Heaven and the ocean

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Firefoot

I
Thinking a little inductively about the quote as well - what is it about the ocean that makes heaven seem nearer? Is it the ocean specifically, maybe the way the sky touches the horizon? Or is it more a reaction to a specific instance of physical beauty? Because certainly the Legendarium is full of awed or joyful reactions to beauty in creation ("I want to see mountains again, Gandalf" and Frodo delighting in the living wood of Lothlorien are two examples that spring immediately to mind).

There's a mention of the extra pull, as it were, that water has because of Ulmo. Believe it's in the Sil.

Originally Posted by Bethberry

"The Last Ship" suggests the song and attraction of the sea has long faded. And "The Sea Bell" is a very complex poem with a unique vision of the sea.

I
Bethberry pondering this some more, I lean more towards that the mortals are feeling unworthy of the world offered...and also its mystery being intimidating. I think Frodo' s dream is more about Frodo being too broken and lost to find his place in reality and society. But it is a society this side of the ocean that he is lost in; he does not yet know how to cross. It's as if darkness and despair still hold him captive.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I think Frodo' s dream is more about Frodo being too broken and lost to find his place in reality and society. But it is a society this side of the ocean that he is lost in; he does not yet know how to cross. It's as if darkness and despair still hold him captive.

Frodo's dream is all the more singular in that Hobbits generally did not have a favorable view of the Sea.

Few Hobbits had ever seen or sailed upon the Sea, and fewer still had ever returned to report it.....the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death, and they turned their faces away from the hills in the west.

FOTR Prologue

For the Sea to have been a "token of death", some tradition of where the Elves actually went when they sailed from the Grey Havens apparently existed in the Hobbit psyche.

If that view was in Frodo's mind as well, perhaps his dream was indeed a forewarning that the end of the Ring would not leave him in peace; he would be forever "dead" to Middle-earth without it.

[Thinlómien]

The thread title could totally be the title of a Florence + the Machine song. I feel obliged to participate.

I'm actually pretty intrigued about the sea/ocean thematics in Tolkien's work. The sea - maybe because of the land beyond it - seems to represent all the "bigger than life" feelings. The Elves' longing, and Frodo's, as well as Faramir's fear of the world ending. Come to think of it, it's a huge element in all Tolkien's stories. It is also a threshold between the mundane world and the mythical west. So as it is a kind of boundary between worlds, you could say that "heaven" (aka the West) is closer when you're by the sea. Maybe even mere mortals can feel it in a way.

The Elves seem to feel this the most keenly with their longing for the Sea. (Interesting question though: are they happy by the sea? Is the longing Legolas feels on the Gondorian shores more painful or rewarding? Is it pain or pleasure?)

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

The Elves seem to feel this the most keenly with their longing for the Sea. (Interesting question though: are they happy by the sea? Is the longing Legolas feels on the Gondorian shores more painful or rewarding? Is it pain or pleasure?)

Generally, it seems to have been only the Elves as a race who felt a special longing for the Sea.

The Dwarves pretty much shunned it, Orcs feared it, Men either ignored (Bree-men and Rohirrim, fex) it, or used it (the Dúnedain), and Hobbits saw it as a token of death.

For the Elves, it served as a call to them, to draw them to what was really their proper place in the Undying Lands. I don't think that the call of the Sea was necessarily painful or pleasurable; but something that just stayed in their thoughts perpetually once it had got hold.
Dwelling near it and for whatever reason not answering the 'summons', I think would have eased their minds somewhat, in a way that Legolas, say, wouldn't have had the benefit of after hearing the gulls then going back to Mirkwood for another thousand years or so.