While browsing through the dusty sub-basement of this Barrow, I came across this thread from many years ago, and something caught my eye.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marileangorifurnimaluim
If the Valar intervene in the affairs of men, they will tie men back into the original song, by which they themselves are bound.
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Our long lost Marileangorifurnimaluim makes an interesting point here, one that I failed to notice during the first go around. In the chapter
Of the Beginning of Days, in The Silmarillion, Tolkien discusses Eru's Gift to Men, stating that "he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and the smallest."
I have discussed this quote many times on these boards and it is, in fact, one of my favorites from The Silmarillion. What Marileangorifurnimaluim seems to suggest above is that the destruction of the Ring (by Men albeit with help from others) is the final act needed to move Middle Earth "beyond the Music of the Ainur" and if Frodo had failed, the mythic times would have continued, perhaps eternally, in a dark and evil fashion, or otherwise brought about the destruction of Arda and The Final Battle (which some say Tolkien ultimately rejected) per the Music of the Ainur.
I thought this thread might be worth a second look.