“Frodo stirred. And suddenly his heart went out to Faramir. ‘The storm has burst at last,’ he thought. ‘This great array of spears and swords is going to Osgiliath. Will Faramir get across in time? He guessed it, but did he know the hour? And who can now hold the fords when the King of the Nine Riders is come? And other armies will come. I am too late. All is lost. I tarried on the way. All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.’ Overcome with weakness he wept. And still the host of Morgul crossed the bridge.”

"Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must,..."

‘Then be comforted,’ said Elrond. ‘For there are other powers and realms that you know not, and they are hidden from you. Anduin the Great flows past many shores, ere it comes to Argonath and the Gates of Gondor.’

Boromir looked at them doubtfully, but he bowed his head. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘Then in Gondor we must trust to such weapons as we have. And at the least, while the Wise ones guard this Ring, we will fight on. Mayhap the Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide – if the hand that wields it has inherited not an heirloom only, but the sinews of the Kings of Men.’

‘Who can tell?’ said Aragorn. ‘But we will put it to the test one day.’

‘May the day not be too long delayed,’ said Boromir. ‘For though I do not ask for aid, we need it. It would comfort us to know that others fought also with all the means that they have.’

‘Then be comforted,’ said Elrond. ‘For there are other powers and realms that you know not, and they are hidden from you. Anduin the Great flows past many shores, ere it comes to Argonath and the Gates of Gondor.’

‘Still it might be well for all,’ said Glóin the Dwarf, ‘if all these strengths were joined, and the powers of each were used in league.

The loss in Moria:
[Gandalf] staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone.

Confusion and grief while escaping:
They stumbled wildly up the great stairs beyond the door, Aragorn leading, Boromir at the rear. At the top was a wide echoing passage. Along this they fled. Frodo heard Sam at his side weeping, and then he found that he himself was weeping as he ran.

Anger: (this was all long before Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's 5 stages of grief in 1969)
Aragorn smote to the ground the captain that stood in his path, and the rest fled in terror of his wrath.

Grief takes over once they reach safety outside:
Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground.

Denial/forgetting:

Legolas to Galadriel and Celeborn: ‘At first we were weary and danger was too close behind; and afterwards we almost forgot our grief for a time, as we walked in gladness on the fair paths of Lórien.’

‘Yet our grief is great and our loss cannot be mended,’ said Frodo. ‘Gandalf was our guide, and he led us through Moria; and when our escape seemed beyond hope he saved us, and he fell.’

A strong leader resurrects and asserts hope amid despair:
Galadriel: 'for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat. 'I it was who first summoned the White Council. And if my designs had not gone amiss, it would have been governed by Gandalf the Grey, and then mayhap things would have gone otherwise. But even now there is hope left.'
They take care of their basic needs and allow themselves to wind down in Lorien:'The air was cool and soft, as if it were early spring, yet they felt about them the deep and thoughtful quiet of winter. It seemed to them that they did little but eat and drink and rest, and walk among the trees; and it was enough.

Art therapy in Lorien:'It was Frodo who first put something of his sorrow into halting words. He was seldom moved to make song or rhyme; even in Rivendell he had listened and had not sung himself, though his memory was stored with many things that others had made before him. But now as he sat beside the fountain in Lórien and heard about him the voices of the Elves, his thought took shape in a song that seemed fair to him;

Paying tribute to their memory by growing and learning something:
[Frodo and Sam capture Gollum in Emyn Muil]:
It seemed to Frodo then that he heard, quite plainly but far off, voices out of the past:

What a pity Bilbo did not stab the vile creature, when he had a chance!

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. ...‘Very well,’ he answered aloud, lowering his sword. ‘But still I am afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him.’

Frodo: 'And now your tale fills me with dread. For if Boromir was then in peril and was slain, I must fear that all my companions perished too. And they were my kindred and my friends.
‘Will you not put aside your doubt of me and let me go? I am weary, and full of grief, and afraid. But I have a deed to do, or to attempt, before I too am slain. And the more need of haste, if we two halflings are all that remain of our fellowship.
‘Go back, Faramir, valiant Captain of Gondor, and defend your city while you may, and let me go where my doom takes me.’

