1. Minas Tirith
Gandalf rides with Pippin to Minas Tirith, embodying the archetypal image of "the wise old man and the child." Amid the saga’s high stakes, with the world hanging by a thread, it is easy to overlook, but early in the tale, Gandalf is beloved by the children of the Shire. This is not due to his wisdom but his playfulness, evident in his fireworks. He bears Narya, the Ring of Fire, and we have seen him wield flame to drive off monsters; his initiation began with a battle against a fire-demon, and so forth. Gandalf’s fire is no trivial matter, yet he can use his fire-magic to entertain—he simply plays with the flame that makes him so powerful. Qualities like playfulness, curiosity, and spontaneity—embodied by Pippin—are what make the wise old man in Gandalf’s guise such a positive figure. If these qualities fade with time, the old man, though still possessing judgment, insight, and knowledge, risks becoming bitter and rigid. Denethor exemplifies this. That Gandalf enters Denethor’s throne room with Pippin at his side underscores the contrast between these old men, who, to the hobbit’s eyes, seem alike. Denethor, meanwhile, sits with his head bowed over a broken horn in his lap.
But we shall return to this. When Gandalf arrives at the White City, he does so fittingly with the sunrise at his back. The city comprises seven “circles” at ascending levels, divided by white walls. We note the number seven, briefly discussed earlier regarding Aragorn’s sword with its seven stars as the Ring journeyed south; in brief, and in this context, it signifies the completion of a development. Aragorn and Minas Tirith are, of course, linked literally but also symbolically.
At the top, in the innermost circle, stands a citadel with a white tower rising three hundred feet, gleaming like mother-of-pearl and silver. From the citadel to the gate, incidentally, it is seven hundred feet. These are not the only numbers mentioned, but it is noteworthy that three and seven recur, aligning with earlier observations. In this context, we may note that the number four, unlike three, seven, and nine, is scarcely present. The reason lies in four’s quality of wholeness, which the saga strives toward. When all is resolved, the number four emerges.[1]
Thus far, all is consistent: a city with seven walls standing as a beacon of light against the dark forces in the east. Yet an unexpected and grandiose feature of this city’s design emerges: from the citadel eastward juts a vast, tapering bastion of stone. From the highest level down to the lower circles, the cliff’s edge extends like a gigantic keel. At the citadel, this stone prow is crowned with a parapet, “so that those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a mountainous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below.” We may recall that Aragorn, gazing longingly toward Gondor on the horizon, described the land he is to inherit with the words “mountain” and “sea.” That Gondor is so strongly associated with the sea—by Aragorn, in contrast to Boromir—is far from obvious to the typical reader; just as it is hardly self-evident that Galadriel is linked to ships and the sea high in Lothlórien’s trees, far from saltwater. For now, we note merely that one of Minas Tirith’s chief architectural expressions is—like Galadriel’s home—a ship.
What we can dwell on regarding this association, however, is that while Boromir repeatedly described Minas Tirith in exclusively masculine terms, and Aragorn in feminine ones (mountain and sea), this bulwark against Mordor is commonly called the “Stone City” (masculine); yet Faramir, in his conversations with Frodo, consistently speaks of the city as if it were a woman, a mother. Faramir’s reverent reference to Minas Tirith as “she” reflects the archetypal notion that the city, offering its inhabitants protection against an uncertain world, is akin to a mother. Similarly, the ship is a maternal image—the encompassing vessel that carries something within. The importance of Faramir’s understanding of Minas Tirith’s feminine value, unshared by either Boromir or Denethor, is reflected in this chapter’s close, when Gandalf, after meeting the Steward, sighs with a grim glance eastward: “When will Faramir return?” He knows this one-sided yang environment requires an infusion of yin to survive.
The Stone City is profoundly impressive, and Pippin from the Shire gazes wide-eyed as Gandalf rides Shadowfax upward through circle after circle. But as the initial awe of its magnificence fades and he begins to notice details, he sees that the city is in decline, with many dwellings standing empty. This reflects the archetypal image dominating the current psychological situation: the Sick Old King.
