Boromir
As a member of the Fellowship, his desperation to save his country ultimately drove him to betray his companions and attempt to seize the Ring, but he was redeemed by his repentance and brave last stand.
They have compared him both to other proud Tolkien characters such as Fëanor and Túrin Turambar, and to medieval heroes like Roland, who also blew a horn in battle and was killed in the wilderness.
His journey lasts a hundred and eleven days, and he travels through "roads forgotten" to reach Rivendell, though, as he says, "few knew where it lay".
He tries to persuade the council to let him take the One Ring to defend Gondor, but is told that it would corrupt and destroy its user, and alert Sauron to its presence.
He agrees to accompany Aragorn to Gondor's capital, Minas Tirith, and since their path lies with the Fellowship for the first part of the journey, he pledges to protect the Ring-bearer, Frodo.
In the retreat from Caradhras, Boromir proves his strength as he and Aragorn force a way through shoulder-high snowbanks back down the mountain.
[T 6][T 7] At the borders of the Elven realm of Lothlórien, Boromir is unnerved by the thought of entering, pleading with Aragorn to find another way "though it led through a hedge of swords"; he cites stories of elvish witchcraft, and the "strange paths" they had already taken which had caused Gandalf's death.
Aragorn, suspecting Boromir's part in Frodo's flight, orders him to follow and protect Merry and Pippin.
Boromir had blown his great horn till the woods rang, and at first the Orcs had been dismayed and had drawn back; but when no answer but the echoes came, they had attacked more fiercely than ever.
Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas place Boromir's body in one of their Elven boats, with his sword, belt, cloak, broken horn, and the weapons of his slain foes about him.
[T 12] Three days later, Faramir, to his and their father's great grief, see the boat bearing his dead brother floating down the River.
[4] Boromir's hubris makes him prey to the malign power of the Ring, and he seals his own doom when he attacks Frodo to seize it.
[4] He speaks of using the Ring in the service of Gondor, but his talk of "strength in a just cause" indicates, writes the Tolkien critic Tom Shippey, only how matters would begin.
[5] In Christian terms, Boromir atones for his assault on Frodo by single-handedly but vainly defending Merry and Pippin from orcs,[6] which illustrates the Catholic theme of the importance of good intention, especially at the point of death.
Both blow a horn in the distress of battle and both are eventually killed in the wilderness while defending their companions, although Roland is portrayed as blameless and heroic throughout.
The ship-burials of the seafaring Numenoreans in The Lost Road and Other Writings[T 20] have been compared to those of the Viking age as described in the Prose Edda and in the Old English poem Beowulf; Boromir is similarly given a boat-funeral.
[T 12][8][9] As with Scyld Scefing's funeral ship in Beowulf, no-one knows where the boat goes to in the end, but for Tolkien the suggestion that it goes to a mysterious land in the uttermost West was fascinating, and he developed it at length in The Lost Road.
[10]In both Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film and in the subsequent BBC Radio serial, Boromir is played by Michael Graham Cox.
[14] In a departure from the structure of Tolkien's book, Boromir's death is shown at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), instead of being related at the beginning of The Two Towers.
[15][T 12] In The Two Towers (2002), Boromir appears in the theatrical version only briefly during the beginning flashback sequence of Gandalf's fight with the Balrog in Moria.
[16][17] In The Return of the King (2003), Boromir appears in the theatrical version during a brief flashback as Pippin remembers his heroic self-sacrifice.
