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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Aug 12 2016, 10:37pm
Post #1 of 17
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The ending of all the tales.
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As we have a break in the reading schedule, I thought I would make a point I have wondered about. Is the ending of Lotr actually a happy one? Not quite a complete concept I know, though it was mentioned in the story. I mean on the one hand, yes, Sauron was destroyed and that threat removed against insurmountable odds. But that was really just not having the worse case scenario ie evil taking over the world for ever more. This does not mean that good triumphed either. There was still a lot of evil or merely bad unpleasantness still left in the world.
Tolkien does hint that Gondor does not survive for long into the fourth age relatively speaking. Even in the Hobbit there is the suggesting that now Hobbits are shy of the big people and avoid them with dismay. So the ban on Men entering the Shire could not have lasted for ever could it?
And let's take the characters. Frodo seemed to loose joy in Midde-Earth and went to the sea to find healing. One can only hope that he found peace and healing there and lived the remainder of his years in peace. The other Hobbits though do look like that they had good lives. Sam did go to the sea but had a happy life in the meantime.
However, I am not sure about Aragorn. Strange, that the person that is the most iconic, possibly, in all of the story, could have died unhappy. At least he appeared to do so. Right at the end of all of the tales in the appendixes. And his Queen certainly almost regretted her choice to become mortal. Also, the fear of death was the bane of the old Numenors, had they accepted it, maybe they would not have gone bad and would have comfortably dealt with Sauron, Ring or no Ring.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Aug 12 2016, 11:35pm
Post #2 of 17
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Frodo probably found health and healing in the West, but I think it's important that he wanted to find both in the Shire, and he didn't. That's a bitter pill to swallow that one of the book's heroes ultimately didn't get what he wanted most. He spent most of the book wishing he was back in Bag End and Hobbiton and didn't keep thinking, "If only I could go over the Sea with the Elves..."
There is the general sadness all readers probably have that Middle-earth was doomed to fade away and become our modern world. I think I would have preferred it to exist somewhere as an alternative Earth, not this one.
Though it's interesting you thought Aragorn came to a sad end. My interpretation was that he ruled happily as a king over a restored kingdom and probably without too many problems (no great plague or invasion of Wainriders or Kin Strife). He married the woman he loved, produced a viable heir he was proud of, and had some daughters to boot. He lived longer than most men and was granted the grace to die peacefully while still of sound mind. It seems to me he was well-rewarded.
Arwen, of course, had a horribly sad end. No doubt about that. One line about her especially evokes tragedy: "It was not her lot to die until all that she had gained was lost."
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Aug 13 2016, 12:27am
Post #3 of 17
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Arwen, of course, had a horribly sad end. No doubt about that. One line about her especially evokes tragedy: "It was not her lot to die until all that she had gained was lost."
And yet by Mannish standards, Arwen spent many decades happily with the man she loved and left behind healthy, presumably well-adjusted children and perhaps even grandchildren, while her husband's kingdom(s) still prospered. Her ending might have been bittersweet, but hardly tragic except perhaps to the Elves.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Aug 13 2016, 12:32am)
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Aug 13 2016, 2:38am
Post #4 of 17
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I have always had trouble with Arwen's end.
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Why did she not find joy in her children (and their children...) or in art or the many other things she had presumably found pleasure in during the many, many years before she met Aragorn? It feels to me as though Tolkien wanted her to die this way, but he had built a character and a situation that, though our exposure to her was limited, should have found more strengths than this ending suggests.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Aug 13 2016, 2:12pm
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It is precisely for the reasons that you cite that Tolkien's statement rings false to me. Lady Arwen did not even come close to losing everything when her beloved Aragorn died--not unless he was the only thing that she valued.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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No One in Particular
Lorien
Aug 13 2016, 9:58pm
Post #6 of 17
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It is precisely for the reasons that you cite that Tolkien's statement rings false to me. Lady Arwen did not even come close to losing everything when her beloved Aragorn died--not unless he was the only thing that she valued.
I don't say that he was the only thing, but something for consideration is that her love of Aragorn was the one and only reason she chose mortality, and to be sundered from her mother, father, and brothers. All the rest; children, grandchildren, establishing a new dynasty, all of the other wonderful things that came to pass as a result of that union, were all side effects of her love of a mortal man. A mortal man whom she was fated to watch age and die before her. I wonder, if Arwen had died first, at the side of her love and surrounded by her children and grandchildren, would she have been so forlorn?