This archetypal image is familiar not only from countless folktales, myths, and legends but also from historical events. (It is, after all, the framing narrative of Frazer’s The Golden Bough.) The fate of Domalde, while perhaps of anecdotal value, serves as a nearby example: Snorri Sturluson recounts in his historical writings how famine and hardship plagued the land of the Swedes during King Domalde’s reign. Despite persistent sacrifices, conditions did not improve. Eventually, the chieftains convened and concluded that the fault lay with the king. So they sacrificed him to restore fertility to the land.[2]
Whether this tale is entirely historically accurate matters less, for in symbolic thinking, the king is the ruling force, to which both he and the people must relate for metaphysical (or archetypal) reasons. If the king is good, healthy, and generous, peace prevails, harvests are bountiful, and all prosper. But if the king is wicked, sick, or mean, misfortune befalls the people. The king is “the vital nerve and core of the collective psyche,” a symbol of the Self.[3] As the center of all things, his actions, attitude, and health create ripples that affect everyone. Across continents and eras, countless mythical and historical stories revolve around this archetypal image. When the people suffer, the king must be renewed. In folktales, this is typically represented by the young prince, whom the old king feels threatened by and seeks to eliminate, often by assigning impossible tasks to win his daughter’s hand. Yet the hero, often aided by helpful animals, overcomes them all and marries the princess—the “royal wedding” required to restore the land’s fertility. In alchemy, the old king sometimes renews himself through solutio followed by coagulatio in a new form;[4] elsewhere, as in ancient Egypt, the king underwent regular renewal rituals. With the ruling principle comes, in other words, the archetypal notion that it must be renewed to remain fruitful.
As the king ages, his conscious attitude risks rigidifying in its one-sidedness, turning him into a tyrannical opponent of anything that threatens the established order. Jung states that “the sick king [is] equivalent to the human being suffering from a state of spiritual barrenness.”[5] As an archetypal image, it reflects our human experience. As previously discussed, one-sidedness is useful in the first half of life, helping us forge ahead and establish a place in the world. But over time, this one-sidedness can become our identity, unwittingly building a dam against the inner renewing flow—images we have noted in our commentary, such as the lake outside Moria and Saruman’s construction projects. The Jungian analyst and author Robert A. Johnson expresses it strikingly: “By midlife your identity is the institutionalization of your past.”[6] This describes Denethor perfectly, for his rule is about preserving the past unchanged. “It had become for him a prime motive to preserve the polity of Gondor,” Tolkien writes in a letter.[7]
It is clear that the saga’s central theme is the Great Mother, but we have seen that Aragorn’s journey—in contrast to Frodo’s—centers on the Tyrannical Father: first Théoden, then Saruman, and soon Denethor. Just as Frodo’s primary challenge is the Terrible Mother, Aragorn’s is the Terrible Father. We observe that while the Mother is always found in nature, slithering and crawling, the Father to be overcome is found high up in imposing houses and towers. The Mother is nature and collective unconsciousness, while the Father is culture and collective consciousness. While the Terrible Mother terrifies, confuses, and dissolves, the Terrible Father rules with tyrannical rigidity and suppresses all that is new. Erich Neumann writes:
“The Terrible Male … functions not only as one that fixes it in a wrong direction. It is he who prevents the continued development of the ego and upholds the old system of consciousness. [He] is the negative force of self-destruction and the will to regression … and finally he is the authority of the patriarchate, as the Terrible Father.”[8]
This rigidifying attitude is not merely the stuff of tales but, as Johnson’s quote at the very least suggests, a common, often inevitable psychological condition that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, must eventually confront if the individuation process takes hold. Edward Edinger states:
“The symbolic sequence of the death and renewal of the king is the basic image of the individuation process.”[9]
When we arrive at Minas Tirith, it is the archetype of the Sick Old King that is constellated. Somehow, the heroes must navigate this to bring about renewal, allowing eros to flow in and dissolve the outdated structure.
As Gandalf and Pippin ascend to the highest level and the platform that forms, as it were, “the deck of the ship,” they behold the White Tree. In line with our discussion, it is dead. Incidentally, we note that the tree rises from the “ship,” forming the archetypal image we observed in “Galadriel’s Mirror.” It is remarkable that we find the same, far from obvious, image in Gondor as in Lothlórien. We may return to this, but in brief, the common denominator is Aragorn—the one who unites opposites. He enters the image with the ship and tree in Lothlórien, to which he is tied through his strong connection to the elves and to Galadriel via Arwen; then he enters as king in Gondor, which he will rule, where the image of ship and tree also appears.
The guards who greet Gandalf and Pippin wear black surcoats emblazoned with a white tree; the black and white recur in the citadel itself. The stark contrast between black and white reveals Minas Tirith’s ambivalence as a symbol, stemming from the fact that the place is dominated by the Tyrannical Father yet holds, in potentia, the renewal that Aragorn represents.
