Every "ending" for a character is really Tolkien showing us the road that the character has reached a turning in, but not the end.
All too many stories end with some variation "and then he lived happily ever after" that tends to imply that these characters can go back to their old lives. And certainly for some stories and some characters that is true, like for Sam. But it is still vastly better to show the reader what happens than just to tell them everything is good. For other characters like Frodo they cannot go back to normal because they are no longer normal people.
Stories that have a heavy aspect of psychological and emotional component for the characters triumphing over evil but then that ends instantly when the evil is vanquished, just feel really fake. If a character is capable of going back to a normal life after going to war and seeing their friends die, then that is an unusually strong character, and it makes the story more full to explore that strength and see what makes it tick.
I have to imagine that this ending was inspired by Tolkien's experience in WW I. For those of us who weren't there the story ends in 1918, but for Tolkien and his fellow veterans the story went on for the rest of their lives. I think that Tolkien wanted to communicate that feeling to us, and he did a great job.
I absolutely agree that the way Tolkien wrote the ending is to make the story feel as whole at the end as it did throughout. The fact that there is still struggles and sadness despite the defeat of Sauron really makes the story much more relatable. Good has triumphed over evil, but there still needs to be recovery and healing. There is also plenty of prosperity mixed with sadness, something that is easily observable in the real world. Because the ending is left open, it is really the only way it could ever really do justice to the rest of the story, and the only way it could possibly feel complete.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you choose to write about how Tolkien refuses to have a "happily ever after" ending. This is something that I really admire about Tolkien's works. After finishing LotRs I felt very satisfied with how it ended because it wasn't really an ending. In my mind Sam is still at home with Rosie and their children.
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