Denethor

In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Peter Jackson chose to depict Denethor, played by John Noble, as greedy and self-indulgent, quite unlike Tolkien's powerful leader.

Nonetheless he continues to fight Sauron until the forces of Mordor arrive at the gates of Minas Tirith, at which point he loses all hope.

In the published essay on the palantíri, Tolkien wrote:[T 3] He [Denethor] must have guessed that the Ithil-stone [Sauron's palantír] was in evil hands, and risked contact with it, trusting his strength.

The reasons for this difference were no doubt that in the first place Denethor was a man of great strength of will and maintained the integrity of his personality until the final blow of the (apparently) mortal wound of his only surviving son.

[T 2] Denethor orders his son Faramir to take his men to defend the river crossing at Osgiliath and the great wall of the Rammas Echor.

'[T 6] Denethor, grief-struck by the apparent loss of his son, orders his servants to burn him alive on a funeral pyre prepared for himself and Faramir in Rath Dínen.

[2] The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that this forms part of a pattern around the use of the Palantír, that one should not try to see the future but should trust in one's luck and make one's own mind up, courageously facing one's duty in each situation.

[4] The medievalist Elizabeth Solopova comments that unlike Aragorn, Denethor is incapable of displaying what Tolkien in Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics called "northern courage", namely, the spirit to carry on in the face of certain defeat and death.

Tolkien Encyclopedia, writes that many critics have examined his fall and corrupted leadership, whereas Richard Purtill identifies Denethor's pride and egoism, a man who considers Gondor his property.

In her opinion, Denethor "fails as a father, a master, a steward, and a rational man," giving in to despair, whereas Aragorn is brave in battle and gentle with his people, and has the Christlike attribute of healing.

[7] Shippey makes the same comparison, extending it to numerous elements of the two Men's stories, writing that Théoden lives by a theory of Northern courage, and dies through Denethor's despair.

Tolkien calls Denethor a masterful man, both wise and learned beyond the measure of those days, and strong willed, confident in his own powers, and dauntless.

[13] Christianity Today wrote that the films "missed the moral and religious depths"[14] of the book, such as when they turned "the awful subtlety and complexity of evil"[14] into something trivially obvious.