The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - Those of Mortal Descent in the Undying Lands

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Those of Mortal Descent in the Undying Lands

I noticed many on this board think that those mortals who are allowed to go to Valinor die at the end of their usual life spans. I think that they become immortal. I am "reading" the Letters of JRR Tolkien (I put reading in quotes because it is rather difficult to read it in the usual sense).
In one of the letters Professor Tolkien clearly states that Tuor was given elf immortality just as Luthian was given human mortality.
Second is what Professor Tolkien says about Valinor in one of the letters: " But in this story it is supposed that there may be certain rare exception or accommodations (legitimately supposed? there always seems to be exceptions); and so certain 'mortals', who have played some great part in Elvish affairs, may pass with the Elves to Elvenhome. Thus Frodo (by the express gift of Arwen) and Bilbo, and eventually Sam (as adumbrated by Frodo); and as a unique exception Gimli the Dwarf, as friend of Legolas and 'servant' of Galadriel." All the inside quotes are the professor's.

Another point (though I admit a shaky one) is why would Bilbo and Sam sail to the Undying lands late in life if they were going to die soon anyway. Particularly Bilbo for I do not see a reason why he could have not died in Rivendell, I am sure the remaining Elves there would have given him a very nice funeral.

A final point is in the appendice the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. At the end of his life Aragorn told Arwen to leave for the Undying Lands now that would soon be dead. It would be safe to assume this is because he wanted her to take back her immortality.

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Another point (though I admit a shaky one) is why would Bilbo and Sam sail to the Undying lands late in life if they were going to die soon anyway. Particularly Bilbo for I do not see a reason why he could have not died in Rivendell, I am sure the remaining Elves there would have given him a very nice funeral.

I just wanted to put in, why wouldn't you want to go to the undying lands? I mean, if it were me, and my life was about to end, I would want to go. Who gets the chance to see the land of Valinor? It's supposed to be the most beautiful land in existence at that time. Bilbo, if any, I think would desire to go just for the experience...even if would be just for a short time.

But I see your point, Dûrbelethwen. I've wondered myself whether Frodo, Sam, and Bilbo lived on after they were taken to Valinor. Seeing I didn't have a copy of Tolkien's Letters in my possession, I just made my own assumptions about the topic until I could gain knowledge of it. I just figured that the Hobbits stopped aging altogether. I guess you could call it immortality. Thanks for the sources though.

I have neither proof nor evidence to support this theory, but my personal opinion is a happy medium: mortals in the Undying Lands will still die, but not until much later than would be normal. Their lives would just be "extended," if you will.

This opinion could, of course, change as I move along through HoME and eventually get to Letters.

Some good ideas Dûrbelethwen, but I disagree with your theory. Let me say why:

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As well as the reasons given by Rinfanawen, Bilbo and Sam had suffered a lot- they both bore the Ring, albeit Sam only bore it for a very short time. They felt it's effects (Bilbo became very attached to the Ring and Sam saw himself as the 'conquering gardener' in the world) and were thus permitted to travel to Tol Eressea. The Undying Lands were a 'paradise' away from Middle-Earth and a resting place for both immortals and mortals like Frodo, Sam, Bilbo and Gimli.

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Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to heal him if that could be done, before he died. He would have eventually to 'pass away': no mortal could, or can, abide for ever on earth, or within Time. So he went both to a purgatory and to a reward, for a while: a period of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his position in littleness and in greatness, spent still in Time amid the natural beauty of 'Arda Unmarred', the Earth unspoiled by evil.- The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 246

Dûrbelethwen, you said-

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In one of the letters Professor Tolkien clearly states that Tuor was given elf immortality just as Luthian was given human mortality.

