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Old 07-20-2006, 08:12 AM   #9
radagastly
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Washington, D. C., USA
Posts: 299
radagastly is a guest of Tom Bombadil.
Quote:
so basically they were to evil to be given a final rest and their spirits must wander the earth for eternity.
I don't agree. They were, after all, men. No one in Arda, not even the Valar, can withhold the Gift of Iluvatar. They would go to Mandos, and then beyond to the unknown. They might resist the call, as they'd been doing for thousands of years, but with the power of the rings gone, would their spirits have the strength to remain? They had little will of their own for most of their time in Arda, slaves to their rings and, through the One Ring, slaves to Sauron. That power was now gone. If they were Ainur like Sauron and Saruman tied to the world as long as it endured, they might be able to remain in Middle Earth rather than journey across the sea to Valinor, but their essence was simply human, and weary beyond measure. Bilbo was weary after holding the One Ring for sixty-one years, thin and stretched like butter scraped over too much bread. (I love that line, by the way.) Imagine how you would feel with a less powerful ring to sustain you, and yet endure for thousands of years, rather than only sixty-one?
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But all the while I sit and think of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.
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