INTRODUCTION: From Hopeless Courage, Part I

The theme of hopeless courage is one of the most memorable aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic The Lord of the Rings. The characters in this story are courageous, even jovially so, but they tend ultimately to expect the worst. ... In Middle-earth despair does not depend on a failure of hope, but rather the failure of courage and/or cheer. ... Courage—without the illusion of hope—is what keeps despair at bay as Frodo and Sam plod on towards Mount Doom...


SHORT-TERM (IMMEDIATE) HOPE IN Middle-earth

Hope may be foolish in the grand scheme of things, but it remains a basic emotion common to all people, including the Norse and Anglo-Saxons. At the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, Gildor counsels hope as the hobbits evade the Black Riders:

Here, against conventional wisdom, courage is linked to hope. At this stage of the journey it is unclear whether or not Frodo will be appointed the ultimate task of destroying the Ring. The context is the immediate evasion of the Nazgul. Instead of explaining what Frodo is really up against, Gildor simply advises courage, and hope that he and his friends will make it to Rivendell.

With cases involving such short-term or immediate hope, Tolkien's characters can be either positive or negative. Optimism surfaces particularly in the race of men. Consider Beregond's hopeful outlook for the people of Minas Tirith: "Though all things must come utterly to an end in time, Gondor shall not perish yet... There are still other fastnesses, and secret ways of escape into the mountains. Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green."

Beregond believes that while the free peoples cannot prevail indefinitely, Gondor will not "yet" perish, even if the White City should fall and cause his people to flee to the mountains.

Contrast Aragorn and Eomer, the former consistently maintaining hope against the latter who has none at all:

Aragorn:	My heart desires to come with you; but I cannot desert my friends while hope remains.
Eomer:	Hope does not remain. You will not find your friends on the North-borders.
	...
Aragorn:	Day will bring hope to me. Is it not said that no foe has ever taken the Hornburg, if men defended it?
Eomer:	So the minstrels say.
Aragorn:	Then let us defend it, and hope!
	...
Eomer:	I had hoped that we should ride to war together; but if you seek the Paths of the Dead, then our parting is come, and it is little likely that we shall ever meet again under the Sun.
Aragorn:	That road I will take, nonetheless. But I say to you, Eomer, that in battle we may yet meet again, though all the hosts of Mordor should stand between.

While Aragorn steers clear of hope for the Ringbearer's quest after Moria (see last month's column), he clings to it in dealing with specific situations: the pursuit of Merry and Pippin; victory over the Uruks at Helm's Deep; a reunion with Eomer after traveling through a haunted mountain. These statements in no way contradict his defeatist words after Gandalf's fall, where he says, "We must do without hope; at least we may yet be avenged." We should read: "We must do without [long-term] hope; at least we may yet [hope, in the short-term, to] be avenged [by other victories]."

The orc-slaying competition between Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep is also a memorable exchange:

Gimli:	Two!
Legolas:	Two? I make my tale twenty at the least. But that is only a few leaves in a forest.
	...
Gimli:	Twenty-one! Now my count passes Master Legolas again.
	...
Gimli:	Twenty-one!
Legolas:	Good! But my count is now two dozen.
	...
Aragorn:	Things go ill my friends.
Legolas:	Ill enough, but not yet hopeless, while we have you with us. Where is Gimli?
Aragorn:	I do not know... Let us hope that he will escape back to the caves.
Aragorn:	That must be my hope. But I wish that he had come this way. I desired to tell Master Gimli that my tale is now thirty-nine.

Legolas pays lip-service to hope for a short-term victory, but everything else about his and Gimli's behavior shouts Norse fatalism. Their casual tally of corpses seems cold-blooded to the Christian mind, but it's not necessarily unseemly behavior for those who continually depend on joviality (even in the middle of massacre) to save face and preserve sanity against the constant knowledge of impending doom. Note that when Gimli becomes separated from the main battle force, Legolas holds out hope for him—not because he is especially worried about his friend's well-being ("everyone dies sooner or later"), but because he's itching to rub Gimli's nose in the fact that he has now killed thirty-nine orcs!

