclaim the throne before him?
-Did Gondor retake Minas Ithil/Morgul after Sauron’s defeat?
Aragorn was the only known surviving family member in Isuldur’s paternal line of descent. Nobody but the sons of Isuldur’s sons etc. could claim the throne, and Aragorn was apparanatly the only one left, or at least the only one left in a sufficient position to reclaim the throne (Showing up with an army of ghosts to save the capital does tend to leave an impression, I’d bet)
I don’t remember where Minas Ithil/Morgul is, but if it was the city not far from Osgiliath, I want to say Aragorn dispatched a force to reclaim it based around the troops too afraid to assault the Black Gates of Mordor (he sent them off on the other still quite dangerous mission in order to let them preserve their honor, IIRC)
Someone more expert will be along shortly, I imagine, but here’s a first pass based on what I think I recall:
-> Aragorn’s forefathers knew that the time would need to be very right for them to reclaim the throne at Minas Tirith. Mostly, the northern kings were destined to retake the throne only when Sauron was to be overthrown - and the answer always was, “not yet.”
-> The answer has got to be “yes.” I may be wrong, but I think Aragorn gave Faramir the title “Prince of Ithilien,” a thing not to be thought if there was any doubt about the status of Minas Ithil.
I believe that following his coronation, when Aragorn named Faramir Prince of Ithilien, he said that though it would be many long years before men could live there, Minas Ithil/Morgul would be indeed be cleansed.
For the first few centuries, they were busy ruling Arnor in the north, while the descendents of Isildur’s nephew Meneldil, claimed the kingship of Gondor. The kings of Arnor had no desire to overthrow the legitimate heirs of Gondor. Even though they felt the King of Arnor held high kingship over both kingdoms, they didn’t try to push the issue.
And actually the last king of Arnor, Arvedui, did try to claim the throne of Gondor. He was wedded to Firiel, the daughter of Ondoher, King of Gondor, who’d been killed in battle with his sons. But the Dunedain of Gondor rejected his claim, and gave the crown to Earnil, who was also descended from Meneldil.
By the time Earnil’s son, Earnur, was killed by the witch king, leaving no heir, the Dunedain of Arnor had enough trouble just surviving in the north that they had little time to try to claim kingship in the south.
Aragorn was the first credible candidate to come along.
It’s actually far more complicated than that, but that’s it in a nutshell.
The enemies were driven out of Minas Morgul, but it was recognized that many long years would have to pass before the taint of the witch-king diminished enough to allow the Dunedain to re-inhabit Minas Ithil/Morgul
Sorry, no. Ithilien does not equal Minas Ithil. Ithilien is the land between the Anduin and Mordor. Minas Ithil was its chief city, but the entire land didn’t get overrun and occupied until just prior to the war of the ring, unlike the city of Minas Ithil.
Another thing to remember is that after the fall of Arnor (actually, Arthedain by that point), the kings weren’t even kings of anything, in practical terms, other than the remnants of their people. They became the chieftains of the Dunedain of the North, and were more interested in fulfilling their duties to protect Eriador and environs than in laying claim to a kingdom that lay weeks’ journey away. They were all but forgotten by the Gondorians and any attempt to claim the throne by any of them would have been laughed out of the city. Only in the time of the War of the Ring, with the reforging of Narsil and Aragorn’s claim on the obedience of the spirits bound to the Paths of the Dead, could he make a claim with any proof. You have to remember, there was no power vacuum. The Stewards ruled like kings, though not as kings. But they ruled, whether in mediocrity or with genius. Remember Boromir’s hostility toward and scorn of Aragorn’s claim, and Denethor’s disbelief that an heir of Isildur survived (one of the bones on which his contention with Gandalf rested).
Aragorn and the other rangers were descended from the Northern Kingdom, (Arnor), not the southern (Gondor). When Elendil – leader of the faithful of Numenor and Isildur’s father–established his realm in Middle-earth, he split the lands in two; he ruled Arnor directly, while Anarion and Isildur were joint kings of Gondor. After Sauron fell to Elendil and Gil-galad (in which battle all three were killed), Isildur took Anarion as his kingdom and left Gondor to Anarion’s heirs. After that Isildur’s heirs were rulers of Arnor, not Gondor. When the line of Kings failed in Gondor, one of Isildur’s descendents did, in fact, make an attempt to claim the kingship, but his claim was rejected by the Steward and the other nobles. Aragorn was able to claim the kingship of Gondor (and of most of the lands of the former Gondor) because of his role in saving Minas Tirith during the ringwar and because there was no organized opposition to him: Denethor was dead and Faramir did not oppose him. (I don’t think Faramir wanted to rule Gondor anyway, so being deposed by Aragorn was probably a relief.)
