A Happy Ending... or is it?

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

What the post-LotR writings by JRRT have done is make his sojourn in the West a temporary thing for us, a transition period before he dies.

I think that Guinevere is right in arguing that Frodo's journey to the West remains very much a reward. I would only like to add that, whatever the experience of readers may have been, it seems to me unlikely in the extreme that Tolkien ever saw Frodo's sojourn in Aman as eternal. Though he turned to the metaphysical framework of Middle-earth with greater attention in the post-LotR years, the broadest elements of that framework (which makes eternal earthly life impossible for any mortal) pre-date LotR. Indeed, the necessity of mortality for humans was a crucial point in both the QS version of Earendil's story and the developing legend of Numenor.

[Raynor]

I thought death was "the gift of Iluvatar" and originally not meant as a punishment ?

I did point to this being a Mannish idea ("as Andreth tells Finrod in their debate"); indeed, it would be more 'objective' to say that 'Melkor has cast his shadow upon death and confounded it with darkness, bringing forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope' .

[Beleg]

I feel pretty sad at the end of ROTK, but it's with the appendices that I cry my eyes out. The description of the year 1541 is depressing. I understood at this moment that the story was really over when all the characters are separated from each others.
The friendship between Legolas and Gimli is also very poignant, and i always wonder what happened to them once they left ME. did they perish in the Great Sea? Did they sail forever or at least until Gimli's death (which would be terrible for Legolas, left alone in a ship in the middle of the Ocean). Would Legolas go back to Valinor after that?

That's why I barely read this part of the appendices, and when it happens, just start to read the book I again, to tell myself "i don't want this story to end".

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Beleg

The friendship between Legolas and Gimli is also very poignant, and i always wonder what happened to them once they left ME. did they perish in the Great Sea? Did they sail forever or at least until Gimli's death (which would be terrible for Legolas, left alone in a ship in the middle of the Ocean). Would Legolas go back to Valinor after that?

Gimli was allowed to the Undying Lands because of his friendship with Legolas and as a favor from Galadriel. He died there, later.

[Thinlómien]

All the three Arda books, LotR, Sil and even TH end with a loss. Yet, there is always something sweet that remains from the past and a new age begins, in good and bad.

----

However, reading through the Why save them? -thread, I decided I wanted to raise a question on Does LotR have a sad or a happy ending? As the question was similar enough, I posted it here instead of starting a new thread.

I guess most of the people (like me) would say that the end is neither happy nor sad; it has both kind of elements and you can't categorise it.

The answer which I'm after is however that if you had to say which one it is, what would you say? There can be sad elements in a happy end and happy elements in a sad end.

Is the ending more sad or happy in your opinion?

In any case, I like this thread and am glad to reactivate it, for one post at least...

[The Mouth of Sauron]

Not everyone's happy at the end of LOTR , let me assure you .

Sauron is gnawing himself in the shadows , unable to take form again and I'm consequently unemployed .

I was the Mouth of Sauron .

Who knows what was in JRRT's mind when he wrote the ending of LOTR ? It may be he envisaged a sequel where the main characters re-appeared but he just never had the time to write it . There was nothing to say evil couldn't stir up during the start of the Fourth Age and nothing to say Elves and/or Frodo couldn't return to Middle-Earth .

There were certainly plenty of undefeated enemies - Orcs, Haradrim , Variags of Khand , Corsairs , etc. remaining at the start of the Fourth Age - indeed numerically the were probably still much stronger than Gondor and Rohan combined. If they had been united , smart and led well, they could still have prevailed .

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

I'd definitely say that it is neither happy nor sad...It's bittersweet, as stated before...

I came into this post thinking I'd say it was a happy ending, but then I got to thinking, ok, maybe it's technically happy: the good guys won, in as much as anyone can win in war. Aragorn became king, the Hobbits got to go home, Sam, Merry, and Pippin got married, and even Frodo found peace at last...

But I thought back, and wondered, what did I feel at the end? And the answer is this: I felt sad. I cry every time I read the end, and the tears aren't necessarily happy ones.

It's sad on one level, for me, a fan and someone who loves the book...It's sad that the story is drawing to a close, that after this, there is no more, but that's not the part that makes me cry.

On another level, as a reader, sadness is what Tolkien's ending conveyed to me. It's not sad like Shakespeare's tragic endings, where everyone dies, but all the same, I feel a definite sense of loss at the end of LOTR...I feel like I'm losing something, and that's just the only way to put it. It's probably all tied in with the fact that the characters I relate best to are the Hobbits, and particularly Sam. So I feel like I'm losing a dear friend, which isn't a happy feeling, even though it's obvious that it's better for Frodo that way...but is it better for the people who are left behind?

It's sad but true-to-life that even though the Fellowship accomplished its goal of destroying the Ring and ridding Middle-earth of evil for a while (I doubt permanently), life couldn't just go on for those involved. Legolas heard the Sea and had to live with the miserable, painful longing for it. Frodo was not whole after the experience, neither physically nor emotionally/psychologically. Sam, Merry, and Pippin ultimately lost one of their closest friends. Middle-earth lost Gandalf, and ultimately lost most of the Elves, too. (Though, of course, by then I guess the point was that the mortals were going to have to take care of themselves, and were hopefully ready for the responsibility).

So, I guess I'd say that on a logical level (a level on which I am not particularly good at thinking), the ending of LOTR is a happy one, but on an emotional, intuitive level, it is a sad ending, and it's that element that I feel more.

So sad ending is my answer, I guess, though I'm really not a pessimist at heart.