I like Aragorn 2

“Men of Rohan! Of Gondor! My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come, when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship. An hour of wolves, and shattered shields, when the Age of men comes crashing down. But it is not this day, this day, we fight!”

I look at Aragorn. I look at the orcs. I look back at Aragorn. I look back at the orcs. I slowly raise my hand.

“I see where you’re coming from Aragorn, I really do, and I appreciate the speech… I was just wondering… well, did you really have to behead their diplomat? It did seem like he was being a bit rude, but, well, I’d just prefer not to fight if we don’t have to, and it seems like maybe we could have tried negotiating? Don’t get me wrong, I am very committed to this whole defeat Sauron, help Frodo and so on, just, well, the chances that Frodo is still alive don’t look great given that diplomat had his Mithril shirt. Also, well, maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t rested all of our hopes on two manchildren and a very suspicious looking gremlin. I’m not saying what we’re doing is pointless, just well, as I said I’d prefer not to fight if I don’t have to. And, well I guess it’s a bit late now, but had we considered other ways of distracting Sauron, a fireworks display perhaps? It didn’t really feel like we had much opportunity to give input before suicide charge was decided on as the main plan.

And, well… I hate to be a negative nancy, but… the speech… it feels a bit… manipulative? Like, I just think that there are plenty of good reasons for not fighting. I don’t know, wanting to wait for reinforcements, wanting to see if they wouldn’t mind sending us a replacement diplomate to negotiate with, wanting the battle plan to be voted upon by a representative subsection of the army and so on. And you’ve specifically highlighted forsaking our friends and breaking bonds and whatnot. Which, well, just seems like a very specific part of reason-space.

And it kinda sounds like your conflating the Age of men coming crashing down and not fighting. Which, well, as I’ve mentioned the mithril shirt, it kind of seems like we’re out of luck on the Age of Men front.

And a small other thing - when you say ‘I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me’, well I actually feel quite unseen, and disconnected from you. Like, you didn’t even look me in the eyes, you looked at Jeff, granted, but not me. And, well you’re presuming it’s fear, but actually I’ve got this hay fever thing going on, and you didn’t really check. Like, I didn’t sense much curiosity in your voice when you said that, or openness to being wrong. So yeh, I actually felt quite othered. I’m all for esprit de corps, I’d just appreciate more of a non-violent communication style.

And, I guess it seems like, well, given the diplomat has no head, that we’re going to have to fight now. Fine, I guess, just for next time, I’d really appreciate you bearing all this in mind. And also, would it be ok if we waited until we got a bit closer until we charged? Just usually we start running from quite a distance, and with all this armour, and the heat and so on… I just don’t want to be tired by the time we get to the orcs. Thanks.