Aragorn

Aragorn was born on 1 March in the year 2931 of the Third Age, the son of Arathorn II, Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North, and of Gilraen. Through his father he descended in unbroken line from Isildur, and so from the kings of Númenor, making him the rightful claimant to the thrones of both Arnor and Gondor. When Arathorn was slain by orcs only two years later, Elrond took the child into fosterage at Rivendell and concealed his lineage, for the Enemy sought the last heir of Isildur. There the boy was called Estel, a Sindarin word meaning hope, and he did not learn his true name and ancestry until Elrond revealed them to him at the age of twenty.

During his long years of wandering Aragorn bore many names, most of them given by others. The people of Bree, knowing nothing of his descent, called him Strider for his long legs and swift journeys, a name first spoken with suspicion rather than respect. In his youth he served in disguise under Thengel of Rohan and Ecthelion II of Gondor as Thorongil, the Eagle of the Star, so called for his keen sight and the silver star he wore. Among the Elves of Rivendell he was known simply as the Dúnadan, the Man of the West, and Éomer of Rohan named him Wingfoot after the pursuit of the orcs across the fields of Rohan.

Other names pointed toward his destiny. Galadriel, presenting him with a green gem set in a silver brooch, addressed him as Elessar, the Elfstone of the house of Elendil, a name long foretold for him among his people. He himself later declared that his royal house would be called Telcontar, rendering the humble Bree-name Strider into the high tongue, and he took as well the style Envinyatar, the Renewer, in token of the healing of what had been broken.

Aragorn was born on 1 March in the year 2931 of the Third Age, the son of Arathorn II, Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North, and of Gilraen. His father was slain by orcs only two years later, in 2933, and the child was taken with his mother to Rivendell, where Elrond received him as a foster-son. There he was called Estel, a Sindarin word meaning hope, and his true descent was kept hidden, for Sauron was seeking the last heir of Isildur's line. In 2951, when Aragorn was twenty years old, Elrond disclosed his name and lineage to him and gave him the ring of Barahir and the shards of Narsil, the sword that had cut the Ring from Sauron's hand. In that same season he first saw Arwen, Elrond's daughter, walking in the woods of Rivendell, and set his love upon her before departing into the Wild.

For nearly thirty years thereafter Aragorn laboured against Sauron in many lands. He met Gandalf in 2956, and the two became close allies in the long watch upon the Enemy. Concealing his identity under the name Thorongil, he served Thengel, King of Rohan, and then Ecthelion II, Steward of Gondor, winning renown as a captain; in 2980 he led a small fleet against the Corsairs of Umbar, burned a great part of their ships in the haven, and then withdrew from Gondor's service without returning to receive honour. In the same year, passing through Lothlórien, he met Arwen again on the hill of Cerin Amroth, and the two pledged themselves to one another. Elrond, however, declared that his daughter should marry no man less than the king of both Gondor and Arnor restored, and so the hope of their union became bound to the outcome of the war against Sauron.

In the years before the War of the Ring, Aragorn aided Gandalf in the long hunt for the creature Gollum, whom he finally captured in the Dead Marshes in 3017 and brought north to the realm of Thranduil in Mirkwood for safekeeping. In September 3018 he was waiting at the inn of the Prancing Pony in Bree when Frodo Baggins and his companions arrived carrying the One Ring. Known to the Bree-folk only as the Ranger Strider, he took the hobbits under his protection and guided them through the wilderness towards Rivendell. On the hill of Weathertop the company was attacked by the Ringwraiths, and Frodo was gravely wounded; Aragorn drove the attackers off with fire and brought the hobbits onward until help from Rivendell met them, and Frodo passed the Ford of Bruinen on 20 October.

At the Council of Elrond on 25 October 3018 Aragorn openly declared himself the heir of Isildur, and the shards of Narsil were reforged into a new sword, which he named Andúril. He set out from Rivendell on 25 December as one of the nine walkers of the Fellowship of the Ring. After Gandalf fell in Moria in January 3019, Aragorn led the company through Lothlórien and down the Anduin. When the Fellowship was broken at Amon Hen on 26 February and Boromir was slain, Aragorn chose to pursue the orcs who had carried off Meriadoc and Peregrin, and with Legolas and Gimli he ran across Rohan until they met Éomer's riders and, in Fangorn, Gandalf returned from death. He fought in the defence of the Hornburg in early March, then dared to look into the palantír of Orthanc and reveal himself to Sauron, wrenching the stone to his own will. Claiming his right as Isildur's heir, he summoned the Dead of Dunharrow to fulfil their broken oath, passed through the Paths of the Dead on 8 March, and took the fleet of the Corsairs at Pelargir.

