He’s probably out playing the back 9 with King Golfimbul.
Anyways, I always got the impression that Middle-Earth was not dying at the end of the Third Age or the beginning of the Fourth Age. With the destruction of the One Ring and Sauron’s defeat, the world was passing out of the hands of elves and into the hands of men (I think there’s a short Gandalf speech at the end of ROTK that says something to this effect). Something like coming out of the Dark Ages and entering a Rennaisance or Industrial Revolution period. Magic will fall by the wayside and steam technology and mechanical gizmos will take it’s place.
Time for the Valar to retire much like the Norse and Greek gods seem to have done.
I dunno… The existence of the information in the Appendices, I would argue, greatly enhances the majesty of the novel. It’s a separate question whether the reading of the appendices is a good or bad thing, but that’s up to each individual reader.
Oh, and if you re-read FOTR, The Council of Elrond, you will see that Sauron offered three rings of power to the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain in exchange for an alliance, which was politely refused.
Someone mentioned above that the lands in the West were taken out of the sphere of Arda at the end of the third age, and I think that they probably meant the end of the second age.
I just finished re-reading the Silmarillion, and Tolkien credits Frodo with having done the task described in the spoilers boxes above (I’m new here and haven’t figured that out yet, cut me some slack!) when in fact the spoiler boxes are correct, so even Tolkien occasionally slipped up and got the facts wrong.
Another Tolkien nut.
Oh, and has anyone noticed how the scouring of the Shire is a complete rip off of the end of The Odyssey? And that Battle before the Gates of Mordor rips off the Trojan horse theme as portrayed in The Aenid? That the journey of Frodo (from end of Fellowship to the Cracks) rips off Gilgamesh? That Gandalf’s struggle with the Balrog rips off Beowulf? That the ring is the symbolic equivilent to the white whale, Moby Dick? That the stuff with Aragorn is Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? The Healing King is the Holy Grail quest? (I’ve been watching Joseph Campbell on PBS in re-runs again.)
I seem to recall that the Silmarillion simply states that “a halfling” or “the halflings” succeeded in destroying the Ring, without mentioning Frodo by name. Or am I wrong? After all, Gollum was a halfing too.
I don’t know if I much care for your throwing around the phrase “ripped off” like this in reference to Tolkien. I believe that he was a very accomplished scholar, and would have been well aware of the traditions from which he was borrowing in order to create his own mythology. A little more respect?
It does indeed mention Frodo. This is what it says:
“For Frodo the Halfling, it is said, at the bidding of Mithrandir took on himself the burden, and alone with his servant he passed through peril and darkness and came at last in Sauron’s despite even to Mount Doom; and there into the Fire where it was wrought he cast the Great Ring of Power, and so at last it was unmade and its evil consumed.” (Silm 303-4 hardback)
Now, as we know, this is not what actually happened. Tolkien knew what he was doing; his son Christopher, who did the final editing of the Silmarillion (which was posthumously published and thus not really in “finished” form) tells us that he “came to conceive The Silmarillion as a compilation, a compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity (poems, and annals, and oral tales) that had survived in agelong tradition…” Which is to say that “Of the Rings of Power” is presented as an account of the One Ring from a later historian, who either didn’t know the full story, or chose not to record it (note the words “it is said” in the above quote. In LotR it’s not entirely clear who does know). OTOH, the Red Book was written either by eyewitnesses or from eyewitness accounts (in the non-Frodo-and-Sam sections) and so gives a more accurate version of events.