This really all starts with the theory of courage, which I discovered while reading Tom Shippey for a paper I was writing. Tolkien described it as "the main spring of despair." It shows up in "The Battle of Maldon" (an Old English epic) as "Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose, / more proud the spirit, as our power lessens . . . ." This struck me because it was the first time I'd seen verbalized that which I think is one of the things that draws me most to LOTR and to all of Tolkien’s works. I have always found tragedy and sorrow more realistic, more compelling, and above all more beautiful than comedy. And for all that it has a happy ending (one could argue) LOTR has an awful lot of despair. Frodo, Sam, Éowyn, Denethor, possibly Boromir, none of them have hope. I’m sure the list in the Silm is even longer. It's a word that shows up a lot in the books, too. I reread them this summer and noticed all sorts of things that I can't remember now because it was a month and a half ago and I didn't have anything to note it down with or some other poor excuse like that.
That said, I think it's interesting that those who really succeed and do something major in the books often are the ones with absolutely no hope whatsoever. Merry describes Dernhelm as having "the face of one without hope, who goes in search of death," and he 's not wrong about that. Éowyn wants to die and she wants to die in battle. Even so, Is that what makes her brave enough to face the Witch King? She is described as ‘faithless beyond fear’ so perhaps it is her love of Théoden, but the rest of his knights also presumably love him. What is it that gives Éowyn alone the power to withstand the generally overwhelming aura of fear of the Witch King? Perhaps she simply has absolutely nothing left to lose. With nothing to lose and everything to gain -- she did, after all, go in search of death and glory – why not stand up to this foe? It is her despair. She is doing the deed for the deed itself and it will grant her exactly what she wants – death and glory.
Another line that stands out to me is in the cry of the Rohirrim:
"Out of doubt, out of dark, to the day's rising,
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking,
Now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red nightfal."
What an odd combination. To hope's end and heart's breaking seems to be the uttermost depths of despair -- they are not going to win and they know it. But juxtaposed with that is 'Out of doubt, out of dark' and even more strangely, 'I came singing in the sun.' I come singing in the sun all the time and it's not usually because I think I'm about to meet my forefathers after a possibly agonizing death. In the case of the Pelennor Fields it is of course because the sun actually rose for the first time then, but even so, does it not sound like a line full of hope? I came singing in the sun, out of doubt, out of dark. Does this mean simply that they are ready now to meet their deaths with courage and perhaps even joy?
Further, Éomer’s battle cry after discovering both his uncle and his sister dead is “Death!” Whose death? The Orcs and Easterlings? That would probably make more sense, but somehow I always interpreted in my mind as his own death. Again, it sounds like a sort of fey and despairing joy to me. And it is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry.
So, moving on to Sam and Frodo, which is probably where I should have started but I’m very stream of consciousness so there you have it. Sam, in some ways, is a lot more interesting than Éowyn in terms of hope. He’s the one in the series that seems to say “Sure, why shouldn’t we do it?” Unlike most of the other characters, his loss of hope is a marked change, a defined moment. But that moment is when we really see what Sam is made of.
Just as he loses hope, he gains the strength and will he needs to go on, which is sort of odd. It seems that hope should be the thing that keeps you going, even if it’s that tiny glimmer of maybe not quite certain death, only probable death. For Éowyn, her hope IS death, so that makes sense. Even in death she wants glory and great deeds, but Sam doesn’t care about glory – even the Ring can’t make him want power. He doesn’t even think that Gandalf or Aragorn will ever know what they did. I really am fascinated by this because perhaps he just keeps going because it’s the right thing to do. He will get no reward, none whatsoever, but he feels that he must keep going and honestly, I don’t think he could have told himself why either, except that it’s because he said he would and he has to take care of Frodo.He had never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he bad not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed. Now they had come to the bitter end.
Shippey says that this is Tolkien’s morality coming into play – people should do something because it is right not because of some inherent reward, which is essentially what Aragorn says to Éowyn, though I couldn’t tell you what the quote is.
Frodo is a different sort of take on it. He also never really had any hope in the affair, but this doesn’t seem to strengthen or weaken him. It’s just there, a part of existence like the certainty of Ragnorak was to the Norse. This goes along with Tolkien’s morality again. Whatever happens afterward isn’t important – Frodo knows he’s not going to make it and that’s essentially okay with him as long as he can do what needs to be done. Hope is extraneous.
Skipping over to the Sil/Children of Húrin (because I haven’t read it in ages so this is all I feel qualified to talk about), Túrin is sort of like Éowyn. He seems to know he is doomed. Betrayal follows him everywhere. He is betrayed or betrayor everywhere he goes and to everyone he loves, most notably of Beleg and Nienor. How can you have hope living like that, fleeing from fate? I don’t think he ever does, but he rails against it nonetheless. Unlike Éowyn and Sam and Denethor, I would say that Túrin actively fights against his complete lack of hope. Instead he is Turambar, master of fate. He loses anyway of course, but everyone else seems to take despair into stride.
Although the theory of courage is obviously very Northern I think it may also have been related to Tolkien’s experiences in the First World War. That was a ridiculous war. What hope is there in fighting for inches of mud, in desperate charges against a no man’s land, in filthy trenches? The war was pointless and thus no matter who surrendered to whom, everyone lost. And yet, despite all that, there was undoubtedly great courage and honour shown. One of my favourite stories from history in the 1914 Christmas in the trenches. Even without hope, even with the knowledge that it was probably all fruitless, they forged on holding off defeat and death as long as they could, just like Frodo and Sam.
So, there are some very incomplete and disorganized thoughts. I feel like I have more to say but after working on this for two weeks I still don’t know what, so do with them what you will.
Editted for bad coding.