@aro-ace-from-outer-space22 I'm moving this discussion to a different post because I feel bad for dragging OP into so many walls of text. For anyone who wishes to keep up, this is the post I'm replying too.
OUGH lots to get into here though. To begin, the 'religious interdiction' and the 'evil' are one and the same within the LotR universe. What I have said and what you have said are the same. What takes something from being 'bad' to being 'evil' is purely the presence of divine judgement. And when we discuss the profane within a middle earth context, we aren't talking about a cultural concept, we are talking about a factual force within the world itself. The reason the ring is corrupting is because it is a profane object. The 'evil' the ring is supposed to do is to claim the 'throne of the world' from Eru, it's rightful owner, and that action would be ontologically evil within Arda even if the RIng itself had no, or even positive, results. Which is why, when Frodo does claim the power of the ring and saves the world, his spirit is sickened to such a degree. Even though the act was necessary.
But what I would also say is that some of what you have stated is either not completely true within book canon, or is not a known truth to even the wise of middle-earth.
The ring does not radiate malice, for example! One cannot tell the difference between it and any other powerful ring, hence the need for Gandalf to spend so much time away dithering to figure out a proper test for it. It is also a misconception that the ring exudes a kind of corruption AOE, being in proximity to the ring does not corrupt you. As far as I can tell, if you come to want the ring, then it can exert some control over you that ranges from an altered mental state to actively taking control of your body and forcing you into action. But you do have to want it first.
Frodo, for example, is forced by the ring to put it on during the attack of the ringwraiths when precisely what Frodo wants to do is disappear, and he knows the ring can do that for him. He has no desire for the ring for the whole rest of the time it's been in his house, literal decades of his life. It's only in the moment when he has a reason to desire it that it's power can be brought to bare.
Boromir, similarly, is not effected by the ring until after his meeting with Galadriel and she quite explicitely 'tempts' him with it, leaving him confused and distrustful of his companions and the success of their mission. I can go into this in more detail but suffice to say there is no evidence of the ring's AOE corruption within the books.
I would also say that Gandalf is of course concerned about what the ring would do to him. Firstly, he is faithful by nature, Eru is his ultimate god, he experiences the same religious horror over the ring that Faramir does. He is also a maia, just as Sauron is, and many maia were persuaded to Morgoth's side even without the ring's influence. Saruman rolled over quite quickly about it. There is no greater inherrent resistance within maia against corruption than anyone else, and one could cobble together an argument that they're actually more at risk than most.
But about Faramir! I did not mean to imply that Faramir does not value his people at all, certainly he values at least the political and cultural entity of Gondor (as the last remnant of numenor) over his own life. My point was simply that Faramir values the people of Gondor less than he values obeisance before god. Which, it is to be understood, IS technically the ontologically correct opinion in the divine metalogic of LotR. It's just that there is no 'proof' of that being the case.
And, to that point, I do challenge the idea that Faramir has this definitive knowledge that the ring is inherrently corrupting and will inevitably bring ruin with it's use. Not only does Faramir not have any special knowledge of the ring whatsoever, this idea that the ring will corrupt any user is equally debatable among 'the wise'!
When Galadriel is describing to Frodo how one might use the ring, her warning is that Frodo is not skilled in the domination of others and therefore he would fail and be consumed. She does not say that consumption is inevitable. And again, clearly it is not so cut and dry since Frodo does take the power of the ring to curse gollum and saves the world in the process, even if he does also desire to keep the ring in the end.
My point being that if Galadriel is not certain of this fact, then Faramir surely cannot be given such definitive knowledge. And he indeed never expresses that this is the reason for his rejection. He says only that he will not use a weapon of the dark lord 'for [Gondor's] good and my glory', kind of clearly insinuating that good for gondor is possible in his imagination!
It is important to understand that I am rarely ever arguing for Denethor's justification vs Faramir's moral complexity from an 'ontalogically correct' standpoint. Within the narrative of the books the one true god exists and if we are speaking within that framework then it is impossible to make any critique of any action that is taken with the defense of 'the faith' in mind. Right and Wrong are entirely what Eru decrees them to be.