‘For me there is no comfort in our speech together,’ said Faramir; ‘but you surely draw from it more dread than need be. Unless the people of Lórien themselves came to him, who arrayed Boromir as for a funeral? Not Orcs or servants of the Nameless. Some of your Company, I guess, live still.
‘But whatever befell on the North March, you, Frodo, I doubt no longer. If hard days have made me any judge of Men’s words and faces, then I may make a guess at Halflings! Though,’ and now he smiled, ‘there is something strange about you, Frodo, an Elvish air, maybe.

Frodo had felt himself trembling as the first shock of fear passed. Now a great weariness came down on him like a cloud. He could dissemble and resist no longer.
‘I was going to find a way into Mordor,’ he said faintly. ‘I was going to Gorgoroth. I must find the Mountain of Fire and cast the thing into the gulf of Doom. Gandalf said so. I do not think I shall ever get there.’

Faramir stared at him for a moment in grave astonishment. Then suddenly he caught him as he swayed, and lifting him gently, carried him to the bed and laid him there, and covered him warmly. At once he fell into a deep sleep.

...Sam hesitated for a moment, then bowing very low: ‘Good night, Captain, my lord,’ he said. ‘You took the chance, sir.’
‘Did I so?’ said Faramir.

‘Yes sir, and showed your quality: the very highest.’
...
‘Maybe,’ said Faramir. ‘Maybe you discern from far away the air of Númenor. Good night!’

Frodo had felt himself trembling as the first shock of fear passed. Now a great weariness came down on him like a cloud. He could dissemble and resist no longer.
‘I was going to find a way into Mordor,’ he said faintly. ‘I was going to Gorgoroth. I must find the Mountain of Fire and cast the thing into the gulf of Doom. Gandalf said so. I do not think I shall ever get there.’

"What hope have we? It is long since we had any hope." Faramir, Window on the West , TTT

The early fathers of the Christian Church taught that an essential foundation of the spiritual life was a renunciation of despair and this is true. For Frodo this renunciation is expressed in the words “what he had to do, he had to do”. And it is worth emphasising here also, that for Frodo, and for many others also, the spiritual life is not some state of endless bliss but a bloody minded refusal to give in, a determination to go on putting one foot in front of the other. Tolkien puts this wonderfully as he concludes this passage by saying of Frodo that “he prepared to take the upward road”.

For those that do practice Christianity, how do we renunciate despair?

'Thus we return once more to the destroying of the Ring,' said Erestor, ‘and yet we come no nearer. What strength have we for the finding of the Fire in which it was made? That is the path of despair. Of folly I would say, if the long wisdom of Elrond did not forbid me.'

'Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.'
[my bolds]

This is not about objectives, for someone with terrible intent can be strategically adept, but about deciding on a course of action that will not only fail to achieve its stated intent but will have negative consequences that far exceed the positive...

Most of my work has been in the military sphere where bad strategy invariably involves underestimation of opponents and overestimation of one’s own capabilities. In many cases far too much emphasis is placed on catching the enemy by surprise with bold early moves and not enough on the later moves, especially if the surprise attacks fail to achieve their objectives. Not enough questions are asked about the quality of the intelligence, the sustainability of the logistics, the resilience of the forces, the attitudes of allies. And these problems are aggravated with commanders who are too self-confident and fail to listen to take advice or ask the right questions of their subordinates. ...

Some bad strategies are the result of incompetence, miscalculation, and inattention. Most fail to consider how other key actors will behave. But the worst are the result of bad theories, so detached from reality that efforts are directed towards achieving goals that are unattainable, employing methods that are bound to fail. To extricate a country or an organisation from a bad strategy it is essential to acknowledge its wrongness and retreat, but with a truly bad theory that requires abandoning an embedded world view.

Lawrence Freedman, Article, "The Art of Bad Strategy" on his blog, "Comment is Freed".

'They’ve taken everything, Sam,' said Frodo. 'Everything I had. Do you understand? Everything!' He cowered on the floor again with bowed head, as his own words brought home to him the fullness of the disaster, and despair overwhelmed him. 'The quest has failed, Sam. Even if we get out of here, we can’t escape. Only Elves can escape. Away, away out of Middle-earth, far away over the Sea. If even that is wide enough to keep the Shadow out.'

Tower of Cirith Ungol

‘Weariness, grief for his father’s mood, a wound, and over all the Black Breath,’ said Aragorn. ‘He is a man of staunch will,