June 14, 2003

Aragorn Preventing the Slaying of Wormtongue
Matthew

I rarely submit a debate article myself, but I felt I had to make a point regarding Aragorn stopping Theoden form killing Wormtongue.

Killing Wormtongue would not in any way prevent what Saruman did by attacking the Rohirrim during their march to Helm's Deep, because Gandalf advises Theoden to march to Helm's Deep only after Wormtongue has left. Wormtongue did not know what Gandalf had told Theoden, it was mere deduction on his part that they would march to Helm's Deep, and I'm sure that Saruman, being the intelligent Maia that he is, could undoubtedly also deduce (or see in his palantir) what they were going to do.

I don't think it's fair to say that if they had killed Wormtongue, all the bad stuff would not have happened. It would have happened anyway.