Mortality in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium
As always, spoiler warnings...
Table of Contents
Introduction
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s universe there are a mortal, immortal, and near-immortal beings, and those differences are at the heart of his creation, driving his plots. And throughout The Silmarillion and Th e Lord of the Rings there are stories that tell of exceptions to his established systems around mortality. These unusual cases appear to be central to the working out of Tolkien’s mythos, as the interplay between the norms and these ‘exceptions’ are pivotal moments in many of the most important of Tolkien’s legends.
This model of establishing a ‘rule’ with an exception waiting in the wings seems to be a pattern in the secondary world Tolkien created. It is one of the things that makes Middle-earth so endlessly fascinating (at least to some, myself included) and helps make it seem more real. The real world is messy, after all, and systems in fictional fantasy and science fiction universes which are too neatly constructed with ‘rules’ too rigidly applied can undermine what Tolkien refers to as our ‘secondary belief’ (in On Fairy Stories) in them. And at times, Tolkien even seems to be creating systems to explore the ways in which those systems can spawn such exceptions. For example, what are the implications of Ainur, Elves and Men having different fates in regard to their mortality, but being able to interbreed?
Often – perhaps always – these exceptional situations arise due to choices his characters make. Given the tens-of-thousands of years his mythos covers, it is natural that someone, at least once, will make an ‘unexpected’ decision or take an unprecedented action, particularly when the author is so interested in addressing matters related to (and giving his creations the power of) free-will.
The interplay between fate and free-will in Tolkien’s world is a complex and rich topic, but in brief, Tolkien gives his creations, from the angelic-like Ainur to humans to maybe even the orcs, free-will. Reasonable people can quibble about the orcs (and some of other beings), and there are at least subtle differences between different types of beings and how they relate to the ‘fate and free will’ conflict, but it seems clear that Tolkien, at least, was quite sure he had created a universe where people had free will, and free will gives rise to unexpected consequences. Thus (to pick just one example) mere pages after introducing the idea that Elves and Men are the (only) two “Children of Ilúvatar,” we are introduced the creation story of Dwarves and Ents, referred to as Ilúvatar’s 'children of adoption' (as opposed to the 'children of his choice').
Dwarves come into existence as the result of the Vala Aulë exercising his free will; first, by secretly trying his own hand at subcreating, and, second, by choosing to subject his creations to Ilúvatar’s will and judgement, which he believes will lead to their destruction. Instead, Ilúvatar breathes life into them (without which the Dwarves would remain no better than automatons, under Aulë’s conscious control).1
There are huge implications to Ainur, Elves, Men, and others having free-will within Arda. As a result, there is a rich body of examples to explore which highlight different aspects of what I’ll call ‘mortality-related issues’ in Middle-Earth, often playing with, or contradicting, the established norms, and which sometimes challenge our own ideas about death and dying out here in the real world. To begin to explore these, however, we need to start with those norms, clearly laying out what they are.
The Norms
For the purposes of most this discussion, I’ll be limiting my view to the Ainur and the two children of Ilúvatar’s “choice,” Elves and Men. Ilúvatar (also known as Eru, the One) is the (seemingly) omniscient monotheistic deity of Tolkien’s universe (also known as Eä). Ilúvatar brings Eä into existence and creates all beings who have souls, essentially. Ilúvatar is beyond immortal, existing before all else and, presumably, after all.
The Ainur are creations of Ilúvatar’s thought, made before the creation of space or time. The Ainur can be viewed as angelic-like beings. Some Ainur came to Arda (the Earth), and of those who came to Arda, the most powerful are the fourteen Valar. They each oversee a domain, similar to various pantheons of gods like the Greek or Norse gods. The rest, save one, are called Maiar, and while they are generally far less powerful than the Valar, there appears to be a tremendous range to their power levels and great variety to their ‘domains,’ which operate in similar ways to the Valar. Most Maia are associated with a particular Valar. It is unclear how many Maiar there are, but they might comprise a vast host given the information we have. Only a few are specifically named, and many of those who are named are discussed below.
The remaining Ainur is Melkor (later known as Morgoth), at one time the most powerful of the Valar, until he was banished from their order.
The Valar and Maiar cannot leave Arda until the end of its existence 2, but will exist afterward, in their former state, with Ilúvatar, outside of time and space. So, they are truly immortal, as far as we know.
The Children of Ilúvatar are Elves and Men. Elves are the first born. They are often thought of as immortal, but Tolkien is very clear that they are serial longeval during the existence of Arda. When the world comes to an end, they will cease to exist. This is an incredibly important distinction.
Elves can be killed by accident or through violence, but not through sickness. To fully explain how this kind of death works for Elves, consider Tolkien’s terms for the two parts of their being, their fëa, similar to a spirit or soul, and their hröa, their body, made from the stuff of Arda. Death is something that happens to the hröa (when it is hewn down by a sword, for example), but the fëa persists. On the death of the hröa, the fëa should respond to the “summons” of the Vala Mandos, in whose halls fëa without a hröa spend some period of time in a dream state before being rehoused.3 The new hröa is the same as the old one, so in all significant ways, the Elf is the same Elf, retaining the memories and abilities they had before they were killed.
Humans, referred to by Tolkien as Men, are mortal, just as we are. They are us. The fate of humans after death is unknown, but it is referred to as the Gift of Ilúvatar. While their fate is not made explicit, there are implications that humans spend eternity with Ilúvatar (outside of time and space) after death, meaning that while Elves are seen as immortal, they will actually cease to exist at some time in the far future, while humans, who are clearly mortal within Arda, will not. Note that humans’ fëar spend a short time in Mandos after death, before going wherever it is that they ultimately go. This will be particularly important in the case of Beren, which we will look at later.
One way to view differences between Elves and humans is their connection to Arda. Elves’ fëar are connected to Arda, so their fëar are in harmony with their hröa, which is made of the stuff of Arda. Not so with humans. Their fëar are attuned to the place of their ultimate fate, not Arda, but their hröa are of Arda, the same as Elves. Because of this 'disharmony' between body and spirit, Humans would simply be unable to live ‘forever’ as Elves do. Elves, meanwhile, are connected to Arda completely, although if they remain in Middle-Earth (as opposed to the Undying Lands, also known as Aman,4 where the Valar live), there appears to be a limiting factor to their hröa such that after some large amount of time they begin to fade.
It is not clear when this would start to happen. While Tolkien’s Arda is emphatically Earth, his mythological history obviously does not fit neatly into Earth’s actual history, and so we do not know how many years it is from the end of The Lord of the Rings until modern times, by which point any Elves who remained in Middle-Earth had all faded. Later writings, especially those collected in The Nature of Middle-Earth, show that Tolkien had a desire to standardize much about Elves’ ‘life-cycle’ (reaching maturity, typically marriage and childbearing years, and when their hröa would ‘wear out’). However, these attempts exposed inconsistencies in some character's timelines in the legendarium, and it appears these were never resolved. The main published works, therefore, remain vague. It appears that this ‘fading’ would begin and/or accelerate as The Lord of the Rings ends and the Fourth Age begins.5
The two Children of Ilúvatar relate to Arda completely differently as a result of this fundamental difference in their nature, and there are lots of implications to that. Further, observe the difference between being immortal (as the Ainur are) and serial longeval within Arda (Elves). Essentially, Elves are not immortal because they are so closely tied to Arda. In contrast, Ainur, beings who existed before the universe was created, are clearly not tied to Arda.
