56 Facts About Aragorn

Aragorn is a fictional character and a protagonist in JR R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Aragorn was a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider and later revealed to be the heir of Isildur, an ancient King of Arnor and Gondor.

Aragorn was a confidant of the wizard Gandalf, and played a part in the quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron.

Arwen's father, Elrond Half-elven, forbade them to marry unless Aragorn became King of both Arnor and Gondor.

Aragorn led the Fellowship of the Ring following the loss of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria.

Aragorn then fought in the battle at Helm's Deep and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

Aragorn was acclaimed as King by the people of Gondor, and crowned King of both Gondor and Arnor.

Commentators have proposed historical figures such as King Oswald of Northumbria and King Alfred the Great as sources of inspiration for Aragorn, noting parallels such as spending time in exile and raising armies to retake their kingdoms.

Aragorn has been compared to the figure of Christ as King, complete with the use of prophecy paralleling the Old Testament's foretelling of the Messiah.

Aragorn has featured, too, in the BBC radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings.

Aragorn was the son of Arathorn II and his wife Gilraen.

Aragorn was the heir to the throne of Gondor and of the lost realm of Arnor.

Aragorn was fostered in Rivendell by Elrond, who was still living in Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age.

Aragorn was renamed Estel to hide his existence from Sauron and his servants.

At the age of 20, after Aragorn had done great deeds in the company of Elrond's sons, Elrond told him of his ancestry and his true name, and gave him the shards of Elendil's sword, Narsil, and another ancient heirloom, the Ring of Barahir.

Aragorn withheld the Sceptre of Annuminas from him until he had earned the right to possess it.

Thereafter, Aragorn assumed his role as the sixteenth Chieftain of the Dunedain, known as the Rangers of the North.

Aragorn went into the wild and lived with the remnants of his people, whose kingdom had been destroyed centuries before.

Aragorn became known as "Strider" in the areas around the Shire and Bree.

Aragorn undertook great journeys, serving in the armies of King Thengel of Rohan and of Ecthelion II, the Steward of Gondor.

Aragorn's tasks helped to raise morale in the West and to counter the growing threat of Sauron and his allies, and he acquired experience that he would later put to use in the War of the Ring.

At the age of 49, Aragorn visited Lothlorien, and there again met Arwen.

Gandalf asked Aragorn to find Gollum, a creature who had previously possessed the Ring.

Aragorn brought Gollum to King Thranduil's halls in Mirkwood, where Gandalf questioned him.

Aragorn met Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's adopted heir, and three of Frodo's friends at the Prancing Pony Inn in Bree.

Aragorn was then 87 years old, nearing the prime of life for a Numenorean.

At Rivendell, Aragorn was chosen as a member of the Fellowship of the Ring to accompany Frodo in his quest to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom in the land of Mordor.

When Gandalf was killed fighting a Balrog, Aragorn led the company to Lothlorien and down the River Anduin to the Falls of Rauros.

Aragorn planned to go to Gondor to aid its people in the war against Sauron.

Nevertheless, clues led Aragorn to believe that the hobbits were still alive, prompting him to take the party into Fangorn Forest.

Aragorn fought with the men of Rohan at the Battle of Helm's Deep, in which Saruman's army of orcs was destroyed.

Aragorn did this to distract Sauron's attention from Frodo, who was approaching Mordor, and to draw Sauron's forces out of Mordor.

Aragorn's action caused Sauron to launch his assault on the city of Minas Tirith prematurely.

Aragorn's daring and success had brought him closer to his own kingship, which was his by right as a direct descendant of Isildur but had been left unclaimed for centuries by Aragorn's ancestors.

Aragorn healed Faramir, Denethor's heir, who had been wounded in battle and was expected to die, using the herb athelas.

Aragorn became the twenty-sixth King of Arnor, the thirty-fifth King of Gondor, and the first High King of the Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor.

Aragorn's line was called the House of Telcontar.

Aragorn ruled the Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor until year 120 of the Fourth Age.

Aragorn's reign was marked by great harmony and prosperity within Gondor and Arnor and by a renewal of communication and cooperation between Men, Elves, and Dwarves, fostered by his vigorous rebuilding campaign following the war.

Aragorn led the forces of the Reunited Kingdom on military campaigns against some Easterlings and Haradrim, re-establishing rule over much territory that Gondor had lost in previous centuries.

Aragorn died at the age of 210, after 122 years as king.

Aragorn was succeeded on the throne by his son, Eldarion.

The "first germ" of the character that later evolved into Aragorn or Strider was a peculiar hobbit met by Bingo Bolger-Baggins at the inn of The Prancing Pony.

Aragorn was said to have run away after he came of age, some 20 years before Bilbo left the Shire, and had helped Gandalf in tracking Gollum later.

When Tolkien first introduced Eowyn, the interest she showed towards Aragorn was not one-sided, with suggestions in notes that they would marry at the end of the story.

The references to her marriage with Aragorn came later, but it was explicitly stated only near the completion of the book.

The Catholic author Joseph Pearce and others have conjectured, without direct evidence, that Aragorn's name is derived from the Kingdom of Aragon, and leaders such as Catherine of Aragon whose heritage is linked to the crown of Castile and crown of Aragon.

The Dutch medievalist Thijs Porck writes that Alfred, like Aragorn, spent time in exile.

Alfred's history parallels Aragorn's gathering of the Dead, the Oathbreakers, at the Stone of Erech.

Aragorn has been called a Christ-as-King character; Tolkien's use of prophecy has been compared to the Old Testament's foretelling of the coming of the Messiah.

Aragorn writes that figures like Eomer of Rohan and Faramir of Gondor are, in Frye's terms, "superior in degree to other men but not to their natural environment", which places them in Frye's "High Mimetic" literary mode.

Flieger comments that the two together mark the end of the old, with Frodo's bitter end and the disappearance of the Ring, the Elves, and much else that was beautiful; and the start of the new, with Aragorn's rise to the throne of Gondor and Arnor, and a world of Men.

In Peter Jackson's the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Aragorn was played by the Danish-American actor Viggo Mortensen.

Aragorn received acclaim for the portrayal, and Aragorn was ranked No 15 in Empires 2015 survey of greatest film characters.

Aragorn cites the scholar Robin Anne Reid's remark that "Hunt is 'imitative' where Hope is transformative", meaning that the former attempts to mimic Jackson and Tolkien, whereas the latter sees fans interpreting and adding to the canon.

In Brian Sibley's 1981 BBC radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn was played by Robert Stephens.