Frodo and Sam display about as much hope for overcoming various obstacles throughout Mordor as they do for their ultimate success at Mount Doom—none:

Sam:	I don't like the look of things at all. Pretty hopeless, I call it... There's no way down that I can see. And we couldn't cross all that open country crawling with enemies, even if we did get down.
Frodo:	Still we shall have to try. It's no worse than I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can.
	...
Sam (aside):	There you are! It's all quite useless. [Frodo] said so himself. You are the fool, going on hoping and toiling. You could have lain down and gone to sleep together days ago, if you hadn't been so dogged. But you'll die just the same or worse. You might just as well lie down now and give it up. You'll never get to the top anyway... Stop arguing!

The hobbits see no hope for getting past enemy camps in the Morgai Vale, but they make the attempt anyway, simply because (says Frodo) they must "do the best they can". Later, after the horrendous trek across Gorgoroth, and with Frodo wasted beyond endurance, Sam berates himself as a fool, knowing they stand no chance of getting to the top of Mount Doom. Yet he stifles himself and gets on with attempting the impossible anyway.


GANDALF IN MINAS TIRITH

When Gandalf encounters soldiers upon his entry into Minas Tirith, he appeals to both courage and hope:

Ingold:	May you bring good counsel to Denethor in his need, and to us all, Mithrandir!
	...
Gandalf:	As for counsel, to you I would say that you are over-late in repairing the wall of the Pelennor. Courage will now be your best defense against the storm that is at hand—that and such hope as I bring. For not all the tidings that I bring are evil. But leave your trowels and sharpen your swords!

Gandalf states that courage must be the primary defense against impending war, yet he also cryptically alludes to hope—"such as he brings", at any rate. But what is there to hope for? A military victory? Or something else? In order to answer this we must consider Gandalf's full treatment of hope, which undergoes a fascinating development during his stay in Minas Tirith. Following the above remark, there are three stages of interaction: (1) with Pippin; (2) with Denethor; and (3) with Aragorn at the Last Debate.


Gandalf and Pippin

On two previous occasions, Gandalf counseled hope for the Ringbearer's quest—ambiguously-positive to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli under the leaves of Fangorn, and then later to Theoden at Edoras. But in Minas Tirith he confides to Pippin that he never really had such (or much) hope for Frodo:

Pippin:	Tell me, is there any hope for Frodo?
Gandalf:	There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope.

While Gandalf occasionally counsels hope in order to boost the morale of the free peoples in relation to the future's uncertainty (as he did on the two previous occasions and to the soldiers of Minas Tirith), he shows his true colors when alone with a hobbit to whom he sees no reason to hold back the truth. There never was any reasonable hope that Frodo could make it all the way to Mount Doom and resist being claimed by the Ring.

However, the wizard starts to see some glimmer of hope for Frodo based on the news brought by Faramir: "...And yet I believe that the news that Faramir brings has some hope in it. For it seems clear that our Enemy has opened his war at last and made the first move while Frodo was still free. So now for many days he will have his eye turned this way and that, away from his own land."

Since Sauron's full attention has become fixed on Gondor, Frodo may have a slim chance of getting through Mordor after all. Gandalf begins to hedge his bets on a frail hope for the Ringbearer, as hope for Gondor's military victory now evaporates completely.


Gandalf and Denethor

The interaction between Gandalf and Denethor offers one of the most nuanced treatments of hope in Tolkien's story, and it is much misunderstood. The crucial point is that Frodo's quest is not in view, only Gondor's military victory:

Gandalf:	Authority is not given to you, Steward, to order the hour of your death. And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair... Come! We are needed. There is much that you can yet do.
	...
Denethor:	Pride and despair! I have seen more than thou knowest, Grey Fool. For thy hope is but ignorance. Go then and labor in healing! Go forth and fight! Vanity. For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day. But against the Power that arises there is no victory... The West has failed. It is time for all to depart who would not be slaves.
	...
Gandalf:	Such counsels will make the Enemy's victory certain indeed.
	...
Denethor:	Hope on then! Do I not know thee, Mithrandir? Thy hope is to rule in my stead, to stand behind every throne, north, south, or west.

Denethor ascribes hope to Gandalf (and calls him a fool for it), but Gandalf never actually uses the word. He condemns Denethor for pride and despair, but he nowhere suggests that the steward should hope. He simply says that he is needed by his people and should do his duty. Gandalf cannot press hope into the same service as he did with Theoden, because Denethor has stacked the deck in advance by throwing conventional wisdom in his face, declaring what the wizard already believes: that the forces of Minas Tirith may gain temporary victory on the Pelennor Fields but never complete victory against Sauron.