There are other creatures in Tolkien’s legendarium. Hobbits are a kind of human, and so are mortal as humans are, although they take longer to mature and live longer than average humans. There is a similar distinction with the Númenóreans, but they are also humans in terms of their fate; some have Elf or even Maia ancestry in the background as well.
There are also a number of unique individuals who are not always clearly categorized by Tolkien. Ungoliant, the great spider of the First Age, is almost certainly a Maia, and will be mentioned later with that assumption. Tom Bombadil is probably not a Maia, however, although his nature is not explained and is likely singular. Goldberry’s nature is also vague and is also probably not a Maia; she is referred to as the ‘River-woman’s daughter.’6 Special animals, associated with the Valor, such as Haun and Nahar, may be Maiar, but it is not clearly stated. Haun, the great ‘Hound of Valinor,’ was a unique being (who spoke, but only three times), but what kind of spirit inhabited his giant form is not clear, and far less is said of Oromë’s horse, Nahar. While evil creatures such as orcs and trolls can be killed, it is simply not explained what their fates are, and Tolkien struggled with what their very nature was, changing his mind several times throughout his lifetime of work on the legendarium. In The Silmarillion, orcs are Elves which have been twisted by Morgoth, but the implications that has for the original Elves’ fëar is not followed through on in that book.
Dwarves are also a special case, clearly mortal (and long lived, with an average lifespan of around 250 years), but with an unclear fate, due to their unique creation story. They believe they have a place in the halls of Mandos, apart from Elves, where they go when they die. There are no stories around their mortality that might interest us, however, with the possible exception of Gimli being the only dwarf permitted to go to Valinor. As his fate was essentially the same as Frodo’s, we can lay Gimli's fate aside until later, when we look at Frodo’s end.
Ents appear to be similar to Dwarves in their creation story, but closer to Elves in that they can be killed7 but appear to have essentially no limit to their lifetimes within Arda. This is not explicitly stated, however. Even less is known about their fate after death then Dwarves. The only information we seem to have is that some simply grow so tree-ish as to be indistinguishable from trees.
Due to the lack of hard information and interesting ‘case studies,’ therefore, I will be largely leaving Dwarves, Ents, and unique creatures out of the discussion, focusing on the Ainur (immortal), Elves (serial longevity), and Men (mortal).
A Brief Sidebar About Children
In addition to mortality, it is also worth taking a moment to also look at the differences between these three types of beings and the normal rules regarding their ability to have offspring. The ability to have children is a form of immortality, or at least a way to project our lives into the future. And there is also a connection between birth and death rates in that they both relate to population stability, growth, or decline.
The Ainur who came to Arda (the Valar and Maiar) took on bodies, which they can change as they wish (normally – there are exceptions, of course8) and, through those forms, they took on either male or female identities. That appears to be true for all Ainur, but again, the sampling of Ainur seems quite small, so it is not possible to say if there are exceptions. Many of the Valar are said to be in marriages with other Valar, and some are spoken of as siblings to each other, but it is unclear what these terms mean exactly.
Regardless of their form, Ainur cannot have children, at least not normally. Meanwhile, the Children of Ilúvatar (Elves and Men) can procreate. Here’s a quick representation of the intersection of states of mortality and ability to procreate.
| Can procreate | Cannot procreate | |
| Immortal/Serial Longeval |
By the way, considering the blank spot “mortal/cannot procreate:” while Dwarves and Ents can procreate, they may be edging towards this spot. The Ents ‘lost’ the Entwives, and so by the Third Age, there are no Entings, but it as Ents appear to be serial longeval, they would fall between the Elves and the Ainur on the chart above. The Dwarves, who are mortal, do not seem to be consistently maintaining a replacement birthrate by the time we reach the end of the Third Age. Both the loss of the Entwives and the decline of the Dwarves are woven into tapestry of loss, endings, and irrevocable changes in Middle-earth as it enters the Age of Men, all of which are major themes in The Lord of the Rings.
Examining these relationship, I would say that it would be natural that mortal beings should be able to procreate, as otherwise they would quickly die out as a species. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the immortal Ainur could potentially overrun the world with their offspring if they could have them.9 The Elves, therefore, occupy an interesting position as they are immortal (for practical purposes, as they do not die in the lifespan of the Earth) and yet can have children.
Why then, do undying Elves and their undying children not overrun Aman or Middle-earth? Population density is not something Tolkien discusses. We are told the initial group of Elves who woke by Cuiviénen numbered 144, paired off into 72 couples. We know that Elves marry for life (but not all Elves marry), and only produce children within that marriage, and that a typical family will have one to four children. It is suggested that family size has shrunk as time has gone on (similar to Dwarves, it seems) – that, in fact, some aspects of fading is linked to their age as a species. (So, they are at the height of power and ability in the early days of the First Age, a time they tend to have larger families.)
We do not know much about what goes on in Aman after the Noldor flee to Middle-earth (as the stories of The Silmarillion follow them across the ocean and largely ignore what is going on in Aman), but there is no indication that those who lived in Aman ran out of room (or built skyscrapers to compensate for a lack of usable land). Was the birthrate in Aman different than in Middle-earth? Aman suffered some population loss when a substantial number when the Noldor fled, but many of those Elves ended up back in Aman through death, further complicating our math. And when Aman was removed from Arda with the Downfall of Númenor and the reshaping of the world, we do not really understand what that meant for the land mass that was Aman. For all we know, Aman-in-space (or wherever it is) is not the same size as Aman-on-Arda (which we also do not know the precise size of).
Meanwhile, it is clear that when the Noldor return to Beleriand there is plenty of space for them. Elves in Middle-earth were prone to death by violence given the terror of Morgoth and his servants and the various wars that resulted. After dying, most fëa heeded the call and ended up in Aman; after their time in the halls of Mandos and being rehoused in a hröa, those Elves stay in Aman and never return to Middle-earth.10 Others Middle-earth Elves choose to cross the ocean (or, later, take the straight road) to Aman as they wearied of Middle-earth. So, it also seems unlikely Elves would ever overrun Middle-earth even though they did not die natural deaths and yet could have children.
Tolkien played with numbers for other matters. For example, his near-obsessive precision with dates in coordinating the various strands of the story (both on- and off-stage) in The Lord of the Rings, is well-documented. As mentioned about, we can see Tolkien trying to work out all kinds of issues about birthrate, population size, and Elves’ lifecycle in the late writings collected in The Nature of Middle-Earth. Tolkien's work on birthrate and Elvish population growth published in that book mostly revolves around making sure there are enough Elves when Oromë finds them - he generally felt his story did not allow for enough time for the original 144 Elves to reach a reasonably large population quickly enough. (A problem quite different from overpopulation.)
Because these late writings did not resolve any of these issues, and do not agree with The Silmarillion as published, we have to leave them out of this account.
Having set up the norms for mortality and procreation, let’s examine some of the unusual and unique cases Tolkien creates.
