I get the "player" part, but not the progeny part.

(Pardon the SSP) In my story "Who The Sword Devours" I portrayed Boromir as, to a degree, being that "player".  I do see him as the 'virile warrior', but also simply as a normal young man with lots of opportunity and (here's where I took liscence) a strong sense of entitlement.

We know he was proud, and certainly had every reason to expect that someday he would rule the largest kingdom of men in Middle Earth.  It would take a saint not to feel as though the world were not yours for the taking, and it seems only likely that folks around him every day reinforced that idea, as folks will with 'celebrities'.

It flows logically, for me, that if you are proud, priveleged, powerful, and heir to great power you must also be a target for the opposite sex.  Boromir could have been hideous, and the unscrupulous or just power-hungry would still have been putting their daughters in his way - imagine the social uplift that would come to any family whose daughter married into the Steward's? And Boromir, by all accounts, was not hideous.

While a case could be made of a young, dedicated, serious boy-with-a-mission and possibly over-protective father being able to resist all that temptation, I wouid find that a bit of a stretch.  After all, Gandalf says of Boromir "He was a masterful man, and one to take what he desired." 

The issue (pardon the pun) of progeny however, is a curious one.  I agree with you, Cressida, that it's likely mostly an impulse to kind of keep Boromir around, or just a romantic one.  But he would have had to think about it, and having to marry and produce an heir at some point.  I know he wasn't that old, by Numenorean standards, when he set out for Rivendell, but I suspect he and Denethor had more than a few conversations on the subject.  Wouldn't it have been fun to be a fly on the wall then!! Plot bunny, anyone?

Interesting. I guess I'm one of those people who rejects the notion of Boromir as a player, because it goes against, at least in my mind, the picture of Gondorian nobility that Tolkien sketches out. Granted, the blood of Westernesse apparently doesn't run as true in Boromir as it does in Denethor or Faramir, but I don't see enough reason to assume he was a player, even if the opportunities were constantly presenting themselves. Also, my view is tempered by the fact that I don't think Gondorian society is a true duplicate of most societies in real history...so the notion that upwardly mobile Gondorians would try to create power and influence for themselves through marriage with the House of Hurin doesn't work for me. Still, I think the idea that Boromir was one of Gondor's most eligible bachelors is basically correct, even if it doesn't lead me to the conclusion that he was a player!

As for whether Denethor ever spoke to Boromir about marriage and procreation, I'm a bit on the fence in that regard. On the one hand. Denethor is very aware of the importance of his legacy, and he almost certainly would have wanted his line to continue, if only to ensure that Gondor had stable rule. On the other hand, he waited until he was 46 to marry, and maybe he was willing to wait until that time to encourage Boromir or Faramir into matrimony.

Also, Denethor is pretty cynical, and I can see that he might have thought that progeny were fairly useless if the world was about to be overrun by the forces of darkness soon. Plus, unlike his ancestors, Denethor at least knows that there is a royal claimant to Gondor out there, and that may change his views on continuing his own line as well.

As for Boromir, I wonder if he simply never gave marriage a serious thought because he had a younger brother who was (maybe) more likely to marry and sire children who could inherit the Stewardship?

Just my two cents, of course.

Nancy, you make a cogent case.  I personally don't see sex in Middle-Earth as working that way, but that's based on literary tone and the assumption that a fictional world doesn't correspond 100% to the real one, more than on historical precedent.

Oh, I forgot another possible reason:

5.  Since Faramir so frequently ends up raising these children Boromir leaves behind, the authors may be trying to give him some consolation for losing Boromir.

Interesting...I totally read that as something more related to politics than personal life. Also, I took the bit of the Appendix about Boromir resembling Earnur in taking no wife and delighting "chiefly in arms" as an indication that Boromir didn't really care for girls that much. Come to think of that, I guess I mostly picture him as a...Knight Templar, probably! And anyway, I've come not to see the LotR universe as a duplicate of real history.


I've had these thoughts myself. In Gondor's situation an the end of the 3rd Age...well, one might decide against having kids at all.


*giggle* I'd just like to point out that Boromir's kids would probably have been quite a handful...

You know, I just had another thought about that:  Maybe the reason for the progeny is because the authors figure that Middle-Earth doesn't have any form of birth control besides abstinence, and so if Boromir is a player, then the inevitable result is lots of children scattered around.

And possible reason #6...

6.  The authors love children and the thought of a mini-Boromir makes them squee.

*giggles* I do like children, but the thought of a mini-Boromir kind of scares me...

    *thinks of the hilarious comic strips of Kasiopeia with a terrible mini-Boromir*