[A Little Green]

Thank you, guys, for a very interesting read!

There is one point I would like to add. On the subject of redemption by death, and how the "sinners" must die after they are redeemed - maybe it is, as suggested, for narrational reasons. Or maybe death was what enabled them to repent in the first place? Thórin works as an example - he thinks better of his ways only on his deathbed, and maybe this isn't because he needs to die after he repents but the other way round: he repents because he knows he is dying. I would argue that the prospect of his own imminent death was a part of what led him to reflect upon his past deeds and see where he went wrong. The world is full of these stories - elderly people in end-of-life care, realizing that they spent too much time earning money and too little playing with their kids.

This is not entirely viable in Boromir's case since he repented already before he knew he was dying; still, it was not until he was dying that he fully confessed what he had done and said he was sorry. When he returned to the rest of the Fellowship after his encounter with Frodo, he did not tell them what he had tried to do. It was only when he was dying that he let go of his pride (for that is what I suppose it was) and confessed. The same is essentially true with Thórin as well - letting go of his pride only at the very end, because maybe, for these proud heroes, it takes the approach of death to realize and to admit that they got it wrong after all.