Gandalf knows that Denethor is correct for believing this (though wrong for giving up because of it), so he can only make a brief retort about despair making the enemy's victory more certain. Denethor then twists in the knife with more "hope" insults, casting Gandalf not only as a fool but as an egomaniac who wants to rule in his stead. But Gandalf has refused the bait, side-stepped the insults, and avoided Denethor's trap by implicitly going along with conventional wisdom: hope is indeed foolish, and there is none for the forces of Gondor. He condemns Denethor not for want of hope, but for pride, despair, and failure to lead his people in their darkest hour.


Gandalf and Aragorn: The Last Debate

Gandalf makes publicly clear that Denethor was correct to disdain hope for a military victory against Sauron:

Gandalf:	My lords, listen to the words of the Steward of Gondor before he died: 'You may triumph on the Fields of Pelennor for a day, but against the Power that has now arisen there is no victory.' I do not bid you despair, as he did, but to ponder the truth in these words... Denethor saw that which truly is... This war is then without final hope, as Denethor perceived... I still hope for victory, but not by arms... The Eye is now straining towards us, blind almost to all else that is moving. So we must keep it. Therein lies all our hope... We cannot achieve victory by arms, but by arms we can give the Ringbearer his only chance, frail though it be. As Aragorn has begun, so we must go on. We must push Sauron to his last throw. We must call out his hidden strength, so that he shall empty his land... We must make ourselves the bait, though his jaws should close on us... We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage but small hope for ourselves.
	...
Aragorn:	As I have begun, so I will go on. We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin. To waver is to fall. Let none now reject the counsels of Gandalf, whose long labors against Sauron come at last to their test.

Gandalf counsels hope which lies exclusively with the Ringbearer's mission. Victory by arms is completely hopeless (Denethor was right), but it may just buy Frodo some time, even if the hobbit's chance remains "frail" to the end. The wizard's hope is negative for the army of the west, ambiguous-positive for Frodo.

Aragorn complements Gandalf's wisdom with an ironical-negative, declaring that "hope and despair are akin". The free peoples have reached the lowest point of the Third Age, where hope and despair can no longer be distinguished from each other. This drives a nail into the coffin of misguided theories about Christian hope being a central theme of Tolkien's story. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the Christian tradition, hope is precisely what keeps despair at bay. But in Middle-earth, hope is what leads to despair—indeed, becomes despair—unless it is relinquished in favor of pure valor: hopeless courage. The army of the west must give up hope or despair.

The irony is compounded when one considers the elvish name given to the young Aragorn in Rivendell, which is nothing other than Hope itself: Estel. In a world where hope is so foolish, Aragorn, paradoxically, becomes estel personified—the hope of a fool who stands no chance of succeeding as Isildur's heir, and yet labors all his life to do exactly that. He has no hope at all for a military victory against Sauron, yet must lead the army of the west straight into Mordor's jaws. The people of Gondor must accept Aragorn as their hope only to relinquish it.


ON THE STAIR OF CIRITH UNGOL

The dialogue between Frodo and Sam as they comfort each other on the stairs of Cirith Ungol (their first night in enemy territory) epitomizes the theme of hopeless courage and is, to me, the heart of the story:

Sam:	We shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back only they didn't... We hear about those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you... Beren, now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours... And, why sir, I never thought of that before! We've got—you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you!... Don't the great tales never end?
	...
Frodo:	No, they never end... But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later—or sooner.
	...
Sam:	And then we can have some rest and some sleep. And I mean just that, Mr. Frodo. I mean plain ordinary rest, and sleep, and waking up to a morning's work in the garden. I'm afraid that's all I'm hoping for all the time.

Sam distinguishes between "there and back again" adventures, which are undertaken for the sake of excitement, and those from the "tales that really matter" which involve hopeless missions not of one's choosing. Bilbo's expedition to the Lonely Mountain is of the former category, Frodo's journey to Mount Doom the latter. He notes that Beren never had any hope for wresting the Silmaril from Melkor, and yet he succeeded in doing so. In the same way, Frodo and Sam's dearth of hope does not deter them from their own quest. Hopelessness doesn't stop such heroes from going on ("and not all to a good end, mind you"), because it lies in the very nature of their virtue.

