I'm gonna bring in another aspect of this growth/decline that could be a possibility as well...economics. The Economic struggles is something that Tolkien had to live through, so I wonder if there's any effect we get in LOTR?
It's the basic concept of the Business Cycle. It's always going to happen, there's no stopping it. There's going to be a rise, then when you reach the top, it's kind of bad, because that's the pinnacle, you can't get any higher, so you slip back down. There's no stopping the downfall either. There's ways to sort of stabilize how bad it gets, or how long we will be "in the hole," but you can't stop from that fall, because you can't stay on top forever. With the World Wide depressions early in the 1900's most countries had hit rock bottom, and the good news about being at rock bottom is, you can only go up. So, it sort of works both ways.
That sort of seems as what you are trying to say Eomer, if I missed the point, then my mistake. The fact that all these people weill have a rise, and reach this pinnacle, then they go into decline.
__________________
Fenris Penguin
|