Tuor was given elven immortality because of his love of the Noldor and his services to Ulmo. However, this does not necessarily mean that the Hobbits and Gimli will be given immortality just because they inhabit the Undying Lands. In the Akallabeth, somewhere I recall that the messengers of Manwe said that even if the Numenoreans lived in Valinor, they would die the quicker like 'moths exposed to a light too bright' or something along those lines. In short, Tuor was a special case and Tolkien himself said that Frodo, Sam, Gimli and Bilbo would die-

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I have said nothing about it in this book, but the mythical idea underlying is that for mortals, since their 'kind' cannot be changed for ever, this is strictly only a temporary reward: a healing and redress of suffering. They cannot abide for ever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will 'die' of free will, and leave the world.- The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 154

This quote above is the next part of the letter which you used as an example and I believe, proves my point about Tuor being a special case.

Also-

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As for Frodo or other mortals, they could only dwell in Aman for a limited time - whether brief or long. The Valar had neither the power nor the right to confer 'immortality' upon them. Their sojourn was a 'purgatory', but one of peace and healing and they would eventually pass away (die at their own desire and of free will) to destinations of which the Elves knew nothing.- The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 325

That seems pretty conclusive to me. Thanks to Legolas' FAQ Article, which provided me with the quotes from Tolkien's letters, so that I didn't have to look them up myself ;).

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A final point is in the appendice the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. At the end of his life Aragorn told Arwen to leave for the Undying Lands now that would soon be dead. It would be safe to assume this is because he wanted her to take back her immortality.

Arwen was also another 'special case'. She and her brothers had the choice of mortality or immortality because of their descent through Elrond's side. She chose mortality on Cerin Amroth, but after Aragorn died she had the chance to repent as you said, and take back her immortality. However, if she went Valinor, she wouldn't be able to come back and be mortal- she couldn't chop and change. As she said, her 'choice was made long ago' and the gift of going to the Undying Lands she gave to Frodo. So, Arwen had a choice- she was a special case. She chose mortality and died.

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This is because Aragorn did not fully understand the situation - Arwen was a half-elf, and was given the right to choose her fate. When she chose to be mortal when her father left for Aman, she was making a permanent choice. There was no turning back for her.

As Fingolfin II has said, I've shown Tolkien's explanations of what happens to Frodo, Sam, Bilbo, and Gimli - they all die eventually. Aman is place for Frodo, Sam, and Bilbo to find peace in their life without the Ring, and finally rest. The quotes you've read about exceptions - Tuor and Luthien - are correct, but, as stated in some of those quotes, these are the only cases where the fundamental race/fate of a person is changed.

You can read that article here with the quotes from letters 154, 246, and 325.

It would seem to me a rather cruel fate to leave Frodo, Sam and Bilbo alive forever in Valinor since that would deny them their final reward of dying and passing on to the next stage of existence. Continued life, unending existence, is a curse: the Nazgul being the best example of this, and to a lesser extent Gollum. But even the Elves bear this out -- it's their 'immortal' tie to the physical world that dooms them to things like Feanor's oath and the 'long defeat'. Beings who have life eternal (in this world) are doomed to share this world's fate.

I would hope for much more than that as a final reward for the Ring-bearers!

(I am, however, convinced that Frodo was still alive when Sam arrived in the West, and they were reunited once more in this life, for a time.)

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Originally Posted by Legolas

I agree that Arwen was making a permament choice when she chose mortality. She could not simply sail to Valinor following Aragorn's death and reclaim her immortality.

Bur, assuming that there was a boat to take her and with the grace of the Valar, it would, I suppose, have been possible for her to sail to Valinor to see her father and mother one last time before she died the mortal death that she had chosen.

I lost my original reply to this, the gist of which was that I thought that, particularly in the case of Bilbo and Frodo, the passing into the west was in order to enable them to make a "good death" and was a reflection of Tolkien's Catholicism. Bilbo's life has been unnaturally stretched by the ring whereas Frodo's has effectively been shortened. They are granted a spell in Aman to find peace and reconcile themselves mentally with their unusual lives. Frodo and Bilbo both go through stages of dying that patients with a terminal prognosis go through prematurely. If you look at this list you can see several paralels:

http://www.focusonals.com/developmen...nd_of_life.htm

IE They tidy up their legal affairs, pass on their story in the form of the red book, withdraw from their circle of friends (Bilbo, initially by going to RIvendell) and have reached a level of acceptance. In a sense for them, the West is a hospice. Bilbo's I think would be short, but Frodo I think might hold on for Sam ....