At the same time, the black-and-white motif expresses an ongoing conflict. In connection with Boromir, we discussed the conflict as the burden of men—it is men who must bear the conflict. In the elves’ home, for instance, no conflicts prevail; nor in the Shire before Frodo’s call awoke. But in the city of men, conflict reigns, and only man can resolve it. We note again that neither dwarves nor elves as peoples participate in the War of the Ring—only men and monsters. (We regard Frodo as essentially human since leaving the Shire.)
We can only briefly note that the guards in the citadel wear mithril helmets adorned with swan wings. Not only does this further link to Lothlórien (we recall Galadriel sailing in a swan-shaped boat), but it reinforces the image of the alchemical tree, arbor philosophica—the tree with a bird at its top, symbolizing the transformation process.[10]
While the White Tree is dead, thus illustrating Denethor’s and thereby Gondor’s outdated state, it stands on a lush lawn by a sparkling fountain. (Compare again with Lothlórien and its fountain at the tree’s roots.) We recognize this image from Théoden’s Edoras; there, too, the Sick Old King dominated, yet we were surprised by the sparkling water. We surmised that the water represented Éowyn, or more broadly, the feminine principle as a potential source of redemption. In Minas Tirith, with the same image, we return to the symbol’s ambivalence, expressed by the recurring, stark contrast of “black and white.” We said this arises from the current state and its potential for renewal—the opposition between Denethor as the Sick Old King and Aragorn as the redeemer; the hero who weds in the royal marriage, manifesting the coniunctio oppositorum that the saga strives for. Though the one-sidedly masculine state is sickly, both in Edoras and Minas Tirith, the image holds the potential for renewal. This contrasts with the third “Sick Old King” in the saga, Saruman. In Isengard, we saw no signs of potential redemption. We also know that Saruman only degenerates and dies before the saga’s end.
The White Tree is one of the saga’s most central symbols. The story begins with the Party Tree in the Shire, mirrored by the Good Mother’s tree in Lothlórien, and finally appears here as a dead White Tree. The Party Tree represented the Good Mother in the childlike Shire, and Galadriel’s tree the archetype with which Frodo establishes a conscious relationship. But both are one-sided and "compensated" by the dead tree of men. We emphasize that while the Party Tree belongs to the hobbits and Galadriel’s to the elves, the White Tree is humanity’s. This race, unlike elves, for instance, represents the principle of consciousness, the confrontation with reality, and the ability to concretize inner development—to integrate yin into life, letting it live and flow through the ego. If this does not occur, the journey is meaningless, like dreams that stream past like an unseen brook. To concretize eros (in our context) in life is what is valuable, not merely, say, dreaming of it. Thus, the tree of men must bloom for the saga to hold value. Galadriel’s tree makes no real difference—it is nostalgia, now merely the memory of a mother (though it may as such grant spiritual strength).
As the tree is such a vital symbol in the saga, we must explore it further. As a symbol, it carries many meanings, but some, according to Jung, are fundamental.[11] He argues that the tree is the Self depicted as a growth process; in other words, a symbol of individuation. In his essay “The Philosophical Tree,” he returns to the tree as a symbol of wholeness. Individuation, the Self, and wholeness can, depending on the context, be considered synonymous concepts. Alchemists, whose imagery Jung often references—since their work is essentially a study of the collective imagery of the individuation process and thus psychologically significant—describe the tree as “all” or as “the stone.”[12] The stone, or lapis, is an expression of these concepts, particularly the Self.[13]
As we have seen in our saga, the tree has a “traditional maternal significance.”[14] Common associations with trees, based on Jung’s practical experience, include development, growth, being well-rooted or stuck, the Mother, death, and rebirth.[15] “As the seat of transformation and renewal, the tree has a feminine and maternal significance,” Jung reiterates.[16]
Alchemists described the symbol similarly; it represents the growth of the secret substance and its transformation into the philosophical gold (again, the Self). Zosimos likened this transformation process to “a well-tended tree.”[17] That is, as long as the individuation process progresses satisfactorily with the adept’s attention and care, the tree flourishes. But when it ceases, and the ego’s conscious structure becomes tyrannical toward it, the tree dies—which is what the White Tree in Denethor’s city expresses.
