It is simply court etiquette

Lee Smith has conducted a thorough dissection of the TSA screening procedures in Rohan. (LOL) My response got too long for the text box, so I’m posting it here.

Yesterday I was listening to Tom Shippey’s lecture on “face-threatening acts” in the Signum University course Beowulf through Tolkien and vice versa. Now I have a completely different perspective on what Aragorn & the gang are doing.

Prof. Shippey is building on the sociologists’ theory of politeness as it would apply to a society “where everyone is heavily armed and more than a little bit touchy.” (The accuracy of this quote is not guaranteed because he was also talking about living in Texas and I was laughing too hard for scholarly exactitude.) The objective is to establish that you’re a member of the élite, a fighter, but one who’s not fighting anyone right now.

Shippey says that in old-germanic warrior cultures, proper etiquette upon meeting someone new is to make a threatening macho gesture to establish that you belong to the dominant warrior class, but then immediately soften it with a conciliatory compliment. Then the other party does the same, and then you can get down to business. The coast guard does this in lines 244-251 of Beowulf. In Heorot Hrothgar does the same thing from his higher status, and then everyone congratulates Beowulf on how well-spoken he is. From this point of view, the threats and boasts in Heorot are as distinct a form of courtly speech as a seduction in “Dangerous Liaisons”.

As so many scholars have noted, Háma the door-ward is basically the same role as the coast guard in Beowulf. Middle-earth is a bit more complicated, though. We have a much more diverse environment to deal with. First off, those who are neither human nor pretending to be don’t have to play the game. Legolas immediately sets down his weapons with, as Lee says, a comment that he knows Háma will take as a safety warning. (Am I wrong to infer a quiet laugh at the odd rituals of “you children”? Possibly.) Gimli just waits for the contest to be over, and then makes an ironic joke. (His axe has no more symbolism or prestige than my chainsaw.)

Now, the ones who can speak Rohirric. Aragorn has to be a jerk here (by our standards) because not only does he out-rank the door-ward, he outranks Théoden. Therefore he has to come up with a speech that’s even stronger than what the others are saying. So he satisfies the code of etiquette, but tops it off with a curse. I agree with Lee that he’s bluffing.

Gandalf does things in the reverse order to twist the system to his own advantage. He happily hands over Glamdring, showing submission. Then he commits a face-threatening act over his staff, which Wormtongue has specifically forbidden. Háma doesn’t like this, but he also doesn’t want to fight with Gandalf because he doesn’t agree with the cause. (And maybe suspects it will go badly for him.) Aragorn puts his thumb on the scale by asserting that Gandalf isn’t actually one of the warrior élite, “giving him top cover” as we say in Washington. But the balance is finally tipped when Háma thinks of an old proverb relevant to the situation. As Prof. Shippey said later in the lecture, proverbs are a great way to disclaim responsibility. And all’s well as ends better!