Are they innocent because they're loyal, and loyalty is a virtue? Are they just plain stupid? Or are they brainwashed by the standards of their time that as servants they must obey without question? What happens in modern times to people in the military or in corporations who refuse to do something wrong-are we still brainwashed to behave?Ģ. So what do you think about the loyalty of Denethor's unnamed servants? What do you think Tolkien thinks, given how they are NOT named, and how they act, and how Gandalf lectures them? They have fought with Beregond to help their master light himself on fire and kill his son, they have seen Gandalf rescue Faramir and talk with Denethor long enough for the latter to reveal how crazy he is, and still when he commands them, two of them run forward with a torch that Denethor uses to light himself on fire. You can hardly turn ten pages anywhere in the trilogy and not see acts of loyalty, though of course there is treachery too, just not as often.ġ. Frodo is loyal to the quest, though he seems to know it will destroy him or nearly so. All the hobbits are loyal to Frodo, as we see at Crickhollow, and of course Sam's loyalty to Frodo is epic. Soldiers come under the charisma of Faramir and Aragorn and become loyal beyond all else. Normally Tolkien extols loyalty as a great trait. Book V, Chapter 7: The Pyre of Denethor, part 3
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