Yes, I am perfectly aware that the matter is (deliberately) left unsettled in the Greater Perfesser’s writings. I am calling on y’all to take your best guesses, explaining your reasoning with as much bullshit as you find necessary. Ents are included in the discussion because the origins of the two races are somewhat similar, though Dwarves are obviously more human-like than the tree-herds.
Persons who wish to speculate on possible crosses between Dwarves & Elves, Dwarves & Men, and Dwarves & Hobbits are encourages to check out this thread rather than cluttering up the current one.
I followed the link and I’m back in the same place.
I don’t actually care about Tolkienian eschatology, [del]since obviously the Red Book is a mythologized interpretation of the relationship between different hominid subspecies in the pre-ancient past[/del] and am content not to, because Tolkien himself seemed largely unconcerned with it, and of the various eschatological claims only interested in the reincarnative nature of the elves.
Ents seem to be spirits similar to those that inhabit (ensoul?) the Eagles, and can presumably wander around unbodied like Maiar and other spirits are wont to do. So when they die, they become like any of the other spirits of Middle-Earth.
Dwarves, having been ensouled by Eru, probably go someplace upon death. They seem more akin to Elves than to Men in their fate, so I’m thinking they go to Aule’s halls upon death, rather than leaving Arda as the spirits of Men do.
Given the metaphysical crisis engendered by the Half Elves, I doubt there was ever any of the nasty being had between Dwarves and Elves, or Dwarves and Men. But Hobbits are explicitly Men, so they could have been boinking with Men at any ol’ time.
‘Oh, no!’ said Treebeard, ‘None have died from inside, as you might say. Some have fallen in the evil chances of the long years of course; and more have grown tree-ish’.
So yes, ents can definitely die.
Some dwarves supposedly get reincarnated, or at least Durin is held to- dunno if that’s a common thing, or Durin just bought a season ticket.
Ents go Tree-ish, slowly dissipating their personality over time as they get less and less involved in the outside world, then their subsequent tree-form would die also of natural tree death causes. The ones actively killed by violence would simply dissipate instantly, and their ent-form would then rot away over time much like trees do. I sort of figured they were physiologically similar that way.
I have to say that I find **Lightray’s **explanation of the Ent-fates to be pretty satisfactory also, and a good bit less depressing than my own.
I always thought that Dwarves reincarnated, because of the different origin myth they got, and because of that rumor about Durin.
Hobbits are little mens, so they get whatever normal men get, which is totally mysterious.
I always thought the Elves had the best of the lot, personally.
It’s pretty explicit that Iluvatar gave the best to Men. You can disagree with him if you like, but it might prove futile…
To answer the OP, Dwarves reincarnate, and have a similar ultimate fate to Elves. It’s nowhere stated that Ents actually have souls, but if they do they will almost certainly stay within the bounds of Arda until the end of time. It’s explicitly stated that only the souls of Men leave.
The Halls of Mandos can hold anything, even rebel-valar. So I’m sure all earth-bound souls move there. Having another repository of souls (species-specific) is like putting up a new jail house (hardly necessary.) In the “Aule & Yavana” chapter, it was said that Eru granted Yavana a grace to protect the forests: “a power will walk among the trees.”
So I’ll guess that dwarves go to Mandos, whereas ents may be maia.The only weakness to the maiar theory is that ents need heterosexual congress to breed (must be if they sing songs about it.)