The Ainur
For a group of beings who are supposedly immortal, there seem to be quite a few Ainur who die. None of these are Valar, however. If it was going to happen to any of the Valar, it would be Morgoth (technically a ‘former Vala’), with whom the Valar war with in the earliest eons of Arda’s history, and against whom the Host of the West go after twice, first in the Battle of the Powers and later, at the end of the First Age, in the War of Wrath. Both battles reshaped the land of Middle-earth, so violent was the fighting, and both involved Ainur, but only the second included Men and Elves. Morgoth is acknowledged as the greatest of the Valar, before being cast out of that order, but that does not make him unbeatable, even with hoards of Orcs, a bevy of Dragons, and many Balrogs.
Morgoth does not die, however. In the Battle of the Powers, he is defeated and then bound with the chain Angainor that Aulë wrought and brought back to Valinor as a prisoner. That doesn’t last, of course. However, after the War of Wrath, he was cast into the Void, outside of Arda, but, again, he is not killed.
One of themes that will be come up below in discussing Maiar who ‘die’ is the idea of Ainur who disperse their being into others or into things. The most famous example is Sauron’s ring, which is used as a metaphor in the title of The History of Middle-Earth volume, Morgoth’s Ring. Morgoth’s ‘ring’ is Arda itself, which he has corrupted through this kind of giving of his own being. This occurs with positive acts of the Valar as well; the making of the Two Trees is a one-time thing, and the Valar who made it (Yavanna and Nienna) cannot recreate the trees after their destruction.
Morgoth’s power is vast, however – ocean-like – and it takes ages and ages for the effects of this dispersal to be visible. Eventually he loses the ability to change his form, and later, when he battles the Elf lord Fingolfin (who is an amazingly fantastic for an Elf, but nowhere near Morgoth’s power level), the wounds Fingolfin inflicts on Morgoth never heal. He is clearly a lessor being then the ‘greatest of all Ainur’ he starts out as.
This idea of a being giving up some part of their fëa, putting it into something to some effect, will come up later with Elves. We see something similar in the way childbirth affects Elf women, but also in a way more similar to these Ainur examples,such as Sauron crafting the One Ring. Sounding very much like Yavanna and Nienna talking about the Trees, Fëanor states he cannot remake the Silmarils. The Teleri say the same thing of their boats.
While there is no evidence of a Vala dying, there are quite a few beings who we are either told are Maia or for whom there is good evidence they are Maia, who perish. A list is below, and what we know about each of those deaths is explored. What exactly ‘dying’ means is unclear, however, and I will argue that the best information we get is from Sauron’s demise, one of these ‘case studies.’ Let me take a moment to preview the implications of that here.
I think we are given clear clues that Ainur, like the Children of Ilúvatar, also have a fëa and hröa. They seem to have been only fëa prior to coming into Arda, and because of this, they got to choose their appearance. Normally they can take on different hröa – their physical forms are not fixed. However, if they drain too much ‘substance’ from their fëa, their hröa can become fixed, so there seems to be a linkage between the spirit and the body in their case. So, death to a Maia may be a state after fëa alone continues, but maybe, in some cases, the fëa of a Maia is able to form a new hröa after some amount of time, just as they initially did after arriving in Arda. It is also possible that a death to the hröa could be devastating enough to result in a death to the fëa as well if they are truly linked. Or at least devastating enough to create a state after which the fëa alone continues, never again able to form a new hröa.
Balrogs: While other Maia are presented as unique beings, the Balrogs are introduced as a ‘class’ of Maiar, seduced by Morgoth to serve him, always taking the same form: giant humanoids of shadow and flame, who fight with flaming swords and fiery whips. While Balrogs fought in many battles, and many were certainly slain in battles such as the War of Wrath or the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, there are few explicit examples of Balrog deaths outside the Fall of Gondolin and in The Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf battles the Balrog of Moria.
In Gondolin, Ecthelion fought the Lord of Balrogs, Gothmog, and ‘each slew the other.’ Later, in the mountains, Glorfindel fought a Balrog, pierced it, and both fell to their death. From The Fall of Gondonlin: 'Then at the death-cry of the Balrog the Orcs before and behind wavered…but the Balrog lay, and the water of Thor Sir ran black for many a day.' In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf cast down the Balrog while they fought on the peak of Zirakzigil, and the Balrog’s body 'broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.' (We’ll come back to what happens to Gandalf.)
So, we’re not given any hints about what death means to Balrogs. It seems significant to know if their spirits linger, ‘haunting’ the world and causing trouble, or not. After all, it is implied that that nearly all Balrogs were dead by the time Gandalf defeated the Balrog of Moria, and there are certainly no signs of a Balrog spirit ever rehousing itself in a new hröa.
Dragons: If dragons are Maiar, they are similar to Barlogs as they are a class of being, but, unlike Balrogs, it appears each is unique, with at least a hint that there is a progression in Morgoth’s R&D Department: start with fire breath (Glaurng), add wings (Ancalagon), make the next one larger and so on. Like Balrogs, the description of their deaths do not suggest anything special about their demise. Smaug’s death, for example, is simply put in The Hobbit: ‘Smaug…crashed down from on high in ruin. Full on the town he fell…And that was the end of Smaug.’
There is a suggestion in the death of the first dragon, Glaurung, that the death of a dragon is really the end of something. With Glaurung’s death, the enchantment which clouded Níniel’s mind, keeping her in ignorance of her own identity was lifted: ‘Glamrung died; and with his death the veil of his malice fell from her, and all her memory grew clearer before her’ (from The Children of Húrin). This suggests his fëa is truly gone, or at least powerless for a time.
Ungoliant: Again, we do not have confirmation that Ungoliant was a Maia, but it seems likely, and because her death (and the fact that she has offspring) provides interesting fodder for this discussion, let’s consider her Maia. Her death is not confirmed but is one of those Tolkien ‘some have saids,’ which are hard not to take as truth. In Ungolaint’s case, it is said her ever-growing hunger overcame her, and she devoured herself. This image, of her darkness, which is described as a thing of substance, not just the absence of light, turning in on itself reminds me of a black hole, except there seems to be nothing left afterwards, like a trick done by a Looney Tunes character. It is perhaps too difficult to draw any lessons about Maia mortality from this, especially as it is officially only a rumor, but it appears her self-destruction is total.
We do know Ungoliant had offspring, however. If she is a Maia, this is significant. She takes the form like a spider, and we are led to believe she breeds with actual spiders. The ‘rules’ of Maia having offspring seems to be that one Maia and one (normal) being can produce offspring. Her offspring, like her, take spider form, but are unusually large, intelligent, evil, and have stingers, a feature not normally found on spiders. They all share Ungoliant’s hatred for light, to the point where it hurts. In The Hobbit we meet her offspring (presumably not her children as these seem to be at least one generation removed, maybe many, as they are called the descendants of Shelob) who haunt Mirkwood. These can also speak. It is not clear if her most famous child11, Shelob, can speak, but she is clearly highly intelligent, able to ‘come to an arrangement’ with Sauron.
