The ending of the lord of the rings

[loopyapp]

As an adult I have just realised that Frodo leaving with Bilbo, Gandalf and the elves was a metaphor for his death.. Or suicide as it appears.

That seems to hit me all the harder in tve feels for some odd reason ... Am I right in my understanding?

I thought they sailed to the undying lands which used to be part of middle earth but sort of split off (at the end of the first agree?) and now only the elves can go there? I don't think it's a metaphor for heaven/death. Have you read the Silmarillion.

Tolkien wasn't big on metaphors. Like all the stuff about Mordor being Russia and Middle Earth being Europe he always said was way off. People assigned their own meaning. He was quite literal. Valinor is as real as the Shire.

age not agree

It's not death, I don't think, but it is a removal from life. Realise that sounds contradictory!

Ahh I see, what got me thinking was Gandalf saying earlier on in the series that he was permitted to return after his fight with the Belroc as he still had things to do.

Thanks though guys.. Its much less heart breaking if they just literally leave!

I've always thought of it as Frodo sort of fading away anyway in his final weeks in the Shire. Going with the elves is a kind of renewal, in that case, I guess, rather than a death. By then I'm so pissed off with Frodo though, that I'm glad to see the back of him!

Haha indeed!!!

I always got the sense that Frodo and Bilbo had kind of become so immersed in and damaged by the world of magic through bearing the ring that they couldn't live in the world anymore. Doesn't Sam also go at the very end? I always cry at the end.

No, they go off to live with the immortal gods, Maya (sort of lesser gods like Gandalf) and elves. They're fine.

Because they have been "ring bearers" they cn go with the Elves to the undying lands. Normal mortals (Humans, Hobbits and Dwarves) do die eventually - like the Sackville-Baggins.

Yes, it’s a bit like the Celtic otherworld where heroes go when they die, like Arthur and Avalon. This Celtic otherworld is always to the West too.

Ahhh that makes much more sense. Im blaming it on a sign of the times that my mind went to such a sad place hah!

Nah Sam stays after gandalf and Frodo point out he has a full happy life waiting in the shire.

Sam goes too, after Rosie dies, as the last of the ring bearers. There's a timeline in the appendices.

As others have said, Frodo sails West to Valinor, which is essentially Tolkien's version of Heaven. Frodo is granted the honour of sailing to Valinor because he had basically saved Middle Earth by destroying the Ring. Many years later, Sam is also allowed to sail to Valinor because of his role in destroying the Ring.

Interestingly, there's also a mention of Gimli (the dwarf) accompanying Legolas to Valinor.

I have always seen it as a sort of elf Valhalla, effectively an afterlife, removed from the lands of mortals.