20 Idiotic Decisions Made By Characters In The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

10. Aragorn Lets Grima Wormtongue Live - The Two Towers

Tolkein's characters tend to spare the lives of the wrong person at the wrong time. There is no better example than this: When Gandalf frees Theoden from Saruman's spell, Theoden's first instinct is to kill Grima Wormtongue, the spy who has been whispering lies in his ear ever since he fell under Saruman's spell. Aragorn persuades him to let Grima live, and Grima immediately runs to Saruman. The downside of this? Wormtongue knows Theoden's strategies, and even tells Saruman the one weakness of Helm's Deep: a small drain just big enough to fit an Orc demolition team into. Aragorn's nobility is one of his stronger traits, but also can be a painfully obvious character flaw at times. He persuaded Theoden to let the man live because "enough blood has been spilt on his account." In retrospect, this argument can easily be used to persuade Theoden to kill the traitor anyways, for all the deaths his information caused at Helm's Deep. Not killing Wormtongue cost them countless lives, and quite nearly cost them the battle. Mercy is a dangerous tendency.

9. Gimli Tries To Be A Rider Of Rohan And Nearly Gets Himself Killed - The Two Towers

Gimli is a quite capable warrior, that much is beyond dispute. However, quite often his pride gets in the way of his effectiveness on the field of battle. While on the road to Helm's Deep, the column of Rohirrim and their families is beset by a pack of Warg Riders, intent on intercepting the people of Rohan. The Riders of Rohan go out to meet them in the field, and Gimli tries his very best to mount up and join them. Dwarves are not generally known for their horsemanship. Gimli almost immediately falls off his mount when the skirmish commences, grounding himself amongst mounted fighters. Throughout the course of this battle, Gimli is saved repeatedly by his friends on horseback, and finds himself buried under a mountain of Orcs and Wargs. He was quite outmatched in this battle, yet he was too proud to admit it. Dwarven egos are quite stubborn things.