The Istari: The Istari are not a class of Maia, but a name given to five Maia, with unique names, characteristics, and associated with a variety of Valar, who are chosen to go to Middle-earth in the Third Age to advise and persuade Men and Elves to resist Sauron. Most importantly for our discussion, they are not sent in their Maia form, but rather inhabiting the bodies of old Men, aging extremely slowly. Their human forms were susceptible to all of the ills and weaknesses of the of body, mind, and spirit. This includes the possibility of death.
Two of the Istari are known to have died. The two Blue Wizards’ fate are outside the scope of Tolkien’s legendarium, and Radagast the Brown is alive at the end of the Third Age, but his fate after that is unknown. Gandalf and Saruman, however, both perish during the time of The Lord of the Rings.
Gandalf describes his own death (witnessed by no living creature, so his version is all we have), ‘Then darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.' It appears that his fëa leaves Eä, returning to Ilúvatar, who returns his fëa to his hröa, but now in enhanced form. (Most likely, ‘Gandalf 2.0’ is full Maia, no longer limited by a human form, but this is not stated explicitly.)
Saurman, having been stabbed by Grima Wormtongue, dies in the Shire, and provides us the best case so far for Maia having a separate fëa and hröa. ‘To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.’
The implication is Saruman’s fëa either wished to return to the undying land in the West, where he came from, and was rejected, or that his fëa turned to the West, looking for a sign, hopefully or fearfully, of some word coming from the Valar. His fëa seems to take a physical form for a moment, a mist or smoke, but that does not hold together long. We do not know the fate of this fëa after death – it may reform after long years, as we see with Sauron after the fall of Númenor12, so Saruman may come to haunt some corner of the world in years to come. However, it is very possible that the cold wind truly dissolved him ‘into nothingness,’ and so he is truly destroyed.
While this tells us a lot about his fëa, we also get a clear description of what happens to his hröa. ‘Frodo looked down at the body with pity and horror, for as he looked it seemed that long years of death were suddenly revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shriveled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull.’ Unfortunately, this is not definitive in regard to Maia death, whatever that means, as this was all happening to Sauron’s human body. However, it strongly suggests that the thing which keeps the Istari’s human bodies from aging is that they are inhabited by Maia fëar. Removing the fëa results in the rapid aging of his hröa, the centuries of his time in Middle-earth impacting it all at once.
Let us turn, finally, to Sauron. Sauron does come back from the destruction of his hröa when Númenor is destroyed at the end of the Second Age. He is able to reform a physical form after long years because he put so much of his power and being into the One Ring. However, he did not come out of the experience unscathed, and, like his master Morgoth, he no longer could change his form (and the form he did have could no longer appear fair).
His death at the end of The Lord of the Rings seems to be mirrored by Saruman’s several chapters later, but here it is on a grander scale: ‘…as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.’
In The Last Debate, we are told more about what the Wise think will happen 'If [the Ring] is destroyed, then [Sauron] will fall; and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again. For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so a great evil of this world will be removed.'
The implication here is that despite the complete victory over Sauron, there is no way to remove him entirely from the world. His fëa will remain, a ‘mere spirit’ – and it appears likely it will have some (even if small) influence on the world as it ‘gnaws in the shadows.’ Certainly, the broad strokes of Tolkien’s view of evil in the world are that a spirit like Sauron’s does remain after ‘death,’ an evil influence on the world, and even if laid low, evil will often grow back no matter how big the victory against it. Morgoth is long gone, but the evil he put into Arda remains. The only fight we have against it is ‘long defeat,’ but we must not give in to despair. We must not give up, we must continue to hope, particularly when victory seems impossible.
Conclusions
Given the information we have about the three Istari deaths, it is highly suggestive that the death of a Maia is only the death of its hröa. There are several explanations for why we do not see the same kind of ‘spirit-as-mist-or-cloud’ when Balrogs die. It could simply be a matter of the way their stories are conveyed to us. Gandalf is our only reporter for the death of the Moria Balrog, relating the tale to others, and leaving out a lot along the way. His own fading consciousness may also have prevented him from seeing such a mist. The rest of the Balrog deaths are told in The Silmarillion (or in the later published ‘Great Tales’ books), which have a different source, tone, and style. The compactness and mythological nature of the storytelling may, by its nature, leave out this kind of information. Other creatures discussed above, such as Dragons, may not be Maia. Or it may be that only Maia of a certain power level have visible fëa after death.
While we do not know what happens to a Maia’s fëa on their death, it would make sense that, like Elves, they can return to Aman (perhaps through Mandos) to be rehoused – I think of good Maia, such as those who fought on the side of the Valar again Morgoth and perished. Perhaps they live on in Aman. Those that have fallen, following Morgoth, however, would not likely have that option, but it is possible those Maias' fëar are still haunting Middle-earth. It seems clear that Gandalf’s experience is explicitly unique, as there is no indication that any other Maia fëa are meeting up with Ilúvatar after their death.
The implication that the fëar of the dead Maiar corrupted by Morgoth may be unhoused spirits, still around us in the world – and remember, most of the dead Maiar are certainly those of servents of Morgoth – fits well with several aspects of Tolkien’s legendarium and world view. Arda is marred by Morgoth, from before the beginning, really, and evil is (as a result) present in the world. In addition, Tolkien’s legendarium has, as part of its goals, the desire to tell the ‘true stories’ behind the myths and legends we inherit from our actual past, our collective mythology – particular stories of fay creatures and spirits. Yes, these are often the faded Elves, now reduced to mostly harmless pixies, fairies, leprechauns, and the like, depicted in our real-world stories, such as those of the Huldufólk of Iceland. But if corrupted Maia spirits haunt the world, Tolkien has provided the ‘true’ source for stories of evil spirits, ghosts, and other hauntings, much as the drowning of Númenor is the ‘true’ source of the world’s Atlantis myths.
Maiar with children
Before we leave the Ainur and turn to the Children of Ilúvatar, I’d like to talk about the loophole that seems to exist with Maiar and the ability of Ainur to have children. While Ungoliant’s offspring are mentioned above, we can only surmise things – she may not be a Maia and she may not have begat offspring through (normal) spiders. Neither of those guesses are confirmed. There may be other examples of non-humanoid offspring from Maiar, such as the Mearas. However, Nahar, the horse of Oromë, is not absolutely defined as a Maia, and the Mearas of the Rohirrim are not definitively the offspring of Nahar – both are possibilities, but neither can be confirmed.
The one explicit example of a Maia having a child, of course, is Melian, the Maia who marries Thingol, who then have a daughter, Lúthien Tinúviel. Lúthien is therefore Half-elf and half-Maia. This is yet another example of Tolkien setting up the rules, and then creating messy reality where there is an exception. As is typical, this ‘exception’ sits right at the center of the legendarium, one of most important stories of the First Age. While there does not appear to be any example of a Maiar having a child with a human, we do know a half-Maiar/Half-elf (Lúthien) and a human (Beren) can have children, as will come up below.
