Ride for ruin! And the world's ending!

I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed.

Have you ever looked death squarely in the face and conquered the fear of it? Not due to some adrenaline filled activity like skydiving or cliff jumping, not for the sake of actively hoping for it, and not from some bloodthirsty urge of warmongering, but from the standpoint of risk of life for the complete Goodness of others? Asking myself these questions, I can very clearly answer, no, I have not, and I doubt many of you reading this have either. This type of act, so rare and true, is true love embodied, which is the selfless want of good for others. John 15:13 states, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” and this type of act is so unique and abstract because it requires complete death of oneself, physically and spiritually.

King Theoden of The Lord of the Rings is the embodiment of this commandment. Death of today in our modern age is essentially completely free of any dramatics. There is no “heroic death.” Man dies in a hospital room, sick, withered and in pain, hooked up to drugs and machines with thousands of buttons and beeping sounds. There is little glory to be found in a dying room with pre portioned meals. The chivalrous death of the battlefield is long gone for the vast majority of us, and we are treated more like organic material on our way to decomposition, counting down the hours until the final curtain falls rather than actual souls. We become a statistic on the hospital registrar. So many of us are scared to live, and so we die with little ceremony and fear. Yet Theoden, when faced with the prospect of annihilation and destruction, chooses to face it and accept it, laying down his own life to save others. He does not wish to grow old and weak if that means others must suffer as a cause of his inaction. He sacrifices length of life for meaning of life and Goodness, which is reflected by some of his last lines as he lays dying.

“My body is broken. I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed.”

Theoden struggles with guilt and shame for much of his time in The Lord of the Rings. He believes he is not fit to rule the kingdom of Rohan as he is older, his son died, and he has been under the control of evil for some time at the hands of Saruman the White. He believes he is inadequate to save his people, and struggles with the burden of the weight of being the sole ruler they all look to for salvation. The world is crumbling around him, evil is succeeding, and the strength and will of men is failing in the face of doom.

Yet when the occasion presents itself to do battle and conquer ultimate evil, and to save Gondor and the realm of men, he does not remain hidden, he instead answers the call of the hero and summons the men of Rohan to fight in one last stand. When Theoden is told by one of his captains that they can not defeat the armies of Mordor, Theoden responds.

“No, we cannot. But we will meet them in battle nonetheless.”

This final battle to Theoden is not just about coming out of it victorious and rescuing the falling Gondor from the threat of Sauron. It is about doing what is right. It is about his integrity, and is the climax to his arc where he shows the courage he had all along, and that he was truly worthy of being the king of Rohan. His death in the battle shows his true sacrifice, that he was willing to die to stop evil and come to the aid of those who needed it, even if it meant his own demise.

Now, I am not here telling you that we must all be looking for death in some glorious battle to achieve a life worth living, or that the only way to display our fortitude and integrity is through total sacrifice of our body in death. But what I am saying is that there is a certain beauty and majesty and profound glory in the man who risks his life for causes that are precisely true, good and beautiful. We see in our modern age when trouble erupts in the world, the first thing most of us do is pull out our phones and start filming it, instead of looking to help others. It is much easier to gawk at others torments or prioritize our own personal safety over doing what is right and putting ourselves at risk to help others.

The key is not to go looking for trouble, but to train your body and mind now to have the strength, courage and integrity to make the hard decisions when trouble does arise, even if that means laying down your own life for the sake of saving someone you love.

I decided to write this piece when I heard that Bernard Hill, the legendary actor who portrayed King Theoden of Rohan in The Lord of the Rings, recently passed, yet despite his death, his legacy of this character through his depth, love and dedication in his acting will live on for many generations to come. Rest In Peace.