Certainly toxic, but in the book he is much much more nuanced. He is a horrible father, but he is also a reflection of the degradation of Gondor after generations of increased militarization. All of the beauty and wisdom and grace of the culture had been stripped down in the war effort.
He was deceived by a palantir, just as Saruman was. At least his reaction was suicide and the acceptance of Gondor’s defeat, and not “We must join with him.” If Frodo and Sam had failed, if Gollum had been killed, if anything else had happened, Denathor would have been 100% correct in his despair for Gondor and the West. A failure of character, but not illogical.
He is a fantastically flawed character, and the movie kind of did him dirty.
That's a damn shame, I'm a fan of John Noble and that level of nuance is definitely something he's capable of. I wonder why that decision to simplify him was made and who made it.
It's something that is just kinda hard to do justice in a movie, without making it THE movie. Basically on top of being fed despairing propaganda by the Palantir, he had spent his entire life fighting a losing battle, trying desperately to keep Gondor standing, but despite monumental effort continually losing more and more ground. Is it no wonder then that, after losing his two sons, he finally snaps and gives up whatever tiny shred of hope he might have had left?
I'm sure it was just to cut down on time. He's such a great character, it was sad how 2-dimensional they ended up portraying him. Sure, he gave into despair, but he resisted the will of Sauron where even the likes of Saruman had failed.
I think his character did a good enough job at showing the degradation of Gondor in just a few minutes of screentime. I guess the filmmakers decided that was enough of a contribution to justify cutting him down a bit. One of many reasons why I wish we had gotten a GoT-level miniseries instead of just 3 movies. All the extra time would have been incredible.
He resisted not only the will of Sauron, but also the pride of man. Though his house ruled Gondor with no end in sight, he did not take the throne and remained faithful as Steward.
That detail is subtle but well done in the film when they show the throne room of Gondor and he is seated in a smaller chair to the side of the throne, which remains ever empty. I think there was nuance to his characterization in the films, but it certainly could have been more prominent.
Edit: But I agree that this was likely just a time constraint and also wish it had been even longer.
It’s just hard to capture all of the detail possible in a book in general. The level of film language you need to stay within time for that kind of storyline on a secondary antagonist would be alienating to the mass market appeal of a blockbuster like LOTR, and it would muddy the relationships with Pippin and Faramir. And tbh, Peter Jackson is not that kind of director, his films are emotionally naive and family friendly, which is part of what makes them broadly appealing.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and Tolkien wrote so many words that an extremely long movie couldn't contain it all. Denethor is just another example of that.
It maybe isn't super obvious in the books what with being buried the in the Appendices but "Thorongil" gives a lot of important context on what's up with Denethor.
Also for real Tolks I know you got a bit you were working and I get it but take a step back and Gondor had a perfectly fine king already.
419
u/ProfessorBeer Beorning 27d ago
Lord of the Rings really is a glorious example of positive male relationships.