The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s 5 Worst Mistakes (& His 5 Best Decisions)

While Frodo is the protagonist of The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is also a main character. Throughout the series, he makes many choices, good and bad.

You Are Reading :The Lord of the Rings Aragorns 5 Worst Mistakes (& His 5 Best Decisions)

While Frodo is the main protagonist of The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is also a main character who has an important protagonists’ role. Considering the way the story is told, especially in the movies, Aragorn’s story becomes nearly as central and important to the fate of Middle-Earth as Frodo’s.

There’s no denying that Aragorn is one of the most admirable heroes from the series, and he’s a noble and good person who makes a lot of good choices. However, he’s also not perfect, and there are times when he makes mistakes. Here are his worst mistakes as well as his best choices.

10 Worst: Leaning into self-doubt

One thing about Aragorn in the movies that isn’t there as much in the books is his self-doubt. The filmmakers likely added this trait to make Aragorn more relatable and complex, and while this can be interesting, sometimes it leads to him making poor decisions.

He is too worried about his own failings and flaws and believes himself to be capable of too much evil. Because of this, he puts off doing the right thing for Gondor for too long.

9 Best: Leading the battle of Helm’s Deep

When Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, and Gimli arrive in Edoras, Theoden is under Saruman’s influence. Even after this spell is broken, Theoden still isn’t always the best leader.

While he does step up somewhat, it’s really Aragorn who is left to plan and lead the Battle of Helm’s Deep after Gandalf leaves. Taking up this responsibility was definitely the right thing to do as he was the best person for the job.

8 Worst: Being aggressive toward Frodo in Bree

Perhaps one of the strangest things Aragorn does in the movies is act rather aggressively toward Frodo and the other Hobbits in Bree. While he might look cool in these scenes where he’s still living as Strider, it’s a bit out of character.

While Frodo and the others were being too careless, they honestly didn’t know much about the world, and Aragorn’s aggressive and even scary approach wasn’t’ the way to win them over.

7 Best: Doing everything he could to rescue Merry and Pippin

After the Fellowship is broken, it’s clear that Aragorn feels some responsibility for what happens, and he definitely worries about the safety of all of the members who are left alive. It’s no surprise that he, along with Legolas and Gimli, do everything they can to rescue Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-Hai.

Given who Aragorn is as a person, this choice might not be shocking, but it still was the right one. While the Fellowship might have been fractured, following through with looking out for each other was the right course of action.

6 Worst: Making Eowyn think he was into her

One of the most frustrating Aragorn storylines was his relationship with Eowyn. The entire romantic aspect of Aragorn’s life was given much more attention in the movies than in the films, and this wasn’t always the best thing.

After it was already established the Aragorn and Arwen had such an intense bond, showing Aragorn waver even a little bit made him look bad.

5 Best: Calling forth the army of the dead

When the armies of Rohan are being gathered to come to Gondor’s aid, it’s just a pure fact that they don’t have enough men to defeat the horde.

So, while it was a risky move that could have resulted in Aragorn’s death, he needed to take a risk if there was any chance at all for them to win. Going to the Paths of the Dead and raising for the army was the right choice, and it’s what ended up bringing about victory on the Pelennor Fields.

4 Worst: Trying to convince Arwen to leave him

It’s rather understandable that Aragorn wouldn’t want Arwen to stay with him and remain in Middle-Earth. He knew that this would lead to the loss of her immortality, so he wanted to keep her safe and alive. However, Arwen clearly made her choice, and he should have just accepted that sooner.

Both he and Elrond spent too much effort trying to control Arwen and make decisions for her, and he should have listened to her and respected that she was more than capable of choosing her life path.

3 Best: Leading the Fellowship after Gandalf’s death

While Gandalf was mostly the leader of the Fellowship given his experience and age, Aragorn was also in a leadership role. So, after Gandalf fell with the Balrog in Helm’s Deep, it was the natural and right decision for Aragorn to lead the Fellowship after this.

He also made the right choice in letting Frodo leave the Fellowship to set out to Mordor with Sam.

2 Worst: Spending so long refusing to claim his birthright

The overall worst mistake, and most frustrating one, that Aragorn ever makes is being so reluctant to claim his title as King of Gondor.

He is afraid of his lineage and of becoming like Isildur and his other heirs, so he basically shirks in the shadows and refuses to do the difficult but right thing. It definitely shouldn’t have taken him so long to provide leadership to the world of humans.

1 Best: Becoming King of Gondor

While it does take him a long time to get to this point, when Aragorn finally does claim his title and become King of Gondor, it’s the best decision he could have made.

While monarchies aren’t exactly the most admirable form of government, in the world of Middle-Earth, Aragorn was the best option for a kind and good leader.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/lord-of-the-rings-aragorn-worst-mistakes-best-decisions-frodo-eowyn-arwen/