A Happy Ending... or is it?

[Lotrelf]

LotR has the best ending. It's magical, poignant, outstanding, heartbreaking and hopeful. The end left me with strange feelings that I had never experienced before. It's very sad, so sad that I can't read the books again (on matter how much I want to). Sam, Merry, Pippin return home, Aragorn becomes King, Legolas and Gimli end the enmity of their races and become the great friends. But the Ring bearers leave Middle-earth. Forever. Never to return. And with that Magic ends as well. It's all is sad in the Appendices too. But it's understandable that after living "happily ever after" they'll all die. So they do, but the sadness and the feeling of loss remains. I'm unable to come out of it ever and remember how sad I was for weeks before and after I finished the books.

Among all the characters, I find Frodo's ending most appealing. It's mainly 'cause of him and his words said to Sam for reasons of leaving ME that the story becomes as poignant as it is. LotR couldn't have gotten a better ending than this.

[FerniesApple]

Yes I felt the same way, I thought the ending was bitter sweet, and it left me feeling bereft. Part of that was probably having to say goodbye to middle Earth and characters I had grown to love. It was a mourning period, a feeling of loss, loss that the book had ended, loss that the Elves were leaving ME forever, a sense that magic was leaving the world, that Lothlorien and Rivendell would fade and that Men would now inhabit ME with all their robust no nonsense approach, that industry would cover the land and cement would replace forests. Its a longing for the past, remembrance of a Golden Age, mortality, all things must die.
Its the bitter sweet atmosphere of Autumn when Summer is gently dying, once the leaves have fallen and the acrid smell of bonfires is in the air.
The last parts of the book from the time Aragorn is crowned, a feeling of sadness steals over me, amongst all the joy I would have quietly left the feasting, found a quiet spot away from prying eyes and I would have wept many sad tears not knowing quite why.

[Tar-Jêx]

There are very few things that can leave you with a void after finishing them. Not just sadness that it is over, but an actual void in your existence, that you can only satisfy be reading over it again.

Tolkien was so good at what he did, that I will never be able to fill the void for the remaining 80 years of my life. I'm sure most people will have the same void, which is a hole in your existence that can be sated by reading Tolkien, but never filled unless you travel to Arda.