The alchemist Gerhard Dorn describes the tree as a metaphor for “the secret substance,” sometimes identical to “the water,” aqua permanens.[18] This association between tree and water is familiar from our saga’s imagery; we have already drawn attention to Galadriel’s fountain at the tree’s roots and now the fountain at the White Tree. Fountain and tree are sometimes used as synonymous images;[19] the water that spurts upward and falls forms a crown, and the tree that spreads its branches at the top, letting leaves fall, is associated with a fountain. The well and fountain are, in themselves, maternal symbols,[20] as is, as noted, the ship. In the commentary on “Galadriel’s Mirror,” we observed that the horizontal ship with its vertical tree is a known shamanic symbol for “the journey.”[21]
Thus, we see how the Sick Old King in his throne room and the dead tree mirror each other. Denethor’s development has stalled, and his ambition now is to prevent change. Such a conscious attitude may sometimes be reflected in our dreams as dead trees, dried-up fountains, or similar images. Yet we have the lush grass and lively fountain before the citadel, so we understand the situation is not hopeless for the city. A tree may seem dead yet bloom one day.
When Gandalf and Pippin enter the citadel, one is struck by how black and white dominate in a way unlike any other setting. We have noted that this suggests the dual nature of the Minas Tirith symbol, but we can also infer that this stark distinction is another sign of masculine dominance. There is no room for ambiguity (yin/moonlight) here; sharp distinction (yang/sunlight) reigns. It also seems a uniquely cold environment of granite and marble, with statues like “monoliths”—we see nothing of wood or fabric.
Then, at last, they come to Denethor, seated on a relatively simple chair at the foot of the throne’s steps. (He is, after all, not literally a king but a steward.) The chair is black, the staff he holds white. He is an old man gazing down at his lap, where Boromir’s cloven horn rests, the broken masculinity.
When he speaks, he expresses unspeakable bitterness over his firstborn son’s death. “Faramir should have gone in his stead,” he says. Naturally, Denethor values his one-sidedly masculine son more highly than the more multifaceted Faramir.
Since Gandalf, as we have seen, represents the inner impulse for change, the relationship between him and the Sick Old King becomes almost immediately tense. Denethor is dismissive and nonchalant toward the wizard, just as we tend to ignore our inner impulses, if only because they are troublesome. Like the inflated Saruman, Denethor makes a spectacle of his own person. When one ignores the inner world, one becomes possessed by it, filled with unconscious material—that is, inflated. He claims, for instance, to see more than ”lesser men.” But from a psychological perspective, this may reflect projections rather than insight.
Gandalf has little to gain in Denethor’s hall.
Toward the chapter’s end, Pippin converses with a guard who speaks of Denethor: “Some say he sits alone in his chamber high in the Tower at night; and by letting his mind wander in various directions, he can discern something of the future; at times, he even tries to read the enemy’s thoughts and wrestle with him. And so it is that he has aged and grown old before his time.” Again, we see parallels between Denethor and Saruman—bitter old men high in a tower, mindlessly staring into their own darkness.
Pippin awakens to Gandalf lighting a candle. The wizard paces to and fro, muttering, as we mentioned: “When will Faramir return?”
Footnotes
[1] An exception is the hobbits’ fellowship, where the four form a whole of Frodo’s personality until Aragorn. Only when the quest is completed are the four reunited, on their way back to the Shire.
[2] Åke Ohlmarks, Fornnordiskt lexikon (Stockholm: Tiden, 1993).
[3] Marie-Louise von Franz, The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1999) p. 23. Regarding the king as the center of everything, see Frazer, The Golden Bough, chapter XVII.
[4] Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche, p. 52. See also “Rex and Regina” in Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, for a more comprehensive description.
[5] Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, par. 496.
[6] Robert A. Johnson and Jerry M. Ruhl, Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2007), p. 65.
[7] Tolkien, Letters, p. 241.
[8] Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, p. 186.
[9] Paraphrased from Edinger, The Mysterium Lectures, p. 216. Edinger here comments on paragraph 523 in the previously mentioned chapter “Rex and Regina” in Mysterium Coniunctionis.
[10] Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, par. 499; image 231, p. 419.
[11] Jung, "The Philosophical Tree", CW 13, par. 305.
[12] Ibid., par. 423f.
[13] Ibid., par. 428.
[14] Ibid., par. 326.
[15] Ibid., par. 350.
[16] Ibid., par. 418.
[17] Ibid., par. 354.
[18] Ibid., par. 425.
[19] Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, par. 74f.
[20] Jung, Symbols of Transformation, par. 366 (fn).
[21] Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 357f.