Sacral Kingship: Aragorn As the Rightful and Sacrificial King in the Lord of the Rings.

IN DISCUSSING ARAGORN, Verlyn Flieger notes that: The fact that Aragorn is a healer, both of his people and of the land, is an important motif of The Lord of the Rings [LotR] and emerges gradually as the narrative progresses. Aragorn tends Frodo after the attack at Weathertop (LotR I:12 192-94), Sam and Frodo after their escape from the mines of Moria (II:6 326-27), Faramir, Eowyn, Merry and others injured in combat, after the battle of the Pelennor Fields (V:8 844-53), and Frodo and Sam after the fall of Sauron (VI:4 931). Similarly, his ascension marks the end of the lands' despoiling, his resolve that Minas Ithil be "utterly destroyed" in order for the cleansing process to begin (VI:5 948), and the imposition of order on his realm (VI:7 971), all symbolized by the blossoming of the White Tree in the Court of the Fountain (VI:5 951). The notion of healing here is broad, and reflects Strathern and Stewart's definition of healing (as opposed to curing), namely that which refers to "the whole person or the whole body seen as an integrated system with both physical and spiritual components" (7).