Seemingly all of the victories of the ME stories come at great cost. Even The Hobbit, the gentle childrens book and grand fairy tale, requires the blood of the King Under the Mountain and his closest kin before the end.
While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph
(This post was edited by No One in Particular on Aug 13 2016, 10:00pm)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Aug 14 2016, 10:46am
Post #7 of 17
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In Rivendell, before the Fellowship sets out, the hobbits discuss Bilbo's book:
"Have you thought of an ending?’ ‘Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant,’ said Frodo. ‘Oh, that won’t do!’ said Bilbo. ‘Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?’ ‘It will do well, if it ever comes to that,’ said Frodo. ‘Ah!’ said Sam. ‘And where will they live? That’s what I often wonder.’"
In fact, that's the third time Bilbo has proposed the traditional fairytale ending for his book.
It seems just some hobbit banter, carrying on the running gag (if that is what it is ) of Bilbo being unable to finish his book. But I think Sam foreshadows what will really happen - it's not as simple as that. Both the hobbits, the place they return to, and the whole of Middle-earth have been permanently changed by events. Just going home isn't as simple as it might seem. Or, another interpretation of Sam's words is that the "where" Frodo and Bilbo shall live is only finally settled by their taking ship at the Grey Havens.
Indeed, that's why I think the story doesn't finish quite quickly after Mount Doom. It might at that point only seem to need a chapter or two of denouement - do the 'weddings and promotions' stuff, and wave the hobbits off into the sunset as they head heroically back home. But Tolkien isn't finished. he's not prolonging the end of the book through indiscipline - he has a major theme still to go; the costs paid for victory.
Bilbo and Frodo depart West. What of Sam though? On one level he gets a hobbit-sized version of the traditional fairytale hero's rewards (the Mayorship and Bag End instead of a kingdom; Rosie instead of a Princess).
"He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said."
Ambiguous to the end - you can read this as deep contentment, as relief (he has done his duty and nothing so difficult is likely to be required again) or as a wistfulness or even melancholic mood (the Great Days are over, and now we must return to ordinary life and its concerns).
It's a wonderful ending, but I'm not sure whether I would not have preferred Tolkien to have added the superb final sentence from his (abandoned) epilogue:
"They went in and shut the door. But even as he did so Sam heard suddenly the sigh and murmur of the sea on the shores of Middle-earth."
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming read-thorough of Book VI ROTK (and the appendices if there are sufficient volunteers) http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=909709#909709
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A set of links to the Book IV discussions are here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=899201#899201
A wonderful list of links to Boook II, Book I and previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Aug 14 2016, 5:38pm
Post #8 of 17
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There really should be a fun uprising in support of that ending.
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"They went in and shut the door. But even as he did so Sam heard suddenly the sigh and murmur of the sea on the shores of Middle-earth."
I think that one line encapsulates so much of Middle-earth--that no matter what, the Sea always beckons to key characters, muted most of the time, but part of the ether they exist in. And Sam was fundamentally restless with Frodo's departure, torn between their friendship and his new family life. Like Arwen, he eventually turns his back on his own children after his spouse dies, but rather than dying alone in Lorien, he goes off to die in the West with Frodo.
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No One in Particular
Lorien
Aug 14 2016, 11:00pm
Post #9 of 17
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[reply
Bilbo and Frodo depart West. What of Sam though? On one level he gets a hobbit-sized version of the traditional fairytale hero's rewards (the Mayorship and Bag End instead of a kingdom; Rosie instead of a Princess).
"He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said."
Ambiguous to the end - you can read this as deep contentment, as relief (he has done his duty and nothing so difficult is likely to be required again) or as a wistfulness or even melancholic mood (the Great Days are over, and now we must return to ordinary life and its concerns).
I don't see it as ambiguous so much as multi-layered-it covers a multitude of emotions. It's contentment that he is home with Rose and the children, whom he loves deeply. It is relief that the hard duty is done, and he will likely never face such a hard task again in life. I don't know so much about melancholy for the Great Days; Sam never saw himself cast in the role of hero, no matter how many of his friends and admirers tried to tell him differently. All he ever wanted was to put by a bit of garden for Mr. Frodo, and he would have been content and happy till the end of his days to do so. (By "put by a bit of garden" of course I mean generally be butler, gardener, and all around boy Friday for Frodo. He was more of a Administrative Assistant than anything.)
Still, I've never read the deleted epilogue, and this is the first time I've seen that line in print; I must say, it is quite evocative.