Within the story of the War of the Ring, Aragorn occupies the role of the hidden king: Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North and heir of Isildur, he spends most of his life guarding Eriador unrecognized as a Ranger. He enters the narrative as the hobbits' guide out of Bree, becomes a member of the Fellowship of the Ring, and assumes its leadership after Gandalf falls in Moria. His arc moves from concealment toward open claim, ending in his coronation as King Elessar of the Reunited Kingdom.

His abilities derive chiefly from his Númenórean descent and from long experience rather than from anything overtly magical. He possesses an extended lifespan far beyond ordinary Men, great endurance, and tracking skills honed over decades of travel; his gift of healing, shown in the Houses of Healing after the battle of the Pelennor Fields, is presented as a sign of the rightful king. As lawful master of the palantír of Orthanc he is able to wrest the Stone's use from Sauron, and as Isildur's heir he alone can summon the oath-breakers of the Paths of the Dead to fulfil their broken vow.

Aragorn's earliest bonds were shaped by loss and concealment. His father Arathorn was slain by orcs when the boy was only two years old, and his mother Gilraen brought him to Rivendell, where Elrond fostered him as a son and hid his true name under the byname Estel. Elrond withheld the heirlooms of the northern line until Aragorn came of age, and their relationship carried a deeper strain: Aragorn loved Elrond's daughter Arwen, and Elrond declared that she should wed no man less than the king of both Gondor and Arnor. Their troth, plighted on the hill of Cerin Amroth in Lothlórien, thus bound Aragorn's private hope to the fortunes of Middle-earth itself, since Arwen's choice of him meant her separation from her own kin.

Among his allies, Gandalf stood foremost: the two met in the year 2956 of the Third Age and worked together for decades, the wizard treating the Ranger as a trusted partner rather than a subordinate. In his years of hidden service under the name Thorongil, Aragorn also served Thengel of Rohan and Ecthelion II of Gondor, where his standing with the Steward earned him the lasting mistrust of Ecthelion's son Denethor — a coolness that later shadowed his claim to the crown.

The Quest of the Ring forged friendships that defined his kingship. With Legolas and Gimli he ran the long pursuit across Rohan, a companionship that outlasted the war; with Boromir he endured real friction over the road the Company should take, resolved only in the dying man's confession and Aragorn's words of comfort. Toward Frodo he acted first as guide and guardian, having won the hobbits' wary trust at Bree. His enmity with Sauron was of another order: as Isildur's Heir he dared to reveal himself to the Enemy in the palantír of Orthanc, wrenching the Stone to his own will and deliberately drawing Sauron into premature attack — the act of an heir claiming, at last, what his lineage owed him.

The figure who became Aragorn entered the earliest drafts of The Lord of the Rings in a startlingly different form. In the first versions of the Bree chapter, the stranger at the inn was a weather-beaten hobbit called Trotter, notable for wearing wooden shoes, and Tolkien puzzled for a long while over who this person actually was. Among the explanations he tried out were that Trotter was Bilbo himself in disguise, and, more persistently, that he was Peregrin Boffin, a young relative of Bilbo who had slipped away from the Shire years earlier under Gandalf's influence; one note even proposed that his wooden shoes concealed feet maimed during captivity and torment in Mordor. Only gradually did Tolkien conclude that the guide of the hobbits ought not to be a hobbit at all.

In the next stage of composition Trotter was reconceived as a Man of Elendil's line, and the name Aragorn first appears, though Tolkien long remained unsettled about it: for stretches of the drafting the character was instead called Ingold, and later Elfstone, before Aragorn was finally fixed. The nickname Trotter itself survived through most of the writing of the book and was replaced by Strider only at a late stage of revision. The character's ending shifted as well: an early outline foresaw that he would wed Éowyn of Rohan, and Arwen, together with the whole tale of their long betrothal, was an altogether later development in the history of the text.

Aragorn has appeared in most dramatizations of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 he was voiced by John Hurt, and in the Rankin/Bass animated television film The Return of the King (1980) by Theodore Bikel. The BBC radio serial of 1981 cast Robert Stephens in the role. In Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy (2001–2003) Aragorn was played by Viggo Mortensen, who joined the production at short notice after filming had already begun, replacing the originally cast Stuart Townsend.

Jackson's films alter the character in several documented respects. Where the book's Aragorn deliberately works toward claiming his inheritance and carries the reforged Andúril from Rivendell onward, the film version is presented as a reluctant heir who doubts his lineage because of Isildur's failure, and the sword is reforged only in the third film, brought to him by Elrond before he takes the Paths of the Dead. The romance with Arwen, confined in the novel chiefly to an appendix, is moved into the main narrative through added scenes and flashbacks. The films also insert an invented episode in which Aragorn falls from a cliff during a warg attack on the road to Helm's Deep and is presumed dead, and in the theatrical cut of the third film the Army of the Dead fights on the Pelennor Fields and is released afterwards, rather than being dismissed at Pelargir as in the book. In the second film Aragorn states his age as eighty-seven, making explicit a detail the novel leaves to the appendices.