A Study of Character: King Theoden

  Hello readers! I’m so excited for you to read today’s column, specifically because it was penned by a great friend of mine! After my first piece in this series, David Burnett reached out to me and asked if he could join into the fray. He and I will be sharing the rest of the “Study of Character” series, writing five articles each on some of our favorite fictional personas. David is starting with his favorite character from the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy.

  I say honestly that his interpretation of the character has rocked me to my core, and spoken light and truth  into some of the deepest struggles of my life.

  So without further around-the-bush beatings…. I leave you in David’s excellent company.

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 Today I want to focus on a character who is not a member of the Fellowship. Surprised, right? While Frodo and company all are certainly worthy of discussion, I invite you instead to join me in taking a closer look at my favorite character from the trilogy: King Theoden of Rohan. Theoden, throughout The Lord of the Rings, serves as a symbol not only of redemption from sin, but also of everlasting hope and eternal victory in Christ.

  We first meet Theoden in the second book of the trilogy, The Two Towers. The Company arrive in Rohan to find a crumbling kingdom on the edge of ruin. They are not greeted by the noble king of Rohan as they expect, but an enfeebled, brooding man who sits, bent and twisted, on the throne. Theoden, has been manipulated and enslaved by his advisor, Grima Wormtongue, and sequentially possessed by the evil Saruman. The peace that Theoden won for his kingdom in his youth, had made him complacent and weak, which was the opening that his enemies needed.

  Theoden became unrecognizable to friends, family, and ultimately his own people. This is the power of sin.

  Seasons of complacency are certainly one of the Enemy’s favorite times to attack Christians. Sin can creep into our lives when and where we least expect it, and once it takes hold, it will yield only to the power of the Christ.

  “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

  Fortunately for Theoden, Tolkien wrote a Christ-figure into the story in the character of Gandalf the wizard. After Gandalf releases Theoden from Saruman’s possession, Theoden awakens to a realm on the brink of destruction. He is faced with the ending of his entire world. The pain that he feels at learning of the death of his only son, the banishment of his nephew at his own hand, and of the terrible state of his kingdom is fully realized in his first words to Gandalf:

  "Dark have been my dreams of late,’ he said, ‘but I feel as one new-awakened… For I fear that already you have come too late, only to see the last days of my house… Fire shall devour the high seat. What is to be done?"

-The Two Towers

  

  Theoden is saved from his internal strife, but now realizes how utterly desperate the struggle against Sauron has become. When through salvation, we are rescued from complacency and residing sin, we are thrust into a realization much like Theoden’s. We have received personal salvation, but now understand the full degree of pain, hurt, and sin in the world. But Theoden, like those who are delivered by Christ, learns that, despite all odds, there is a call to be brave, bold, and courageous, even in the face of death. We cannot simply sit by and ignore the coming of sin and darkness, but must strive to meet it in our daily lives, even when the burden seems too much to bear.

  As Paul says in Philippians, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21

  Theoden goes on to fight two major battles in the War of the Ring, one at the Siege of Helm’s Deep, and the other at the Fields of Pelennor. While both battles are without much hope, there is a stark difference in Theoden between the two. At Helm’s Deep, he is committed to dying with honor and glory for the sake of memory and for the sake of living up to his ancestors’ expectations. He believes that Rohan and Middle-Earth are likely doomed, but will make such an end as will be worthy of remembrance. He is without hope.

  At Pelennor Fields, Theoden is an utterly different man. In what is my personal favorite moment in all of the Lord of the Rings and the defining moment for King Theoden, he leads all of his Rohirrim in a desperate, vicious, and suicidal charge against the largest army that Sauron had mustered. He went into the fray, not just for the glory of death in battle, but because he was utterly convinced now that his duty as a king and of a citizen of Middle-Earth was to fight for the freedom of its people. He had realized his true purpose.

  His words to his men charge them with a sense of finality and of ultimate sacrifice for the greater good:

  “Arise! Arise, riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken. Shields shall be splintered. A sword-day, a red-day, ere the sun rises! Ride now! Ride now! Ride for ruin, and the world’s ending! Death!”

-The Return of the King

  

His final words to one of his captains show how far Theoden has come from when he was first awakened: “Forth, and fear no darkness!” The fear of the dark that Theoden expressed in The Two Towers is utterly gone by The Return of the King. He now comes bearing hope, without concern for his own well-being.

  Tolkien describes his final charge:

  “Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old...His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them.”

-The Return of the King

  His funeral dirge, sung after the war has ended and the good that Theoden fought for has been realised, speaks volumes of the man that he ultimately became:

   “Out of doubt, out of dark, to the day’s rising he rode

Singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.

Hope he rekindled, and in hope ended;

Over death, over dread, over doom lifted

Out of loss, out of life, unto long glory.”

-The Return of the King

By his death, Theoden had surpassed his original ambition of being a good king and has become a hope-bringer to Middle-Earth. As Christians, we are not only called to be “good” people, but to the bringers of light into a fallen world,

   Kevin here again! I hope you, the reader, got as much out of this as I did. I for one see a character that I never much admired in an entirely new light. I see much of myself in the character of Theoden, and love his redemption story. Thanks for reading!

Click Here! - Last Ride of the Rohirrim

  * The character of Theoden studied here reflects both the film and novel interpretations of him.