While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph
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Omnigeek
Lorien
Aug 14 2016, 11:19pm
Post #10 of 17
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Not happy, not sad, simply a tale of struggle and life
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I for one don't think stories HAVE to have a fairytale ending. Perhaps that's the influence of too many Greek myths/tragedies or too much Dickens. LOTR was the story of a pivotal struggle, one that wrought changes across Middle-earth and set the stage for the Fourth Age but it was hardly "happily ever after" no matter what Bilbo might have wanted to write. The Elves diminished and went into the West, the Dwarves eventually faded, even Hobbits disappeared.
The end of LOTR was happy in that Sauron was defeated so Men were left with hope for the future and opportunity to build their own fates -- something they would have been denied if Sauron had won. Happiness in the future wasn't assured (and indeed many came to sorrow) but the assured gloom and despair of an Age of Sauron was averted and that itself was a happy ending of a sort.
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Aug 15 2016, 12:41am
Post #11 of 17
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Nothing glorious about war, even if you win.
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Before WWI, and as it was breaking out, the popular image of war was about dashing, heroic exploits and winning glory for your Motherland. Those who returned were damaged, often for life. It's really only nowadays, as we look at the psychological maiming of people returning "healthy" from war in the Middle East that we're really understanding how much permanent damage is done even to the "victors" by war. Today's soldiers, when they're not actually in combat, live comfortable lives compared to the hell of the WWI trenches or the front lines of WWII. But the stress of fighting and the ever-present possibility of sudden death still takes its toll.
Tolkien saw it firsthand in the trenches, and suffered worrying about his sons in the 40's. He saw it in his friends, and his son's friends. He knew there were no happy endings, only bittersweet at best, and that's how he wrote the story.
(This post was edited by Elizabeth on Aug 15 2016, 12:46am)
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EomundDaughter
Lorien
Aug 15 2016, 12:24pm
Post #12 of 17
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must have become old as mortals do with all the aches and pains. The movie didn't show that. I read a Tolkien comment about his wife who was older than him that she just got tired of all the pains of old age and passed away. Tolkien may have been saying that Aragon was keeping the weaker Arwen going and it was just time for both to go....I found the movie confusing as they showed a young Arwen.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Aug 15 2016, 2:54pm
Post #13 of 17
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"Ambiguous" as in "all of them at once" rather than Happy OR sad
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A bit more of the epilogue ending runs as follows. It concludes a fairly sentimental chapter in which we see the Gamgee family prospering, with Sam a devoted father and husband. There has been a pony from Rohan for the kids, and the Gamgees have received a letter summoning them to meet the King when the court arrives at the borders of the Shire:
All the children were in bed. Lights were glimmering still in Hobbiton and in many houses dotted about the darkening countryside. Sam stood at the door and looked away eastward. He drew Mistress Rose to him and held her close to his side. 'March 18th,' he said. 'This time seventeen years ago, Rose wife, I did not think I should ever see thee again. But I kept on hoping.'
['And I never hoped at all, Sam,' she said, 'until that very day; and then suddenly I did. In the middle of the morning I began singing, and father said "Quiet lass, or the Ruffians will come," and I said "Let them come. Their time will soon be over. My Sam's coming back." And he came.'] {this insertion, brackets and all, is part of the original manuscript}
'And you came back,' said Rose.
'I did,' said Sam; 'to the most belovedest place in all the world. I was torn in two then, lass, but now I am all whole. And all that I have, and all that I have had I still have.'
They went in and shut the door. But even as he did so Sam heard suddenly the sigh and murmur of the sea on the shores of Middle-earth.
I suppose one aspect of this is that the sea-longing gets the last word, which can of course then be taken to be the FINAL (as in ultimate or conclusive as opposed to just concluding) word.
Sentence order matters! Compare the effect of this edit by me
[misquote - sentence order changed by me]
All the children were in bed. Lights were glimmering still in Hobbiton and in many houses dotted about the darkening countryside. Sam stood at the door and looked away eastward. They went in and shut the door. But even as he did so Sam heard suddenly the sigh and murmur of the sea on the shores of Middle-earth.
[Sam] drew Mistress Rose to him and held her close to his side. 'March 18th,' he said. 'This time seventeen years ago, Rose wife, I did not think I should ever see thee again. But I kept on hoping.'
['And I never hoped at all, Sam,' she said, 'until that very day; and then suddenly I did. In the middle of the morning I began singing, and father said "Quiet lass, or the Ruffians will come," and I said "Let them come. Their time will soon be over. My Sam's coming back." And he came.'] {this insertion, brackets and all, is part of the original manuscript}
'And you came back,' said Rose.