I think I would like to point something out.

This adds to the first post, in that I also agree that in some form or another, the mortals who were accepted into Valinor gained immortality.

In every case in the Lord of the Rings of mortals given entrance to the Blessed Realm, that privilege was given to them by an immortal.

This is very easily recognizeable in Frodo's case.

Arwen literally gave him her immortality.

This was represented in the form of a symbol - the jewel that she gave him. She foresook her immortality, to remain in Middle Earth, and that left a slot open on the last cruise ship to Valinor, so to speak.

Now ... that was the case for Frodo. But it could be that this afforded all the Ringbearers with this chance to go.

I've heard somewhere (and this is very vague, and probably unsubstantiated) that Bilbo was able to go, because Thranduil foresook going into the west, and remained in Middle Earth, where his great store of wealth, rivaling those of the great elven lords in Middle Earth, in the elder days, was, content to stay.

He really thought Bilbo was an amazing fellow, and was the one who named him Elf Friend if I'm not wrong ... after Bilbo took such a huge step in solving the dilemma between Thorin and the people of the Desolation of Smaug, and smuggled the Arkenstone to them.

I have NO clue where I heard that. Maybe my old English teacher mentioned it.

But, that doesn't explain Sam, or Gimli. Although Tolkien made a point of saying that Gimli was a very special circumstance, and that no one had ever seen a friendship of the sort that he and Legolas had. (In a strictly platonic way, by the way).

Immortality cannot be "given" to someone else. Not even Manwe, King of Arda, can give or take immortality; only Eru himself has the ability to change the fundamental kind (and he only did so twice - Luthien and Tuor). Thus, Frodo and company were to die in Aman:

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I've heard somewhere (and this is very vague, and probably unsubstantiated) that Bilbo was able to go, because Thranduil foresook going into the west,

Tolkien never said anything like this.

Unfortunately I lost most of my Tolkien books in a rather unfortunate incident, but I seem to remember reading that in Valinor, a mortal being will die when they're ready to. Their normal life may be extended, or it may not, depending on whether they're ready to move on or no.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

I only post this just to have JRRT words in this interesting scenario:
From Morgoth's Ring: Myths Transformed

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Aman and Mortal Men
If it is thus in Aman, or was ere the Change of the World, and therein the Eldar had health and lasting joy, what shall we say of Men? No Man has ever set foot in Aman, or at least none has ever returned thence; for the Valar forbade it. Why so? To the Númenóreans they said that they did so because Eru had forbidden them to admit Men to the Blessed Realm; and they declared also that Men would not there be blessed (as they imagined) but accursed, and would 'wither even as a moth in a flame too bright'.
Beyond these words we can but go in guess. Yet we may consider the matter so. The Valar were not only by Eru forbidden the attempt, they could not alter the nature, or 'doom' of Eru, of any of the Children, in which was included the speed of their growth (relative to the whole life of Arda) and the length of their life-span. Even the Eldar in that respect remained unchanged.

