Interesting thread as usual
Huinesoron
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Originally Posted by Huinesoron
The problem is that any more literal approach requires finding someone we can all agree is either a fallen angel in disguise, or a servant thereof.
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And Professor Tolkien considered the end of the Third Age to be the end of "incarnate evil" (as opposed to the evil that Men do), as
WCH has said. Thus it would presumably take on less personalised forms.
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Napoleon might be a viable contender
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As an amateur student of Napoleonic history I feel like Bonaparte is far too mixed a figure to be either a servant of evil or a hero. However, Professor Tolkien did say that the successive leaders of Gondor would be like "Denethor or worse"; I feel like "Great Man history" doesn't mesh with a Tolkienian concept of ages, as he seemed to see the future as ever-blander mediocrity. I'm not sure we even get to slot Caesar, Alexander and the like in here, although the Gondor-Egypt concept does make the idea of a Ramesses or similarly significant pharaonic figure appealing.
I was going to suggest "abolition of slavery" or similar as an evil defeated, but it seems to me that the ends of Ages were the defeats of "similar, just lesser" evils, which did not really make the world a
better place (in fact they tended to accelerate decline), just saved it from uncontested demonic tyranny for another few thousand years. So if successive Ages have ended in similar ways, it's difficult to say; it's so much harder to see. Professor Tolkien did dislike empires though, so their collapses might have merit: "I love England (not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth (grr!))" (Letter 53); "I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day (as I do), and remained a patriotic Roman citizen, while preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians" (Letter 77). Perhaps there's something there? I'm inclined towards
Galadriel55's view of the Great War as an Age-turning moment.