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

4. Aragorn Dismisses The Army Of The Dead A Little Too Soon - The Return Of The King

Never doubt the utility of an army of invincible dead men who are sworn to do your bidding. While the Rohirrim do their part, the victory at Minas Tirith is largely due to the appearance of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli with the army of dead men. When the battle is over with and they have destroyed every single orc that was attacking Gondor's capitol, Aragorn is confronted by the King of the Dead men who requests to be freed from his oath now that they have saved Gondor from certain annihilation. This is another instance in which Aragorn's honor gets in the way of him choosing the smartest path. Despite some protests from Gimli, who insists that they could come in handy, Aragorn dismisses the dead men and allows them to pass on. The uses he could have gotten out of such an army are nearly limitless - he could have swept Mordor with them and made the destruction of the ring a certainty, but instead he stood by his values and let this obvious advantage go to waste.

3. Sam Doesn't Check If Frodo Survived His Spider Sting - The Return Of The King

Do they know about checking for a pulse in Middle Earth? Either way, after managing to fight off Giant Spider Shelob, Sam jumps far to quickly from desperation to grieving when he discovers Frodo has been stung. As a gardener, he should know better than to think Spider stings kill instantly - especially if Spiders in Middle Earth bear any similarity to the spawn of Ungoliant that we see in Mirkwood and Cirith Ungol. He berates himself on his own foolishness when he overhears the orc commander Gorbag describe how Shelob does not eat dead meat. Samwise Gamgee's quick thinking does save the ring, but leaving Frodo behind leads to yet another unnecessary detour for them. Although the Orcs' tendency to fight amongst themselves made Sam's rescue of Frodo a lot easier, it was still a detour that makes things a lot more difficult than they already are.