It is so easy for them to sit and talk about taking the ring into Mordor. They have no idea, none, of how powerful the enemy is. Our men and women have dealt with him and his armies for long years. The unprovoked raids onto our territory. The cruel bloodthirsty orcs tearing our comrades apart limb from limb, or digging teeth into their flesh. The sudden appearance of an nazgul in the sky, with harsh screams that strike fear into the hearts of the bravest among us. And afterward, afterward... Having to tell a mother that her son wasn't coming home, though you did. Having another soldier step up to fill the place of the one who was lost. Making strategies for how we could hold our ground in the next battle, knowing full well that it is only a matter of time, as the enemy grows stronger and we grow weaker. Wishing we had the strength to storm their fortress, to stop them once and for all.
Do they think we wouldn't have gone into Mordor if we could?
One does not simply walk into Mordor, I say aloud. They have not heard the tales I have, of men who have wandered past the borders. They have not heard of the rocks that are so difficult to cross, of the bogs where strange things hide in the mist, of the dead who call to you. And worse, unnameable things that lie beyond. Orcs, even nazgul, are not the worst travelers to Mordor have to deal with.
I see the contempt in his eyes, the Ranger from the north. He dwells in the forests and fraternizes with the Elves -- what does he know of the horrors with which we deal?
He is the heir of Isildur, they say, this Ranger. How do we know that’s true? And what if it be true? He hasn't visited Gondor, at least not since I was a child, or I would have known. He has spent all his life up in the North, as far away from us as he could get, as safe a distance from Mordor as you like. He has never cared to find out how we survive, there in the shadow of the tower.
Gondor has no king. Gondor needs no king.
We have kept Gondor safe, my father and my brother, who even now fights off marauding orcs, my men who have fought so bravely alongside us, and I. All of us inside the city have leapt to its defense, have rebuilt walls and healed the wounded and carried the dead on our shoulders.
These men and elves, this wizard and dwarf, these hobbits, they have not cared about the evil of Mordor as long as we were containing it. No one sent aid or thanks, arms or medicine. But now that the evil is growing and their corners of the world are not safe, they want to fight it. They do not even want to listen to me, who lives closest to the enemy and knows most about fighting him, who knows most about the ways into Mordor.
Give the ring to me, I say. They clearly have no idea what to do with it. These fools who cower so far away and do nothing but talk. We have guarded the borders of Mordor for so long, have stopped the evil from spilling out and claiming all the land. And we can't do this much longer. If this Ring makes the enemy powerful, do we not have the right to use it against them?
But no, of course they won’t. It doesn't matter that I know more about this than anyone else. I am too strong, and I am not one of them. I am not an Elf, or a King. I am but a leader of soldiers, a general who can fight. I am but the son of a Steward.