I have to get this sudden realisation out there into a fully typed post somewhere so apologies to any mutual who remains despite my year long hiatus but this is going to eat me up inside;
Boromir’s relationship with his mother was actually not good. It was not terrible, but it was difficult and painful and unfairly influenced by the impressions of both callous family and public opinion.
Because Boromir was a large baby, difficult to birth. He did not wean quickly, he did not like to be around strangers or left alone, he wanted to be held often and for all these things and more he was silently labelled as ‘needy’ by many. Not Denethor or Finduilas of course, they were delighted to love him as he needed to be loved and took a great deal of joy in him. However, despite this, Finduilas’ health (that had never been particularly good) worsened noticeably after Boromir was born.
It is not that people explicitly blamed Boromir for this, but Boromir was also an intuitive child and the cultural and historical concept of ‘mothers who died giving too much of themselves to their sons’ was prominent enough for him to already be thinking about it at a very young age. He did not need casual, gentle urgings from adults that ‘he had to be good, for his mother’, ‘you know how your mother is Boromir, you must give her some space’, ‘you be patient for your mother Boromir, don’t tire her too much’, in order to already begin connecting his needs with harming Finduilas, but they solidified the feeling in him that this was his fault, that he was too demanding.
Denethor only ever heard of one such comment and he was furious but there was little he could do. And the lesson for Boromir was reinforced time and again. He started pulling away from his mother at just four. Sometimes he was quietly reassured or encouraged to spend time with her and he would relax and laugh and doze in her veils and they would work on some project they loved. But at some point Finduilas would have a coughing fit. And though this might be usual for her in a day, Boromir would see it as his fault. But he also quickly gathered that his mother hated for her ill-health to come between her and the things she wanted to do, so he had to hide that from her as well.
As he grew he withdrew from her more and more and Finduilas, who did not wholly understand the reasons why, perceived this as a rejection, a boy growing away from his mother’s love and scorning her ‘gentle’ ways (which particularly hurt for Finduilas when she was conflicted by her gender already). Denethor, who had some idea of why Boromir was acting this way, tried to offer him ways to interact with his mother that felt ‘safe’ but Boromir still stopped asking his mother for help. He heard every sweet tease or reminiscence of his ‘needy’ or ‘clingy’ babyhood as an accusation and confirmation of his guilt and almost unconsciously began to ‘need’ much less. He felt he had to give back as much as he had taken, and then more.
Such comments came most often from his maternal grandparents and especially Adrahil, his grandfather. And they were especially prominent after Faramir was born, a smaller baby who was weaned earlier and who was far more gregarious and bold than his brother had been at his age. Comparisons were easy and often made and this atmosphere contributed to the narrative that Denethor ‘loved Boromir too much’ when he felt the need to defend his son from these things and give him the care that he was denying himself.
Boromir’s worst nightmare became his mother’s death, not because he would lose a mother, but because he would be the cause of it. And, though the family did manage to gentle and settle and find some equilibrium in their day to day, Boromir’s worst nightmare did eventually happen. There was so much love in him, he had built himself for care, and when his mother died he blamed himself. He couldn’t understand why Denethor didn’t.
But he also couldn’t tell anyone, he couldn’t say a word about his relationship to his mother, especially not to his little brother. And so Faramir, who hated to be out of the loop, got a lot of his answers from Adrahil. Once, when Faramir was a teenager and angry and he wanted to hurt him, he told Boromir ‘you had her the longest and you didn’t even appreciate her’. Boromir just hugged him, ever his protector after all.
Eventually Boromir did realise that he had just been a child, he had not killed his mother by just being her son and needing her. But by then there was an instinct and an architecture in him that was too fundamental to be rid of. He doesn’t want to need, it does not feel like himself to need things, it isn’t for him. Giving and loving and defending, that is when he feels most himself. And people still joke to this day, sentimental and sweet, of baby Boromir who used to be so cuddly and clingy and who always wished to be held, and how alike he is to his mother. And Boromir just weathers them with a smile.
When Boromir was young Denethor tried to tell him, ‘no Boromir, it is not your fault’. But Boromir couldn’t accept it, it seemed obvious to him, clear that his mother sickened at his hand. ‘You are just saying that to comfort me’ he said, thinking ‘perhaps you do love me too much’ as well. But Denethor didn’t hear that thought until much later, as adults, both talking through and over something painful. And Boromir said it naturally, a humorous answer to some bleak question, with a joking, sardonic tone, ‘hah perhaps you do love me too much’.
And it is the worst Boromir's ever made his father feel, because Denethor knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, suddenly, that that was still real in Boromir, it was still there in him and he wasn’t joking in fact, not in some deep painful part of him. And there was no way for Denethor to dig it out anymore.