So when I am defending Denethor's perspective, it is specifically his perspective. I am taking what Denethor knows, what Faramir knows and what Gandalf knows and judging their actions based on those things. None of them actually knows that using the ring would be definitely disasterous in a mundane sense, no one knows shit about the ring, it is a mysterious and profane object with very few certainties. No one has even seen it in 3000 years, there are no examples of someone using the ring and disaster abounding. Gollum's use of the ring, meagre though it might be, basically worked out for him in the sense that he was able to catch fish, murder orcs and eat babies out of cradles with really the only consequences coming to him quite slowly. And he certainly does not possess the skill of 'dominating the will of others' that Galadriel appears to think so important.
Which brings me to my 'that's not how the palantir works' side gripe. Denethor is not corrupted by the Palantir. Denethor has full control of his own faculties, the Palantir isn't doing shit to him, it is not a mysterious object and Sauron has no power to control Denethor through his use when Denethor is a 'rightful user' of the Palantirs and Sauron canonically isnt. Denethor can just set Sauron to ignore.
Denethor's will is broken when his last living son gets sepsis from a poisoned arrow. He does go up to the Palantir then, probably to try and find a glimmer of hope, but what he sees crumbles that hope and causes him to say 'the enemy has found it'. And though this is never proven, I am pretty sure Denethor saw a naked and chained Frodo at the top of Cirith Ungol since the timeline lines up perfectly and that would certainly be the sight to convince anyone that the ring has been found.
However, before that, Denethor is as he ever was. There is no corruption for Faramir to be privvy too. Before that single mental break of grief and despair (catalysed by completely real events and based on the only knowledge Denethor has at the time) Denethor is the same stalwart defender of Gondor that he has ever been. It is a film fabrication that Denethor's 'rule is failing'.
I will not get into my lack of surety that Gandalf would feel all that bad about Gondor's destruction, or my perception of his general lack of empathy or care for any of the ensouled creatures he is supposed to be caring for.
All I am here to say is that Denethor, for whom the duty of defending Gondor has been his entire life, whom has spent 90 years watching this country be worn slowly down by ultimate evil, whom has lost nearly everyone he loves to a war he did not start and cannot escape and that is explicitely a war of divinity itself, whom knows that Gandalf is a part of that divine, whom (extremely correctly) percieves Gandalf as someone who will hide vital information from him in order to try and control him, and who knows that Gandalf is angling to install a new King- 'With the left hand thou wouldst use me for a little while as a shield against Mordor, and with the right bring up this Ranger of the North to supplant me'<- exactly what Gandalf did!!- yes! it is reasonable to me for him to see Gandalf as a threat to Gondor and his son's life. It is reasonable to me that Denethor has 'lost faith' in 'the west', that he no longer believes in their irrefutably good intentions, that he no longer trusts Gandalf's begrudgingly bestowed wisdoms. Why should Denethor trust Gandalf that using the Ring would destroy him? The only answer is 'on faith'.
Yes, by the logic of what is ontologically true in Arda, Denethor is technically wrong. It would not have worked to keep the ring hidden in his vaults, using it at the moment of most direst need would have been a disaster because that is Frodo's destiny not his, Gandalf does not ultimately sacrifice Gondor in his pursuit of a divine victory and even if he had it would have been correct of him to do so because it is worth anything to keep Eru in his rightful place as ultimate authority over the world.
The point I am making is that none of these characters knew any of that. Boromir and Denethor and Faramir were expected to make the correct decisions based on faith, disregarding what their own experiences told them and trusting only in the west and it's (often callous, often concealing, often dismissive and actively seditious) messengers. Which I simply do not accept! It is certainly the atheist in me, but if the divine has demanded so much of someone, forced them to lose that much, and yet still has no sympathy for what grief resentment and despair can do, then I reject that divine on a purely moral basis. I find them unworthy of faith. And I find the characters whom could not keep that faith alive under such conditions extremely sympathetic and reasonable in their rejection.
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