There is an extraordinary passage in The Nature of Middle-Earth in which Tolkien considers the impact of childbirth on Melian’s nature, and while these late writings are often at odds with his main works as published, it is worth quoting from this footnote as it touches on several of the subjects covered here. “Melian assumed (as the Valar and Maiar could) ‘the raiment of the Children’, the Incarnates, out of love for them. Only one of the greatest Eldar in their early vigour could have supported a union of that sort (unique in all known tales). But Melian, having in woman-form borne a child after the manner of the Incarnate, desired to do this no more: by the birth of Lúthien she became emmeshed in ‘incarnation’, unable to lay it aside while husband and child remain in Arda alive, and her powers of mind (especially foresight) became clouded by the body through which it must now always work. To have borne more children would still further have chained her and trammeled her. In the event, her daughter became mortal and eventually died, and her husband was slain; and she then cast off her ‘raiment’ and left Middle-earth.”
Here Tolkien explores the nature of the Ainur as ‘divine spirits’ (as he calls them earlier in this passage), and the radical difference between them appearing in physical form, merely putting on the raiment of the Children, and actually becoming ‘enmeshed in incarnation.’ While it is childbirth that enmeshes Melian, we can see parallels to Morgoth’s and Sauron’s ‘enmeshing’ through domination and the dispersal of their spirits/fëar in things, which results in their ‘raiment’ becoming stuck in one form. There may also be similarities with the Istari, Maia who are placed into incarnated forms. Clearly their ‘powers of mind became clouded,’ as most of them fail in their mission due to ‘enmeshment’ in the physical world of Middle-earth. For Radagast, it is the love for the plant and animal life which overwhelms him. For Saruman, it is the desire for power and to rule over others.
This passages also speaks of the Elves’ ‘early vigour,’ the idea that as a species, their spirits become weaker over time. That will come up again in the next section, on Elves.
Elves
Fëanor and Míriel
Fëanor, objectively the greatest of the Eldar, also has more than a few faults, with a throughline that parallels Morgoth (the greatest of the Ainur) and his fall. Through Fëanor’s actions comes the large part of the plot of The Silmarillion. One of the most surprising, if not shocking, parts of his story is the way in which, following Fëanor’s birth, his mother gives up on life. Míriel’s death, if that is what it is, is the first passing of an Elf in Aman, but it is also nearly unique in the legendarium.
In the briefest of outlines: Finwë, the King of the Noldor, marries Míriel, and Fëanor is born. She is ‘consumed in spirit and body’ and after his birth she ‘yearned for release from the labour of living.’ All her strength has gone into Fëanor. She’s a serial longeval Elf in Aman, the Undying Land, but even in Lórien, the land of healing in Aman, she finds no relief. Her sprit leaves her body, which remains preserved (and cared for) without decay, even while her fëa passes into the halls of Mandos. Finwë visits her body but desiring more children (Fëanor is his first and only child), he eventually remarries.
In The History of Middle-Earth more is told of Míriel. Elves marry forever, essentially, and if one partner dies, they will normally, after some amount of time as pure fëa in the halls of Mandos, be rehoused in a new hröa, identical to their former one, with their full memories. Thus, a second marriage, to someone different, would not be a consideration, even in the event one’s spouse is killed, as the separation that comes with death is only temporary.
So, under the normal order of things, Finwë cannot remarry because some day Míriel will decide to return, and her fëa will return to her body (literally the same body, in her case), and then what will Finwë do? Having two spouses is not permitted. Does he leave his second wife and return to Míriel? Elven divorce is also not a thing. As there is no clear guidance on this, we’re told in the tenth volume of The History of Middle-Earth, Morgoth’ s Ring, that Finwë takes his case all the way to the head Vala, Manwë, who admits that this is not a situation they have a policy for in the manual, so to speak. Manwë consults with others, and eventually Mandos (who always does the ‘doom saying’) lays down the decision. Finwë can remarry only after assurances from Míriel that she gives up all right to leave Mandos ‘until the end of Arda,’ that she’ll never ask to be returned to her body. She agrees. They wait the required ten years,13 after which the marriage is dissolved. Finwë marries Indis and has four more sons.
It is clear this is not a situation the Valar were prepared for, especially in Aman. Some Elves in Middle-earth do die from non-physical wounds (heartbreak, for example) and many from physical wounds, but even these can rehoused after their time in Mandos. Probably the closest parallel to Míriel is found with Elrond’s wife Celebrían (daughter of Celeborn and Galadriel), who recovers from her physical wounds after her capture and torture by orcs, but she could find no joy in Middle-earth afterwards. But like any Elf wearying of Middle-earth, regardless of the reason, she boards a ship at the Gray Havens and departs for Valinor on the straight road.
Míriel’s decision is a kind of ‘body suicide,’ and is particularly striking because it does not occur in Middle-earth, but in Aman, and is therefore quite different from Celebrían’s situation. Having created ‘rules’ about life, death, and marriage, Tolkien births the most fantastic Elf ever, the straw who will stir the drink of the plot of the First Age, and associates that birth with something unexpected, unnatural even, a situation which forces a breaking of these rules and creates a crises.
It is hard not to see an association between this situation and the greatness of Fëanor, as both are similarly unique. It seems her weariness is at least partly attributable to Míriel’s seemingly conscious decision to impart Fëanor with something extra at a great cost to herself, an unnatural tradeoff that leads to an unnatural outcome.14 Tolkien’s vision of the Elves is one where they are greater and have more ‘life-force’ at the beginning of their existence as a people, regardless of the age of an individual. At the time of Fëanor’s birth in Aman, Elves are still ‘young,’ and even those in Middle-earth will not tire or fade for tens of thousands of years. That fading is expected, however, part of the plan, as time goes on and humans take over. Tolkien’s more speculative later writings (particularly those found in The Nature of Middle-Earth) link this youth of Elves with couples having more children on average early in their history, with family sizes declining as time goes on.15 Paralleling this on the personal level, couples also have children earlier in their marriage, so despite their ability to live in corporeal form for tens of thousands of years, they are over with childbearing relatively quickly.
Míriel’s weariness could be seen as the first damage done by Fëanor, albeit not by his will (so not his fault). However, Fëanor does choose how to react to it. He does not attempt any mending, which is certainly telling. His father remarries, and Fëanor chooses to resent that decision. His father seems to overcompensate. Fëanor becomes estranged from his own family, and the tension continues into the next generation, as enmity grows between Fëanor’s children and the children of his half-brothers. And so on. (Read The Silmarillion for the rest of the story.)
In the Morgoth’s Ring version of the story, Míriel is actually granted permission to return to life, this after the death of Finwë (who agrees to remain unhoused in Mandos to avoid the multiple-wife problem), but her sadness returns, and she ‘had no desire to return to her own people.’ She instead enters the service of Maiar Vairë, and Míriel’s task is to weave all the deeds of the House of Finwë into the Tapestry of Time. In the end, there is not much difference between Míriel in the Halls of Mandos and Míriel hanging out with a small group of Maia weaving all day. Even so, it seems Tolkien cannot help himself from complicating his already unique complication.
Finally, Fëanor’s death in battle with a hoard of balrogs is one of a multitude Elven deaths by violence in Middle-earth following the flight of the Noldor, but after death, his fate creates yet another unique situation. Of all of the Elvish fëa, Fëanor is the one who never rehoused ‘so fiery was his spirit that as it sped his body fell to ash, and borne away like smoke; and his likeness has never appeared in Arda, neither has his spirit left the halls of Mandos.’