Frodo says that the great tales never end. Short-term victories simply postpone the enemy's long-term victories; and long-term victories only drive evil underground until it can manifest in the next cycle. The only things which do reliably come to an end are the people in these tales—like him and Sam, whose endings are bound to be "sooner than later". Again Frodo has no hope for accomplishing what he set out to do.

Nor does Sam, who can only hope for a return to ordinary hobbit life—rest, sleep, and gardening. He does not express hope for his master's success, for he has none. So whatever "hope" he has left amounts to wishful thinking.

The interchange between Frodo and Sam stands at the heart of Middle-earth's eschatology, illustrating better than anywhere else in the story that the end itself is never in view as a goal. The goal is not the end; the goal is what one does along the way. Beren and Frodo don't need the (false) security of standing a chance in completing their tasks, because it is in the trying, not the accomplishing, that one finds salvation. Hence hopeless courage as the ultimate virtue.


SOME FURTHER OBSERVATIONS

Based on the above analysis, it would serve well to add some general remarks about hope as viewed by the different races of Middle-earth.

Hobbits   A hobbit's view of hope is found almost exclusively in negative statements, which could give the misleading impression that hobbits are pessimistic. They are of course the most optimistic of the races, thoroughly enjoying life in the here-and-now, dwelling neither on the past nor future. Perhaps because hobbits are quintessentially cheerful and present-focused, they need hope least of all the peoples in Middle-earth. In this sense they really do stand at the front rank of Tolkien's "hopeless heroes".

Gandalf   Gandalf is without question the most nuanced character on the subject of hope. His negative assessments lie explicitly in his response to Pippin, and implicitly in his dialogue with Denethor. In speaking to a hobbit he knows better than to reinforce any misguided notions to which hobbits are disinclined anyway, and by employing a debate strategy with the steward he refuses to concede ground to his opponent. His more ambiguous assessments are directed at Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli on one occasion and Theoden on another, and they reflect his role as an emissary of the gods whose primary mission has been to aid the free peoples against Sauron, in the (very guarded) hope that the enemy may be defeated in relation to the future's uncertainty. Finally in the end, on the brink of disaster, he invokes doom and ambiguity in equal measure.

Elves   Elrond, Arwen, and Galadriel (two Ringbearers, interestingly enough) avoid absolutism while still keeping hope at a distance, though Galadriel is more encouraging than the others. Longevity appears to allow the firstborn more leeway on the subject since they have actually witnessed the defeat of Melkor and Sauron, even if only to face a new manifestation of their evil in the next age. Hence the paradox of the "long and hopeless defeat" as perceived by the elves.

Men   Men are as unhopeful as the other races, though some of them are quite capable of summoning "robust hope" for immediate exigencies. The ongoing contrast between Aragorn and Eomer points to a spectrum along which they are the poles. Mortality would seem to have the effect of accentuating long-term hopelessness and short-term hopefulness, a mirror-image of the elves whose immortality accentuates, paradoxically, both long-term hopelessness and long-term hopefulness. Ultimately, and ironically, men must place hope in a king who in turn asks them to relinquish it.


CONCLUSION

Christian hope is utterly foreign to the people of Middle-earth. Hopeless courage is what drives them, from the alpha to the omega. Aside from a single exception (Sam) who proves the rule, Tolkien's protagonists remain strangely devoid of any need for what the author knew to be a cardinal virtue. This confounds us. How can hopelessness be a virtue? How can one stay sane without hope? And yet one senses something ironically liberating about the idea that since things must turn out badly in the end, they can only be better in the meantime.

Therein lies the true paradox of the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon world-views: that evil can be resisted but not overcome, and life is good no matter how bad because that's all there is. The Venerable Bede tells that a pagan convert to Christianity compared this outlook to the flight of a sparrow into one end of a lighted mead hall and out the other: from black nothingness, to brief light, to final night. After the world has exhausted its cycles, evil will have its way with oblivion.

Such is expected by the heroes of The Lord of the Rings. Like lambs led to slaughter, they are Nordic souls who sacrifice everything for the sake of friendship and goodness, without hope of victory, yet convinced beyond measure that evil must be resisted valorously unto death. It is heroes like these who give me hope, and if this personal observation is the only reliable thing I've written here, then I will take consolation in the fact that Tolkien would perhaps be pleased by the irony.

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