As I´ve told you sometimes, I´m never obvious, and neither are you, my dear ;-). Why did I pick up The Key and Black Captain to go together?. Well: lessons in statecraft, as it were. Rightly or wrongly, my mind (surely getting ahead of itself) has spinned the following yarn: let´s assume that Denethor suspects Gandalf is trying to attract Faramir to his own party, which would be the reinstauration of what Denethor considers an usurper. Since both men are very long-sighted and able to play a game of chess with the mind set years in advance, Denethor might suspect that all the interest Gandalf shows in his precocious young son must answer to another, hidden, political purpose which won´t pay dividends until Faramir is of an age. He may well be thinking that Gandalf wants to make Faramir head the Fifth Column, should Denethor and his supporters refuse to accept the return of the King. Thus Denethor´s attempt to learn his son´s life through the journals, seeking for Gandalf´s hand there; a failed endeavour, because Faramir has nothing to hide in that respect. The King´s Shilling and Possessions are, I think, confirmation of the seeming truth in Denethor´s suspicions, but conformation, as well, of the intrinsic good of Gandalf´s maneuvres. Faramir lets his old friend know that he has always been aware of what was going on, but, as he may have resolved sometime in the past that this is what had to be done, he aided willingly, thus raising in stature from pawn to Queen. Black Captain is Faramir telling obliquely Aragorn all of this, besides playing his father´s substitute (the piece is, after all, a mirror of The King is Dead). Indeed, assuming the position his father should have taken as Aragorn´s right-hand man and servant, loyal but independent-thinking, and all the more valuable for that.