Lúthien and Arwen
Lúthien Tinúviel was the only daughter of King Thingol of Doriath (an Elf) and Melian the Maia. She was said to be the fairest maiden to have ever lived. She chooses to marry the human, Beren. Similarly, Arwen, Lúthien and Beren’s great-grand daughter, and the daughter of Elrond, the Half-elven,16 marries the human Aragorn at the end of the Third Age.
Lúthien sets the table thousands of years before Arwen, so we will discuss her journey in detail. In the course of their adventures, Beren dies, and like all humans, his fëa goes to the halls of Mandos. (More on humans and death in the next section.) Beren's spirit, at Lúthien’s bidding, tarried in Mandos, longer than it normally would, if seems. Lúthien then forced her own spirit to depart from her body (which ‘lay like a flower that is suddenly cut off and lies for a while unwithered on the grass’), not unlike Míriel. Off to Mandos her fëa went. She sings to Mandos, who is quite moved (which is not at all normal for him). Mandos summons Beren, but since the Valar had no power ‘to withhold the spirits of Men that were dead within the confines of the world, after their time of waiting,’ he’s got to go talk to Manwë.
After some thought, Lúthien was then given two choices: be released from Mandos to live with the Valar ‘forgetting all griefs that her life had known,’ with Beren doing the normal human thing and leaving Arda forever. Or… and don’t you always know it’s the second choice that is the one the character is going to take? …she and Beren could return to Middle-earth ‘without certitude of life or joy,’ and she would become mortal, ‘subject to a second death, even as he.’ That is the deal they take, and eventually Lúthien becomes the Elf who dies and leaves the circles of the world forever, like humans. And Beren becomes the Man who dies twice.
Arwen makes the same choice as Lúthien when betrothed to Aragorn. (As will be mentioned below, Arwen actually always had the choice between the fate of Elves or Men.) Arwen makes her choice when betrothed to Aragorn, about 40 years before they are married. However, there are some strict conditions to their marriage happening, put there by Elrond – basically, that there is Middle-earth worth remaining in and Aragorn is king, which are essentially the same thing – and so Arwen has committed to an outcome that may not come to pass, and, if it does, won’t come to pass for several decades.
Although Lúthien and Beren die ‘off-screen,’ it appears they die together. In the appendices in The Lord of the Rings, we learn that Aragorn dies, and afterwards Arwen leaves Minas Tirith for Lothlórien, which was empty, and she stays there through the winter before she ‘laid herself to rest,’ a much sadder, lonely passing.
Tour and Idril
The other union of Men and Elves, Tour and Idril, who met and marry in Gondolin, has less clarity. It is implied that Idril did not want to give up her ‘Elfness’ and be forever separated from her family, so Tour agreed to try to reach Valinor. Tour may, therefore, be the only human to end up sharing the fate of Elves, that of serial longevity within Arda, but as Tour and Idril pass out of tales when they sail west, seeking Valinor, it can only be guessed that they succeeded in reaching it. If so, they may live there still. However, the key here is that the Valar say, explicitly, that they cannot take away the Gift of Ilúvatar to humans – that is beyond their power. The translation of the title of the poem telling the story of Beren and Lúthien is called ‘Release from Bondage,’ and the reference is to Lúthien’s release, through death as a human, from the bondage Elves have to the circles of the world.
Note that in all three cases, it is clear that Tolkien’s human men ‘marry up,’ as does the male Thingol the Elf in marrying the Maia Melian. Given Tolkien’s identification of his wife with Lúthien and himself with Beren, it is not out of the question that this reflects his view of his own marriage.
The Half-Elven
The Half-elf Eärendil (son of Tour and Idril, so he is actually a true Half-elf) marries Elwing, another Half-elf, being the granddaughter of Lúthien and Beren.17 As Half-elves, Elwing and Eärendil get to choose their fates, and Eärendil defers to Elwing, and so they share the fate of the Elves. But their main story is their journey to Valinor, where Eärendil pleads for the Valar to intercede, coming to them as a representative of both of the Children of Ilúvatar. His errand is successful, and as a sign of hope, he is set forth in his ship in the sky with a Silmaril and becomes the Morning star. You know it as the planet Venus. They remain in Aman as Elves, although one could argue they are a bit more than Elf. Eärendil is a planet, and Elwing can speak with the birds and fly, meeting Eärendil as a white bird when he returns after each night.
Their children, the twins Elrond and Elros, presented Tolkien with another opportunity to explore different options, which lead into the stories of the Second Age.18 The fruits of the two great first-age intermarriages of Elves and humans (Lúthien and Beren, and Tour and Idril) ended up conveniently intermarrying (Elwing and Eärendil), and at the end of the first age, in Middle-earth, only their children, Elrond and Elros, were left in this ‘Half-elven’ state.19 They were also the only living descendants of Melian the Maia in Middle-earth.
Ilúvatar has given the Valar the power to decide the destiny of the Half-elven, and the Valar again give the choice to the twins, just as they did with their parents. Elrond chooses to have the fate of Elves, and because of that choice, it is possible that his children may decide differently, so the Valar also permit his children to make this decision for themselves. (While Arwen chooses the fate of humans, it is not clear what Elrond’s twin sons Elladan and Elrohir decide.)
Elrond’s twin brother Elros decides to go the other way and becomes human. Unlike Elrond, Elros’ choice means that he accepts the ‘gift of Ilúvatar’ for himself and all his descendants (as the Valar cannot take away that gift), but the Valar grant Elros and his line mortality with a special twist: long life.20 Oh, and a new island to rule.
Humans
Because Humans arrive on the scene after Elves, and because their mortality is strange to them, it is this feature, this difference, which is often emphasized. Among the names the Elves give them collectively are the Mortals and the Sickly. (They sound better in Elvish – Fírimar and Engwar, but still…) This difference comes out in the tales of The Silmarillion, as in the inter-marriages mentioned above. When one of the first of the Edain who come into Beleriand, Bëor the Old, dies (at 93) of no wound or illness, the Elves are confused. The Elf Turgon allows Húrin and Huor to leave Gondolin, whose main strength is its secrecy, based on their mortality, not wanting to waste their prime years in hiding when they wanted to fight the forces of Morgoth.
Back to Elros, the twin who chose to be human. Elros lived 500 years, and his descendants and the men of Númenor are given generously long lives and a new island home as well. Tolkien’s Atlantis story, the Downfall of Númenor, is the main tale of the Second Age. The Númenorians are instructed not to sail West (towards Aman, the Undying Land) out of sight of their island. The combination of a negative edict to stay clear of the home of beings who do not die alongside the granting to humans a longer – but still mortal – lifespan became the ingredients Sauron uses to cook up a recipe of fear and mistrust.
Eventually, as the long-lived Númenorian kings start living not-so-long, they begin to hold onto the throne until death, whereas it had been the practice to hand off the throne before dotage. It gets ugly. Finally, Sauron convinces Ar-Pharazôn that the undying land is so-called because if you live there, you will not die (as opposed to merely being a description of the people who live there). Ar-Pharazôn sets sail with a fleet and, defying the Ban of the Valar, lands on Valinor, claiming the land for his own. Manwë calls on Ilúvatar, the world is remade, Númenor is destroyed, and Aman is removed from Arda.
