My last few threads from been oddly Tolkien-free. I blame the Welsh.
I’ll name a few points of divergence; pick whichever amuse you.
[ul]
[li]Weathertop, by a Nazgul blade.[/li][li]Moria, by an Orc-sword.[/li][li]Parth-Galen, by an Uruk arrow.[/li][li]Helm’s Deep, by a Dunlending arrow.[/li][li]Pelennor Fields, by an oliphaunt’s tusk.[/li][li]The Black Gate, by an troll’s fist.[/li][/ul]
Thoughts?
He re-rolls as a paladin since rangers totally suck.
He comes back as Aragorn the White; a little Clairol around the temples and a better beard.
But to be serious for a moment: the whole “Return of a king” thing would be tough if he didn’t have an heir, even supposing that the massed might of the Free Peoples could still somehow overthrow Sauron. I supposed you could trot out a bastard child via Arwen (or Eowyn for that matter) to sit on the throne, but that would be kind of cheesy.
Since elves live for yonks, how long do you suppose the gestational period of an elf/human hybrid baby is?
The news reaches Sauron; he then realizes the only choice the Fellowship has left is to drop the ring in Doom. He concentrates on that front and finds the Hobbits, kills them and takes the ring. Evil wins.
or
The quest still succeeds, with Arwen, or perhaps Elrond standing in for Aragorn as distraction while the Hobbits do their thing. Faramir emerges as leader; is later crowned king of a new dynastic line by Gandalf. He still marries Eowyn, uniting Gondor and Rohan. He rebuilds his new capital at Osgiliath (not Annúminas), thus keeping the power shifted south in his new Reunited Kingdom. His good relations with the Shire keep its people firmly in the fold of the empire. Yet in spite of Faramir’s best efforts at diplomacy and inclusion there runs an undercurrent of resentment and mistrust in the rest of Arnor, which is officially part of the new kingdom (but not for long?). Faramir doesn’t push back as hard as Aragorn would have against the Easterlings and Haradrim, and a tense border remains on those fronts of the kingdom as well. The pressure surrounding the Reunited Kingdom begins to crack, can Elboron keep things together?
or
Arwen, in inconsolable grief, takes the one ring with intention of destroying Sauron. Does so. Becomes the great and terrible queen feared by Galadriel, leading a new empire that slowly devolves into oppression under the corrupting influence of the ring, climaxing with the “necessary” annihilation of the Shire. Her father refuses to engage her and flees to the Havens, leaving a new coalition to be formed by hobbit, men, and elvish rebels under Galadriel herself. The Fourth Age is a time of war.
Shit that sounds almost as good as the book. I’d pay to see that!
Without the King to summon the Dead, wouldn’t the good guys lose the battle of What’s-It-Called? What are the consequences of that?
I guess it would only affect Frodo if it allowed Sauron to station more troops on Mordor’s northern border, and he thought to do so. But I don’t see that Sauron ever expected anyone to infiltrate from that direction, so I don’t know that anything would be any different for Frodo et al.
I’m thinking it might actually make things easier for Frodo. With Minas Tirith destroyed, Sauron’s armies would pour out of Mordor to continue the conquest of Middle Earth.
:: shudders ::
That’s why I postulated several possible points for Strider’s death. The earlier it happens, the more boned the West is. I don’t see a way for the good guys to win if he dies any time before Pelennor Fields. If he dies then–well, I suppose Gandalf & Imrahil could still have led the armies of the west to the Black Gate, but both Faramir and Eowyn die, and I expect that Eomer gets himself killed almost deliberately in the final battle. If he dies at the gate, Faramir has to become Steward, which sounds like a reasonable outcome but which I suspect he wouldn’t care for (though he’d do it.)
Some boring deus ex machina delivers a happy ending anyway. Maybe he’d get better like Gandalf did.
If he died at Weathertop or in Moria, you have to consider the possibility that Boromir would hold sway and talk the Fellowship into taking the ring to Gondor.
The earlier he dies, the less likely they survive any of the battles after that, and the more trouble they have convincing people to help them out.
Is [del]Agent Smith[/del] Elrond as helpful? Do they survive Moria without him? Do they survive the ambush at the falls? Do Frodo and Sam get away without his help? Do the others go after Merry and Pippin without him? Or do they completely disintegrate at that point without him? Or when they lose Gandalf in Moria?
He’s not Istari. His coming back to life would have to involve something else, and if it was deliberate, it would, by the nature of Tolkien’s world, be evil.
Am I the only person who doesn’t really have a problem with Gandalf coming back to life? In the movie, at least, I would have had no problem believing he had somehow survived. The difference between actually dying and coming back, and just surviving is small enough that I didn’t care. And it’s a nice way of getting a Resurrection into the story.