They retook it, yes, but they did not reinhabit it for quite some time, if ever; it had been utterly despoiled by Sauron.
Doesn’t Aragorn decree that the fortress of Minas Morgul itself would be torn down? I seem to recall this, although my copy of **Return of the King ** has evidently been subducted deep into the lower convection zones of my bookhoard.
For my part, I always wondered just what the deal was with the top course of Minas Morgul’s tower; Tolkien describes it as revolving slowly, and I could never quite visualize what he meant by that. I kept an eye out for it in the Peter Jackson movies, but evidently he wasn’t too clear on it either; I don’t think they ever actually showed the very top of the tower.
All this and no cites?
Like Fabulous Creature said, the last king of the Dúnedain, Arvedui, did lay claim to the throne of Gondor in 1944 TA when King Ondoher died. Arvedui had married King Ondoher’s daughter Fíriel four years before, and she was the only surviving child. (Dates are from the Tale of Years in Appendix B.) He defended his claim to the throne by saying:
- Isildur (king of the Northern realm) didn’t actually “relinquish” his rule of Gondor to Anárion (Southern realm). Therefore Arvedui had a legitimate right to rule in Gondor.
- In Númenorean tradition, any heir, male or female, could rule, and it was only by Middle-Earth custom that females were disqualified. Therefore Fíriel could technically become ruler of Gondor (and Arvedui with her).
- <insert Dope cliché>
(see p. 1025, part iv, Appendix A).
Of course the Gondorians really didn’t care about any of this, and soon after that Arvedui was killed when the Witch-King of Angmar, for lack of a better word, pwned the kingdom of Arthedain for good (1018 part iii Appendix A, 1026 part iv Appendix A).
Though he wasn’t killed by the Witch-King or his armies. When the battle went against the Dunedain, Arvedui fled north, into the realms of the Lossoth around the Icebay of Forochel. Cirdan later sent ships to rescue him from his exile, but the ships foundered while still in the arms of the bay and Arvedui drowned. The palantiri of Amon Sul and Annuminas were lost with him.
I just want to correct my own misexplanation on this…Denethor didn’t so much disbelieve that an heir of Isildur had survived as believe that if an heir had survived, the kingdom of Gondor was still better served by retaining the rule of the Stewards rather than simply being handed over to some uncouth barbarian from the wilderlands of Eriador.
IIRC, Denethor got rather snippy about Aragorn, saying that he (Denethor) was the steward of the House of Anarion, and would not bend knee to the ragged remnant of the House of Isildur, long bereft of nobility…
Jerk.
On that one you’re not going to get an argument from me. Denethor may just have been the most infuriating character ostensibly on the side of the angels (er, Ainur…) for me in the whole thing. Arrogant, pride-blind, snobbish fool who let false images sent by the enemy (which he personally invited by his egotistic belief that he could control the palantir) throw him into such despair that he almost doomed Gondor to slavery.
Don’t forget Denethor treated Faramir very badly just for trying to learn for Mithrandir and not being blindly loyal like Boromir.
In his youth Denethor was jealous of Aragorn without even knowing him to be the rightful king.
“To me it does not seem that a steward who faithfully surrenders his charge is diminished in love or in honour.”
One of Gandalf’s pithier and more memorable comebacks, in my opinion; unfortunately, it doesn’t lend itself toward use in everyday conversation quite so well as some of Tolkien’s other quotable lines. Although sometimes I will repeat it to my ferrets when they refuse to show me where they’ve hidden my keys.
Yep. Gandalf, a Maiar who can parry the sword strokes of a Balrog, and whose magical speciality is control of fires and smokes, somehow can’t manage to act quickly enough to prevent Denethor from grabbing that torch and immolating himself. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that that Gandalf just didn’t feel terribly motivated to keep the insane obstacle to Aragorn’s claim to the throne from taking himself out of the picture. “So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion. What a tragedy, if only I had acted sooner, oh the humanity, blah blah blah…”
I think you are on to something here.
Jim
Yeah, I could never quite picture this myself, and I don’t remember ever seeing any artistic representations that even tried to show the tower revolving. I remeber being mildly curious to see how Jackson would show the revolving Minas Morgul tower and not being at all surprised that it wasn’t in there.
Hey, Gandalf wasn’t big on messing with individual free will. Remember his mission was to advise, cajole, inspire, and only act under a pretty limited set of circumstances. Men still had to do the job. Or not do it.
'Sides, The big G was still cheesed over not getting invited to his buddy Ecthelion’s wake. 
Whoa, damn, is recounted in The History of Middle Earth? Because I think The Silmarillion mostly concerns the history of the Elves and the Silmarils, correct?
Also, didn’t Isildor (and thus, Aragorn) descend from Elrond’s twin brother? Or am I nuts?