The entire story of the downfall of Númenor is steeped in the fear of death. The gift of longer life for the Númenorians actually puts an emphasis on human’s mortality, drawing attention to it, especially when their lifespan begins to lessen over time. The juxtaposition of the mortal Númenorians being set up with a brand-new island closer to – within sight of – forbidden lands where undying Elves and Ainur live, plants a seed of envy which slowly grows over the 3,000 years of the Second Age.
We, the reader, understand how this fear of death grows, even without the role Sauron plays in fanning those flames. But Elves are not able to fully understand humans, and we see this thousands of years later. As she faces death, Arwen reveals something of the Elvish mind, the great divide between Ilúvatar’s two Children. Aragorn is dying, and Arwen is accepting, at least in words, that she must ‘abide the Doom of Men.’ And yet at this moment, their very last exchange, she says to him, ‘But I say to you, King of the Númenorians, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive.’
While it is clear that Ar-Pharazôn is mistaken to think that immortality is granted to those living in Aman, it is not clear from this story what happens to humans who go there, or even to the Eastern most island of 'Westernesse,' Tol Eressëa. Ar-Pharazôn and the men with him are buried under the Earth (remaining in the Caves of the Forgotten until the Last Battle), so they did not last very long after stepping onto Valinor.
But we can look to the ring bearers, Bilbo, Frodo and Samwise, for more clarity. Hobbits are clearly humans, and although different from their larger cousins (and longer-lived than them, at least compared to regular men), they share the same fate of death and release, the gift of Ilúvatar. Bilbo and Frodo go the Grey Havens at the end of The Lord of the Rings, taking a ship on the ‘straight road’ with Gandalf and Galadriel, both making a return visit to Aman and Valinor, and Elrond, going for the first time, forever sundered from his daughter Arwen (but to be reunited with his wife, Celebrían).
This was Tolkien’s Arthurian-influenced myth, a take on the mortally wounded King Arthur taking a ship to Avalon. The wounds of the ring-bearers are too great to heal in Middle-earth, and Frodo, in particular, finds he cannot return to normal life after his journey with the ring, and all that has happened. The likely outcome – cobbling together information from The History of Middle-earth and Tolkien’s letters – is that the hobbits landed on the lonely isle, Tol Eressëa, Tolkien’s stand-in for Avalon, but did not go to Valinor.
There their wounds were healed as best they could be. Tolkien called it a ‘purgatory and… a reward…a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and greatness.’ It is unclear how long they were there before they died, but they did die – they remained mortal. There is, elsewhere, an implication that a mortals might actually age quicker in Aman, but much seems uncertain – perhaps that is true in Valinor but not on Tol Eressëa.21
So, humans and halflings can be given longer lifespans but cannot escape death even through relocating to the Undying lands. While the Númenorians’ long life is a gift from the Valar, given on account of their Elvish ancestry, even for Aragorn many, many generations later, what about a less positive way to extend life?
While the ring-bearers Frodo, Bilbo, and Sam were all affected by the Ring, only Bilbo’s life seemed to be obviously prolonged. Presumably Frodo’s life was also extended, but he leaves Middle-earth (and the story ends) before we can see this effect on him. Even with Bilbo we only have his own feelings to go by. The Old Took died at 130, clearly an extraordinary age for a Hobbit. Bilbo left Middle-earth a week after turning 131, surpassing the Old Took, but still within the limits of the possible.
The additional life granted Bilbo, assuming that is what happened, is clearly not a positive thing. He feels all stretched out, thin, like ‘butter scraped over too much bread.’ Frodo has similar feelings. There is a sense that the Ring prolongs life in an unnatural way, taking the timeframe a creature would normally live and increasing it by stretching it like one might stretch something that was elastic. No additional ‘life’ is added, but somehow the same amount of life is made to last longer.
This is seen most clearly in Sméagol/Gollum, whose long ownership of the Ring extends his life much longer than Bilbo’s. By the time of his death, he is over 550. The effect of the Ring extending his life continues long after he loses it, which is quite extraordinary. One wonders how long Gollum would have lived if the Ring was not destroyed (and not recaptured by Sauron). Is there an upper-limit on how long a creature with a normal lifespan of about 120 can be sustained? How thin can the butter get?
At the time of their destruction, the Ring Wraiths were well over four thousand years old. There situations are a little different as they had rings of power which were under the domination of the One Ring. It is clear they are something other than simply very old men. They experience the world differently, perceive it differently, and live in the wraith-world Frodo sees when he puts on the Ring on Weathertop. It appears that this is the eventual fate of Gollum or Frodo if they hold onto the Ring and enough time passes. It appears that at some point the butter gets so thin, one becomes a wraith.
It seems, similar to what we've seen with Ainur and Elves, that a human's fëa is a kind of energy that can be manipulated. However, humans don't seem able to do this on their own, but maybe it is possible for 'magical' forces to act on their fëa, nevertheless.
Most importantly, the Nazgûl were men deprived of the gift of Death. Sauron’s evil was in blocking the natural release from the world gifted to humans by Ilúvatar. Similarly, the Oathbreakers who remain, deathless, in the Paths of the Dead, were deprived of the gift of Death for breaking their promise to Isildur – again, waiting for thousands of years until Aragorn released them. It appears they are permitted to have Ilúvatar's Gift. The destruction of the One Ring results in the destruction of the Ring Wraiths, but it is not clear if that is a truth death. Since we do not know any human's fate following death, we cannot say for sure what happens to the Nine afterwards.
Again and again, these stories which feature extension to humans’ life cannot actually prevent death, only delay it. That can be done in a positive way, through ‘ennoblement’ by the mixing of the two Children of Ilúvatar, or a in a negative way through curses or the power of Sauron’s Ring. In the first case, acceptance of the gift of death is an essential part of the deal. In the second cases, there is as much evil in the denial of the gift of death as there is in the domination by evil.
Conclusion
In The Silmarillion, Tolkien writes, ‘The Children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore… the Elves die not till the world does… [of Men], Death is their fate, the gift of Ilúvatar, which as Time wears, even the Powers shall envy.’
And in a letter, he writes, “The Lord of the Rings is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality, and the ‘escapes’: serial longevity, and hoarding memory.”
As Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger notes, in her book A Question of Time, “Death depends on time and time upon death. Where there is no time, there can be no death. A race ‘doomed’ to die and a race ‘doomed’ to live might have something ‘permanent and difficult’ to teach each other about death and immortality and about time and timelessness. Elves and Men… live in the world at different speeds.” We see this in The Lord of Rings most obviously when the fellowship leaves Lothlórien and cannot square the phase of the moon with their perception of how much time they spent in Galadriel’s realm. Sam exclaims, ‘Anyone would think that time did not count in there!’ In Lothlórien – and one would imagine all of Aman as well – there is no death. Lothlórien is a place where ‘even the leaves do not decay…where, through the seasons cycle, time appears to stand nearly still’ (Flieger).
