Non-Actionable Puffery

Day 3: Share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

One of my favorite characters in the Lord of the Rings is Halbarad, who is one of the Northern Dúnedain, Aragorn's kinsman, and the leader of the Grey Company (and who was tragically cut from the movies). I love in particular what he says to Aragorn at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead:

'This is an evil door,' said Halbarad, 'and my death lies beyond it. I will dare to pass it nonetheless'

These lines are an expression of the - not selfless, but self-forgetting - dedication to goodness, even if you yourself cannot enjoy that goodness, that the heroes of the Legendarium possess and that makes them so admirable. For Halbarad's foresight is reliable, and he does in fact perish bearing Aragorn's standard on the Pelennor Fields. Halbarad's lines here make me think of what Frodo says to Sam near the end of Return of the King:

'I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.'

When Frodo first takes up the burden of the Ring, he does not yet know this. Halbarad knows, and follows Aragorn into battle anyway, because he values higher than his own life a peace he will not live to see.

In Return of the King, Tolkien states that March 25, the day of the destruction of the Ring and Sauron’s overthrow, was adopted by both the Men of the Reunited Kingdom and by the hobbits as the new New Year’s Day. He goes into further detail on this point in the Appendices and in “The Calendars”, published in Peoples of Middle-earth. But why March 25?

The choice of March 25 relates, I think, to the idea that the Legendarium at some level represents an alternate mythological history for England – that the Shire, and many of the surrounding lands, form what is now England – because March 25 was in fact the official start of the year in England from the late 12th century through 1752!

Although January 1 was the start of the new year in the Roman Empire and continued to be called “New Year’s Day” in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, in medieval Europe January 1 was almost never used as the date on which the new year actually began. The most common dates from which the year was reckoned were Christmas, Easter, and the Annunciation, also called Lady Day – March 25. For example, in modern reckoning, the year 2019 began today, January 1. In thirteenth-century England, however, it would not have begun until March 25 – and if the year were reckoned from Christmas, it would already have started a week ago.

In truth, neither Easter nor Lady Day is a convenient day from which to reckon the year. Easter has the obvious drawback that it does not fall on the same date every year – Easter is celebrated (in the West) on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox, meaning that years counted from Easter to Easter vary dramatically in the number of days. Lady Day, March 25, is a fixed date, but since Easter may fall before, on, or after this date, reckoning from Lady Day produces some years with two Easters and some with none at all.

Christmas was the most popular date from which to reckon the year in the early Middle Ages, but it was gradually supplanted by Lady Day, and England retained the Lady Day reckoning for official purposes, as mentioned previously, until 1752. Reckoning the year from March 25 thus came to be thought of as a characteristically British practice.

I think, therefore, Tolkien chose to emphasize that March 25 was the day from which the year was reckoned in Middle-earth in the Fourth Age in order to provide an alternate explanation of sorts for the custom in England, the idea being that the practice of reckoning from March 25 in the Middle Ages and beyond could be viewed as a continuation of a custom dating back to the overthrow of Sauron in the mythical past.

Of course, the information I have given here only scratches the surface of the exciting field that is medieval chronology! Two excellent – and short! – introductory works on the subject are “Medieval Chronology: Theory and Practice” by R. Dean Ware and “The Beginning of the Year in the Middle Ages” by Reginald Poole.

I see a lot of people interpreting Elrond and Elros’ choices as Elros being bolder than Elrond because he chooses the unknown, but I think of it a little differently.

Elrond’s choice to be numbered among the Eldar takes an immense amount of courage. He’s seen firsthand in Maedhros and Maglor the sheer weariness that comes from the (theoretically) unlimited lifespan of the Eldar, but he still chooses to risk that misery. He takes a chance on Middle-earth. However terrible Elros’ life in Numenor could turn out to be, he’s only stuck there for a finite amount of time. Elrond is betting everything on Middle-earth.

There’s a lot of talk about how Elros’ choice to accept the Gift of Men shows his willingness to embrace circumstances as they come, that he isn’t afraid of change, and I’m not saying that isn’t true; but that same character trait is something Elrond definitely has as well. If there's one thing Elrond isn't, it's over-cautions. It takes a lot of guts to commit yourself to life when you have very little idea where it will take you and you could be around forever.