Nice?!

At the moment when Gandalf is attempting to rally some Minas Tirith folks, and Faramir comes by and get the chance to explain what happened to Frodo, I pause to go get a glass of water (this way I get to watch this scene again, and get the resurge of hope from Pippin that Frodo's alive), and find my Dad in the next room, watching.

"Faramir is a nice guy."

I am affronted. "Faramir isn't nice! Did you see him slaying orcs fifteen minutes ago?"

Looks at me, thinks this over. "Faramir's a nice guy."

"Faramir's a good guy," I explain. "Like Aragorn. 'Cept, all misinformed and the like. Good intentions, bad information. Should've heard 'em say, "Yo, Faramir! Ring Bad! You and your country want no truck with it!"

"Someone did need to say that to him, yeah."

"Yeah. Instead he thinks it's all strong and the like, will help save Gondor, be the only nation that DOESN'T fall to Mordor, despite being in their back pocket. Who puts their country right next to the land of evil, anyway?"

"Someone strong enough to defend against it, and keep it from getting out and wrecking everyone else's day."

"That's what they thought. Bring the ring to Gondor, brilliant. Put the most evil tool the evil guys have right smack in the safehold of the first not-evil country that the evil guys wanna steamroll. Bad information."

"Yep."

"Nice. Feh. They're good guys. They fight hard, they fight smart, and they fight for the right reasons. 'Nice' makes 'em sound all tame. There's nothing tame about Aragorn."

It should be noted that I quite admire, like, and generally approve of Aragorn (who is far too valiant to care if a random American girl approves or not), both for saving Frodo, and for stepping up to the plate and finally accepting the kingship. Rising up to his destiny, and all that. And various cool swashbuckling solid good guy things he does in battle.

"They're warriors! They're great!" Water, cookie-hunting.

"There are exceptions."

"Hmm?" Drinky-drinky.

"The Steward of Gondor is a miserable troll."

Fortunately I'd swallowed before the adjective, otherwise I'd be cleaning up the counter right about now.

At this point, we got into how he makes a lousy father figure for both Boromir and Faramir, and began debate on how Faramir ended up as good as he did with Denethorn for a dad. I love my family.