Legolas answers Sam, ‘For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they need not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream.’ The two Children of Iluvatar are simply not able to see the world in the same way. Their different relationships to death are also differences in their fundamental nature.
In another letter, Tolkien writes, ‘But the Elvish weakness was in these terms naturally to regret the past, and to become unwilling to face change: as if a man were to hate a very long book still going on, and wished to settle down in a favourite chapter.' Galadriel’s power is in preservation, ‘to arrest change, and keep things always fresh and fair.’ The flaw is in ‘hoarding’ which ‘inhibits the acceptance of the present’ (Flieger, again).
The whole of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, all of its history from its creation onward, is steeped with loss and decline and a past that haunts the landscape, particularly in The Lord of The Rings. The ruins on Weathertop, the emptied-out land of Eregion, the Dead Marshes, the fading glory of Minas Tirith, the ruin of Osgiliath, the quietness in Ithlien, the Gates of Argonath, the road to Dunharrow, Moria, the Old Forest, the Barrow-Downs – pretty much everywhere except The Shire and the two Elven refuges is in decline or simply deserted. And what of Rivendell and Lothlórien? There, the choice of staying and fading, or leaving and emptying the lands weigh on everyone. In a matter of years after Aragorn’s crowning, both are abandoned. As Legolas finishes his conversation with Sam: ‘Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.’
Behind the scenes of Tolkien’s surface plots, the theme of mortality plays a substantial role in furthering the story, creating conflict, particularly due to the differences in the fates of Elves and Humans, who (unfortunately) usually do not consider those differences useful for teaching ‘each other about death and immortality and about time and timelessness.’ Too often those differences only serve to sow distrust, envy, misunderstandings, or grief. Readers coming to The Lord of the Rings for the first, second, or even fifth time, may find Tolkien’s statement, that the book is “mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality, and the ‘escapes’: serial longevity, and hoarding memory,” hard to square with the heroic romance they fell in love with. And while we should keep in mind that Tolkien’s letters are not always reliably ‘neutral’ – their statements often varied depending on who he was writing to, and when – this seems to be a case where he was speaking true.
The theme of mortality is there, baked into the mythology from the beginning. Like other writers who have tackled the question ‘what if we were immortal?’. Tolkien shows us its downsides. We see it in the Ringwraiths and the Oathbreakers most obviously, but we see it most frequently in the Elves’ long decline. The Elves’ heroic acts of the First Age are not to be followed up with a second act. The later 'Last Alliance' is rightfully named, as the time of the Elves is ending. They may be Tolkien’s ideal – the best of what we humans could be – but they ultimately suffer a worse fate then we small, weak, and yet gifted mortals.
Footnotes:
1Not only is this an example of Aulë exercising free will, it is also example of an established ‘rule’ (that there are only two 'Children') being followed quickly by an exception [Back]
2 This was true of Melkor/Morgoth as well, until the Valar exiled him permanently from the world, thrusting him through the Door of Night into the void. This is yet another rule which has an exception. [Back]
3But some do not obey that summons, another example of free will, as well as setting up a rule with exceptions. Like some other ‘exceptions,’ this refusal was seen as a negative, perhaps due to some problem with the fëa, and/or symptomatic of ‘Arda marred’ due to the corruption done to it by Morgoth.
For clarity, note that 'Mandos' is technically the name of the ‘hall’ where fëar are housed, but the Vala associated with that place is usually called Mandos as well. His real name is Námo. [Back]
4Aman is the name for the entire continent where the Ainur lived, containing Valinor, Tol Eressëa, and other locations such as the Hall of Mandos and the Gardens of Lórien. [Back]
5Galadriel’s age is usually calculated as being equivalent to about 8,300 years at the time of the War of the Ring, and at that time she has clearly not yet faded. Although she is one of the oldest Elves in Middle-Earth at that time, it does appear Cirdan was older, perhaps around 11,000 at the end of the Third Age. In The Nature of Middle-Earth Tolkien suggests Elves would begin to fade at around 14,000 sun years. He is quite interested in the idea that a year to a human is similar to 144 years for an Elf (there's a lot of focus on multiples of 12), and at about the limit of human life (say, somewhere in their 90's), an Elf would fade (14,000 is about 96 X 144). [Back]
6There is much debate, which we do not have space for here, regarding the nature of Tom and Goldberry. However, if they are Maia, there’s nothing particularly interesting to say about them in regard to mortality (as they do not die within any story we are told). [Back]
7While there is no resolution in Tolkien’s writing to the question of ‘What happened to the Entwives?,’ the most likely explanation seems to be they were all in Beleriand when it was broken in the War of Wrath, and so all died. And we know some Ents were killed in battle with Sauron, so they can certainly be killed. In all the mentions of the Entwives or those Ents who died at Isengard, however, there is no hint of what their fate after death might be. [Back]
8Both Morgoth and Sauron end up in fixed states/appearances because they divested themselves of so much of their power, putting it into other things or beings. [Back]
9In early forms of the legendarium, Tolkien did allow Vala to have Maia offspring, although it appeared to be quite limited, with a few Maiar, which were later simply associated with particular Valar, being their children. Ultimately Tolkien rejected this idea. [Back]
10Except – yes, another exception! – for Glorfindel. [Back]
11It is not clear if Shelob is the literal child of Ungoliant – in which case, she is terribly ancient – or if Tolkien may be using that term more figuratively, to simply indicate Shelob is a descendent of Ungoliant. [Back]
12But Sauron had his (intact) ring, into which he put a great part of his power and being, to help save him. Saruman did make a ring (even calling himself "Saruman the Ring-maker," as Gandalf relates during The Council of Elrond), but we are led to believe his attempt to imbibe the ring with actual power was not successful. [Back]
13These would be 10 years of the Trees, as the sun did not exist yet, which would be equal to about 96 sun years (meaning, the conventional years we live in). [Back]
14That an Elf woman puts some of her energy or fëa into her offspring during gestation is part of Tolkien’s ‘later speculative writings.' It also is strikingly similar to the way some Ainur impart things or beings with some of their fëa, particularly Morgoth and Sauron. Like Míriel, the loss of this energy has a real impact. [Back]
15Fëanor’s total of 7 children is apparently a record, however. [Back]
16Technically, Elrond is not Half-elven and half-human, and both he and Arwen also have Maia in them as well. Arwen was about 3% Maia, 12.5% human, and the rest Elf, as best as I can figure. [Back]
17Elwing is therefore 62.5% Elf, 12.5% Maia, 25% human. [Back]
18For a long time in Tolkien’s writing, Elrond is an only child, and the creation of Elros seems primarily to allow Tolkien to explore both outcomes. [Back]
19Actually, they were 25% human, 6.25% Maia, and the rest, 68.75%, Elven. [Back]
20This gift of long life might possibly be a restoration. In Tolkien's late writing, he strongly suggests that humans' life-spans were reduced to about a third of what they originally were due to transgressions from extremely early in their history - akin to 'original sin' - likely involving worship of Morgoth as a god. The particulars are lost in time, but this would allow for humans to be mortal but fallen.[Back]
20Gimli’s fate, on going to Aman with Legolas, was certainly the same as the Hobbits’. [Back]