LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 03 - The Ring goes South

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Interesting thoughts about story endings, Fordim! Tuor has already connected them to the end of the story, and I'd like to point out a previous quote, one that I like very much. In 'The Council of Elrond', Bilbo already mentioned the subject:

I was very comfortable here, and getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days. It is a good ending, and none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true; and anyway there will evidently have to be several more chapters, if I live to write them. (bolding mine)

This seems to be more about a personal happy ending than a general one - whether or not Bilbo has one depends on whether he is the one who has to take the Ring, in which case there is also the question of whether or not he will survive to tell the story's end. As I see it, Bilbo got his happy ending, but at least in Middle-earth, there was none for the Ringbearer Frodo - though he did live to write the necessary chapters about the War of the Ring!