'I did,' said Sam; 'to the most belovedest place in all the world. I was torn in two then, lass, but now I am all whole. And all that I have, and all that I have had I still have.'
[/misquote]
The published ending contains all this implicitly, I think, without the problem of seeming to give one impulse a final say over the other.
BTW The Epilogue was finally published as part of 'Sauron Defeated' a volume of Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle Earth. That has this version,and a later revision. See http://newboards.theonering.net/...cgi?post=89366#89366 for some more details.
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming read-thorough of Book VI ROTK (and the appendices if there are sufficient volunteers) http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=909709#909709
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A set of links to the Book IV discussions are here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=899201#899201
A wonderful list of links to Boook II, Book I and previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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No One in Particular
Lorien
Aug 16 2016, 12:31am
Post #14 of 17
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I haven't got that far in the HoME series yet but...
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I thankee indeed sir! I plan on purchasing this volume sometime this week to read the whole thing!
While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Aug 16 2016, 8:50am
Post #15 of 17
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"Fairy stories" (LOTR, The Hobbit) without fairytale endings...
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I certainly agree that emotionally complex endings are common enough, as well as grim ones.
I wonder what Tolkien's original readership might have been expecting though. I believe I'm right in saying that the standing of fantasy stories ('fairy stories' as Tolkien calls them in his 1939 lecture "On Fairy Stories") was different then. I think that there were myths and legends and folk tales mostly studied by scholars, and rather less challenging stuff that had been edited down for nursery use, or built upon those edited-down models. So I wonder whether Tolkien's avoidance of a simplistic happy ending was a little more startling then than we might think now.
I also wonder (particularly given the recurrence of Bilbo's wish to have a 'happily ever after' ending, assuming he can finish his book) whether Tolkien is making a deliberate statement here.
We should discuss the ending of The Hobbit in this context. Tolkien takes a familiar trope - the hero returns in triumph to his place of origin, and now it seems small because the hero has grown and his or her home town has not. But Bilbo arrives in the middle of him and his effects being legally disposed of. I feel that's pretty daring for a children's story of the time.
Of course, Tolkien plays it for comedy. Bilbo does not return to interrupt (say) a sad memorial service in which his devoted friends finally accept, as hobbit law requires, that after a year, Bilbo is dead, despite their desperate attempts to seek news of him after his abrupt and thoughtless departure. There is no reluctant wake that turns into a somewhat chilly Welcome Home party when Bilbo turns up feeling very pleased with himself, and not understanding he has some apologising and explaining to do.
That was, I think, a good decision, even if (when you stare at the fridge for a while) it doesn't seem all that likely that Bilbo would have nobody around him who cared about him at all. (Nobody that is other than the S-B's, whose motives are of course about the inheritance rather than Bilbo's welfare.)
It's comedy, but I wonder if it isn't comedy with a bit of an edge. It is tempting to see an autobiographical angle, and one that might well have resonated with those parts of Tolkien's readership who had been away on military service. Talking to my father about his experiences of returning from war, I learned that one of the shocks for him was to find that people back home had got on with their own lives and concerns without him. Of course that's only to be expected on one level, but it blows away the settled picture of 'home' that someone takes with them when they are away.
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming read-thorough of Book VI ROTK (and the appendices if there are sufficient volunteers) http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=909709#909709
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A set of links to the Book IV discussions are here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=899201#899201
A wonderful list of links to Boook II, Book I and previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Aug 16 2016, 2:57pm
Post #17 of 17
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Now I'm wondering about Sam's relatives and well-wishers
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From the Gaffer's point of view (or Rosie's) Sam went off to Buckland to do for Mr Frodo and his bit of a garden, and then either hasn't been heard of for a year, or there have been alarming rumours of hobbit disappearances following an attack on Mr Frodo's house by those odd Black Riders. Maybe they are a bit too calm about it, when they finally see him again?
And how, come to think of it, about the disappearance of two of the Shires most eligible aristocratic young bachelors, Merry and Pippin? Is going off Into The Blue so scandalous that it has all been hushed up?
To be sure after a while the Shire would have become a police state, and disappearances might have become common and asking questions dangerous. But I don't suppose that happened immediately.
But that's probably a set of questions to put in the logic fridge for when the Book VI read-through gets there!
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming read-thorough of Book VI ROTK (and the appendices if there are sufficient volunteers) http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=909709#909709
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A set of links to the Book IV discussions are here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=899201#899201
A wonderful list of links to Boook II, Book I and previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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