Tuesday, January 19, 2016

"The Illegitimacy of Aragorn’s Claim to the Throne"

Austin Gilkeson:
Aragorn’s claim to Gondor’s throne rests entirely on his being descended — after 3,000 years — from Valandil and Isildur, who were kings of Arnor. The closest real-world parallel to this would be an Italian man claiming descent from Romulus showing up in Ankara and claiming to be King of Turkey, because Romulus was supposedly descended from Prince Aeneas of Troy. Imagine if you found out your ancestor, thirty-seven generations prior, was the brother of an Egyptian pharaoh. Do you know what that would make you, in terms of Egyptian political succession? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

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Aragorn, like a many an illegitimate dictator before him, was only able to seize power due to the breakdown of law and society during the great crisis of the War of the Ring.

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After the War of the Ring and Denethor’s death, Gondor did embrace Aragorn as its new king, partially because he’d arrived at the head of an army of the Dead.