Peter Jackson's Smartest Lord of the Rings Change Redefined Middle-earth's Greatest Kingdom

Gondor was the main heroic civilization of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, embodying most of the virtues that one would expect from a classic fantasy kingdom. It was home to beautiful architecture, such as the gleaming capital city of Minas Tirith, and its soldiers were knights in shining armor, standing valiantly as the first line of defense against Mordor to the east. Yet Gondor was also a deeply flawed kingdom.

Like most of Middle-earth, Gondor's glory days were long over by the time of The Lord of the Rings. However, while the decline of the Elven realms was due to uncontrollable factors such as the Elves fading away while they remained in Middle-earth, Gondor's troubles were self-inflicted. A scene from the extended edition of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King perfectly summarized where the once mighty kingdom went wrong, and it included a major deviation from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings novel.

Gandalf Told Pippin About the Downfall of Gondor in The Return of the King

Image via New Line Cinema

After Gandalf the White's fruitless conversation with Lord Denethor in Minas Tirith, he and Peregrin "Pippin" Took exited to the courtyard, where the White Tree of Gondor stood. The sight of Gondor's withered symbol reminded Gandalf of the kingdom's decline, and he told Pippin, "The old wisdom born out of the West was forsaken. Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the old names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons."

The people of Gondor, especially its leaders, were stuck in the past, much to Gandalf's frustration. Denethor was so entrenched in tradition that he refused to accept the ascension of Isildur's heir, even if it could potentially save his kingdom from falling into ruin. Most of Gandalf's dialogue in this scene was lifted directly from the novel, specifically the chapter "The Window on the West" from The Two Towers, but there was one key difference: in the novel, these lines were not spoken by Gandalf.

Rather, it was Faramir who commented on Gondor's decline during one of his conversations with Frodo Baggins. This was far from the only instance of Jackson giving one character's dialogue to someone else in his film trilogy, but the change in context had a meaningful impact on the quote. Though Faramir was wise, his perspective was limited. He was only 36 years old, so he had no personal experience with the golden age of Gondor.

Additionally, his worldview was colored by his father's disdain towards him. With Denethor as his point of reference, it is easy to see how he would conclude that fathers "counted the old names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons." This was emphasized by the fact that Denethor's favorite son, Boromir, was named after one of his ancestors, while Faramir was not. Though there was certainly truth in Faramir's words, they were a biased assessment of Gondor's history.

The Lord of the Rings Films Highlighted Gondor's Faults

Image via New Line Cinema and MovieStillsDB

By making Gandalf the speaker of this dialogue, Jackson rendered the critique of Gondor more impartial. Gandalf was an immortal spirit known as a Maia, meaning he was older than the universe itself, and even the physical form he used in Middle-earth was over 2,000 years old. He had witnessed countless civilizations rise and fall, and he had experienced Gondor at the height of its majesty. His broader perspective meant that his condemnation of the kingdom in the film was even more incriminating than Faramir's in the novel.

The silver lining to Gondor's decline was that, unlike the fading of the Elves, it could be undone. As Gandalf told Pippin earlier in the same extended scene, the Gondorians held on to "a faint and fading hope... that a king will come, and this city will be as it once was before it fell into decay." That king was none other than Aragorn, who claimed his rightful place on the throne after the War of the Ring. He ushered in an era of peace and prosperity, restoring Gondor to its former glory.

While it is understandable that Jackson chose to exclude such a lengthy segment of uninterrupted dialogue from the theatrical cut of The Return of the King, the scene stands as one of the strongest in the extended edition. Though the film drastically changed the context of Tolkien's dialogue, it effectively conveyed the theme of decline that pervaded the novel, preparing audiences for Gondor's king to return at long last.

Sterling Ulrich is a Senior Staff Writer for CBR. He was a summa cum laude graduate of Aquinas College with a Bachelor of Arts in English with a Literature Emphasis and a minor in History. He has in-depth academic and pop-cultural knowledge of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.