[TigerTale]

but we haven't really bashed Denethor lately, and he deserves it

Denethor really strikes me as that bane which is none-the-less necessary in all regimes--the bureaucrat. Although there is something of the tragic about him as well.

[JenB]

Bureaucrat? I don't quite see Denethor in that capacity. He seems a very direct man to me, not interested in paperwork or diplomacy at all. More like some sort of Spartan general, past his prime and forced to deal with things that are beyond his league. Rigid, unflexible - he can't adjust to new ideas or challenges, stuck in the past, when Gondor was greater and Mordor was less.