Boromir: Lord of the Rings

 

By: Erik Fahnestock

In the book Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring there is a very interesting character and deep character named Boromir. To give a little backstory most of the free peoples of middle earth (Elves, Men, and dwarfs) have been fighting off Sauron's forces from the land of Mordor in the east, and Boromir's city/kingdom is on the front lines of the war. Gondor, Boromir's hometown, and more specifically the city he grew up in, Minas Tirith, is right on the border of Mordor, this leads to much fighting and resistance from where he is from.

Boromir is a great warrior and son of the Stuart of Gondor, Denethor, at the time there is no current king so Denethor is the main ruler of Gondor. The war between Mordor and Gondor is worsening and Boromir wants answers, so he goes to the city Rivendell, an Elvish city that is located in the west and is the house of Elrond, one of the wisest Elves, or any being, at the time. After he makes the long journey to Rivendell he is invited to the council of Elrond where he finds that the ring of power has been found, and he chosen to be part of the fellowship.

The one ring is a very tempting thing, it speaks to you of power and desire, that if you could obtain this ring you would be the most powerful, and Boromir is merely a man, so he is tempted. Boromir expresses temptation and longing for the ring throughout the book and almost feels intitled to it, he feels this because his hometown, Gondor, is contributing the most in the war against Sauron. The point that he's coming from is actually quite sensible, his people are suffering the most in the war and he thinks that it can help if they use the power of the ring for good, but they can't, the reason for this is that the ring was made by Sauron and the ring is Sauron, Sauron is the ring. What this means is that if they tried to use it Sauron would know exactly where it was, as he did not know where it was, and would be able to retrieve it very easily, leading to him gaining full power again.

In the end of the Fellowship of the Ring Boromir pleads Frodo, who is the ring bearer, to give him the ring, and eventually resorts to attacking Frodo, which leads to Frodo putting on the ring, telling Sauron ad his servants where he was. In this situation Boromir is very desperate, he just wants what's best for his people, who knows if he genuinely wanted the ring for himself, maybe he would've used it the best he could, for good, but he let temptation take over him. This can relate to things in our life, we might think that something is good and will help yourself and other, but you don't see the bigger picture and the other factors it might effect.