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Old 08-15-2008, 11:42 AM   #1
Blokdog
Pile O'Bones
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 15
Blokdog has just left Hobbiton.
Question Inhabitants of the undying lands: immortal?

First let me apologise for my poor English. I’m a fifteen-year-old dutch boy, so I haven’t had too much time to practise, but please try to understand it.

I came to write this essay/question/topic, when I was reading a book on lotr I had bought a few weeks before, “the lord of the rings: weapons and warfare”. I don’t know if this book is generally know ( I heard about it only a few months before ), but it’s a book in which the weapons and fighting styles of the different peoples of middle-earth are shown, and also those of the most important hero’s of the film. The book is based on the films, so many things do not match with the books, but when I was reading the entry “gimli”, I found there the following thing: ( speaking about his friendship with legolas )”this remarkable bond was unique among elves and dwarves during the whole of the third age, and it earned gimli, at the end of his days, the previously unheard-of gift of being allowed to sail west across the sea to the undying lands, to dwell in eternal peace with his friend” ( for the people who own the book: page 55 ) had always assumed that this ( immortality in aman ) was so, because I thought of the undying lands as a place where nobody died. But the funny thing is, that the same book made me think about it once more. When I read the entry “legolas”, I found there the following sentence:”…, and eventually he took ship from the grey havens, taking with him the now frail dwarf who had been his bravest comrade and his truest friend” ( page 113 ). When I saw the word frail I began to think. Of course it’s logical that gimli was frail now, after his long life. But I wondered what would become of this frail body in the undying lands ( and of course this is the same with Bilbo. Still I think that the opinions about Bilbo and Frodo are more made up, and most believe that they’re there still), and then I changed my opinion: it isn’t at all sure that they lived forever. in the silmarillion to king tar-atanamir is said:”for it is not the land of manwë that makes its peoples deathless, but the deathless that dwell therein have hallowed the land”( page 264 ). Also I remembered the discussion of the valar about Eärendil ( page 249 ), where this, in other words, is repeated. So it isn’t really probable that they still live there…. Any mortals who, reported, ever came to aman where or sent back, or became elves ( at least, before the war of the ring ). Also it would be a little strange if every elf could take a mortal friend with him, who would then not die. Also they would then get the doom of the elves ( not being able to leave the circles of the world, see page 264 of the sil again ). I know that I don’t have everything I should have ( I don’t have the HoMe edition, for example ), and I just don’t know what to think, so please comment.
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