I think Elrond would anticipate that. He would tell Gandalf" To hell with your plans and your hobbits, old man. Glorfindel will take the ring, storm through to Mordor, and get rid of the damn thing. I don’t really care if any of your hobbits can keep up or not.
FWIW, I alwasy thought of Gandalf’s return as more like the Doctor regenerating along with a major “out of body” experience, rather than a true “died dead but got to totally cheat by coming back”.
Assuming that Aragorn’s fate has little to do with Frodo’s success (after Pelennor Fields anyway), then although Sauron might still fall the West might be devastated by the armies massed against it. So you might say that Frodo’s task was to make victory possible at all and Aragorn’s was to win a victory worth having.
It didn’t bother me. After all, he isn’t a “wizard” in the more usual sense of “a human who knows magic”. He’s an Istari, a Maia on assignment. Gandalf’s return makes sense given his background and nature; his job wasn’t done, so he was sent back with more leeway to use his power.
Refresh me: What races actually “die” in Middle-Earth?
Elves go to the Halls of Mandos. Can they return to Middle-Earth, or are the Halls like Dante’s first circle of hell – a parking place for dead virtuous pagans?
Valar and Maiar: Were any of them killed in the war against Morgoth? Was Morgoth shoved outside the world because as a Valar he cannot be killed? Gandalf came back, but Saruman evaporated. Sauron was scattered too – can the West just decide on a case-by-case basis if it wants someone back?
Humans and hobbits can die qua die. It looks like Ents and dragons can, and presumably eagles.
Dwarves? I assume that a lot of them were killed in the fall of Khazad-dum, for instance, but what happens to them when they die?
Orcs? Do they reappear in some dungeon in Mordor, analogous to what happens to the Elves? Or do they just die, because they have no souls?
Bombadil presumably endures forever.
Well, Elves are complicated. Tolkien once stated that Ef names are unique, that no two Elves ever had the same name. Someone pointed out to him that Glorfindel was listed as killed by a balrog at the sack of Gondolin, but then another Elf named Glorfindel shows up and saves Frodo’s bacon outside of Rivendell. Tolkien hemmed and hawed, and eventually said, “Well, it might be a case of reincarnation.” The conventional wisdom is that an Elf might be reincarnated after a few centuries or millenia. There is some debate as to whether they are reborn via someone’s womb, or given a new body in Valinor and sent back to the Grey Havens.
There is a passage in Return of the King after Frodo gets bitten by Shelob. Two Orcs are discussing the Nazgul. One of them mentions that if you cross them, they will strip you and leave you naked on the other side. This is in line with a passage from the Silmarillion which states that Ainur regard bodies much the way that mortals regard clothes. Which sort of suggests that they might have an Elf-like afterlife.
Nobody knows what happens to Dwarves. Elves believe that they return to the stone from which their ancestors were made. Dwarves believe that Aule has made a place for them in Mandos.
Elves stay in the West. As preferred they can stay in the Halls of Mandos or move about the Blessed Lands. Generally this is per the choice of the elf involved. Although for some it is a prison/purgatory of sorts. And that wanker Feanor won’t allowed out until after Dagor Dagorath. The only elf we know of who returned to ME after a trip to the Halls of Mandos is Glorfindel.
The Ainur (Valar and Maiar) are tricky. I know of no story where a Vala is killed. And the Maia seem to have some limited ability to recover from death and re-corporate themselves. However the longer a form is assumed the harder it is to recover from its destruction… and it seems to require a bit of personal power that is unrecoverable to do so. Eventually, like Saruman and Sauron, Maiar seem to end up formless and powerless spirits. I don’t know if other Ainur could help them recover and take form again or not. In Gandalf’s case though he died fully and left time (i.e. left the bounds of Arda completely). He was directly brought back by Eru and not the Valar in the West. This seems to be an exception though and not the rule.
Dwarves believe that they are continuously reincarnated. But there are no third person omniscient version of that. And we don’t know where their souls would go while waiting for reincarnation or if there is a way to break in the cycle and go to a final home.
Orcs are funny in that we aren’t entirely sure what they are. They could be a form of Human or Elf… in which case they would presumably follow that race’s fate. Tolkien even played with them being some sort of soulless automaton. But he never quite got all the various contradictions that would entail worked out. So at best we can say we don’t know.
Humans have the Gift of Man, and move on beyond Arda. But we aren’t clearly told if anyone else gets that. So there may well be a an Ent wing to the Halls of Mandos (between the Orc and Elf wings?). Or they may also have some sort of reincarnation like the Dwarves may get. I’m not sure if the Gift of Man would be so called if it were the default for all non-elven races.