Let us suppose then that the Valar had also admitted to Aman some of the Atani, and (so that we may consider a whole life of a Man in such a state) that 'mortal' children were there born, as were children of the Eldar. Then, even though in Aman, a mortal child would still grow to maturity in some twenty years of the Sun, and the natural span of its life, the period of the cohesion of hröa and fëa, would be no more than, say, 100 years. Not much more, even though his body would suffer no sickness or disorder in Aman, where no such evils existed. (unless Men brought these evils with them - as why should they not? Even the Eldar brought to the Blessed Realm some taint of the Shadow upon Arda in which they came into being.)
But in Aman such a creature would be a fleeting thing, the most swift-passing of all beasts. For his whole life would last little more than one half-year, and while all other living creatures would seem to him hardly to change, but to remain steadfast in life and joy with hope of endless years undimmed, he would rise and pass — even as upon Earth the grass may rise in spring and wither ere the winter. Then he would become filled with envy, deeming himself a victim of injustice, being denied the graces given to all other things. He would not value what he had, but feeling that he was among the least and most despised of all creatures, he would grow soon to contemn his manhood, and hate those more richly endowed. He would not escape the fear and sorrow of his swift mortality that is his lot upon Earth, in Arda Marred, but would be burdened by it unbearably to the loss of all delight.
But if any should ask: why could not in Aman the blessing of longevity be granted to him, as it was to the Eldar? This must be answered. Because this would bring joy to the Eldar, their nature being different from that of Men. The nature of an Elvish fëa was to endure the world to the end, and an Elvish ihroa was also longeval by nature; so that an Elvish fëa finding that its hroa endured with it, supporting its indwelling and remaining unwearied in bodily delight, would have increased and more lasting joy [sic]. Some indeed of the Eldar doubt that any special grace or blessing was accorded to them, other than admittance to Aman. For they hold that the failure of their hröar to endure in vitality unwearied as long as their fear - a process which was not observed until the later ages - is due to the Marring of Arda, and comes of the Shadow, and of the taint of Melkor that touches all the matter (or hröa) of Arda, if not indeed of all Ëa.
So that all that happened in Aman was that this weakness of the Elvish hröar did not develop in the health of Aman and the Light of the Trees.
But let us suppose that the 'blessing of Aman' was also accorded to Men. What then? Would a great good be done to them? Their bodies would still come swiftly to full growth. In the seventh part of a year a Man could be born and become full-grown, as swiftly as in Aman a bird would hatch and fly from the nest. But then it would not wither or age but would endure in vigour and in the delight of bodily living. But what of that Man's fëa? Its nature and 'doom' could not be changed, neither by the health of Aman nor by the will of Manwë himself. Yet it is (as the Eldar hold) its nature and doom under the will of Eru that it should not endure Arda for long, but should depart and go elsewhither, returning maybe direct to Eru for another fate or purpose that is beyond the knowledge or guess of the Eldar.
Very soon then the fëa and hröa of a Man in Aman would not be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain of both. The hröa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee from the hunter or turn savagely upon him. But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hröa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its thought that it received through the hröa and its senses became meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda. And he would not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence. But if he remained in Aman, what should he come to, ere Arda were at last fulfilled and he found release? Either his fëa would be wholly dominated by the hröa, and he would become more like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fëa were strong, it would leave the hröa, Then one of two things would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate, by violence, and the hroa, in full life, would be rent and die in sudden agony; or else the fëa would in loathing and without pity desert the hroa, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy.
Now these things are but matters of thought, and might-have-beens; for Eru and the Valar under Him have not permitted Men as they are to dwell in Aman. Yet at least it may be seen that Men in Aman would not escape the dread of death, but would have it in greater degree and for long ages. And moreover, it seems probable that death itself, either in agony or horror, would with Men enter into Aman itself.

Like I said, the consequences had already been mentioned in the thread before, but this is way more specific.

Nobody knows for certain what really happened to him:

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...and with Idril Celebrindal he set sail into the sunset and the West, and came no more into any tale or song. But in after days it was sung that Tuor alone of mortal Men was numbered among the elder race, and was joined with the Noldor, whom he loved; and his fate is sundered from the fate of Men.

As Tolkien wrote in letter #153:

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Tuor weds Idril the daughter of Turgon King of Gondolin; and "it is supposed" (not stated) that he as a unique exception receives the Elvish limited"immortality": an exception either way.

So once more, Tolkien left it deliberately open so we have something to ponder over... ;)

btw, I always wondered what happened to poor Amandil (Elendil's father) ? I suppose he never reached Valinor ? :rolleyes: I feel sorry for him, for he had only the best intentions.