Do you think the Fourth Age really was worse?

[metropolis_part_one]

When the One Ring was destroyed the Three lost their power too, undoing a lot of the work the Elves had done in ME (like Lothlorien). Also the Elves finally left for good. It seems to me that the Fourth Age was supposed to contain less 'enchantment' and magic. I think this was partly meant to show the price that was payed for undoing Sauron - the world was forever changed. But do you think this makes the Fourth Age 'worse'? The magic of the Elves in the Third Age had grown stagnant and as it says in the Silmarillion, they attempted nothing new but clung on to old ways. They just tried to 'preserve' the world, unchanging, as in Lothlorien. It just seems to me that Middle Earth had 'outgrown' the Elves, and that they were no longer needed in it. So was it for the best that they left and their magic faded, or was this an occasion for lament as seems to be supposed?

[Gil-Galad]

WEll, i nthe third age, there are lesser and lesser elves, since most of them are heading over to Valinor, and the elves forsake middle earth becasue of all teh wars, as galadriel said in the movie "it is now for the dominion of men".. so i guess the elves just keep leaving and cease out of existence, in the fourth age, Thranduil's caverns becomes the biggest elven realm

[Finwe]

As much as I hate to say it, it was for the best. Each race had its own time and its own niche to fill. Each had its own duty to do. The Elves had done their duty, so they weren't needed any more. The Fourth Age began the Dominion of Men, where Men would be called upon to do their duty. The presence of other races would just have complicated things.

[Ainaserkewen]

If you want to read about the only existing writings by Tolkien on the fourth age, check out The peoples of Middle-Earth, from the History of Middle-Earth collection organised by Christopher Tolkien. Part of the special addition was "The New Shadow" in which a story unfolds about two Gondorians one hundred years after the war of the ring ended. They discuss the changes about the world, and how the younger one was part of a group of teenaged "orcs" causing trouble and now in a cult of secret dark worshipers. Aragorn has just recently died, by the way.

[Numenorean]

Here is a link to the Fourth Ages New Shadow which has got to be one of the most interesting yet forboding things I've ever read by Tolkien.
Apparently he stopped writing the sequel as, amongst other things, he thought it would be nothing more than a 'thriller'. I (and his son Christopher) do not agree with the Professor on this occaision ( [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) and think that he was drastically underating his own storytelling genius.
Due to the onset of the Dominion of Men, Tolkien clearly did think that the Fourth Age was going to be 'worse' as he says here:

"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Sauron, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good."

If you read the New Shadow, short though it is, there is an abundance of deep, dark and profound observations on the nature of Mankind which seem (almost deliberately) to be as valid in our World as in Middle Earths Fourth Age.

[Ainaserkewen]

which has got to be one of the most interesting yet forboding things I've ever read by Tolkien.

Indeed Numenorean, it chilled me almost. When an epic story such as LOTR comes to a close, you don't want to read(or write) anything after because at the brink of being better, it can only be worse. You really are given the secure idea that the evil of Melkor(Morgoth) has finally been washed away, but then you discovered that it had poisoned so many hearts that you'd never noticed before. It's a painfully realistic unfinished sequel, yet one of the most facinating things I ever read. Middle-Earth's history finally coming to a close, and the beginning of our depressing modern world begins.

[Carrûn]

Tolkien, at least in later life I feel, had a very pessimistic view of the nature of Man. The New Shadow seems to tie right in to the theme that some wounds never fully heal.

[SamwiseGamgee]

I've always viewed LoTR as a tragedy. At the end, despite all the joy and happiness I have gained from the text, I am left thinking 'but it'll never be the same'. I know the elves' time had passed, but for me ME is elves and dwarves and hobbits and men and orcs, and without one of those races it just wouldn't be the same, at least to write a prolonged story rather than relatively short chapters or essays (lost tales & sil). I'm afraid I would have to agree that man has an awful tendency for self destruction, and I wouldn't think the fourth age as good as the third. Or second or first, for that matter!

[Angry Brandybuck]

I've read the New Shadow as well and I agree with all of your views. However, I also think that it is right that Tolkein did not complete this story.

At the end of the day, a story in which the chief source of evil is a cult, however mysterious it is, run by Men, is just not Epic enough to be anything more than a thriller.

It would either end up being a tale of how this cult was overthrown and stopped by a small band of brave, and probably mismatched, men. Or it would have to be a long, drawn out account of the slow, steady corruption of man and the society created by him.

Neither of these stories really 'suit' Tolkein.

PS What are peoples opinons about what the old man sees when he goes into his house at the end of The New Shadow? I can't find the quote but I will.

[Ainaserkewen]

Was "The new Shadow" a glimpse at present day people? I get the impression from all the books that Tolkien wrote that Men were the babies of the story. Sure they did evil things and made mistakes, but it wasn't their fault. Young and impressionable. Perhaps in the time of the elves, Men could be viewed as children but when the elves leave, men have "grown up" and taken the wrong road. I get the feeling that Men were "innocent" until the elves left, then all went to hell.

To whoever said they thought the story of the war of the ring was a tragity, you're right. I just learned this in English [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]. A tragity, by definition, is a story that starts out okay, gets worse and worse until the climax of worseness, then gets a little better, but not up to the level that it started at. I think this describes LOTR pretty well.

As for your querie, Angry Brandybuck, it's a mystery to all who read this story. We have no idea where the mind of Tolkien was going with this new chapter. My guess is that it was an evil cult and the old man probably didn't want to be part of it. That's my best idea anyway.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:26 PM January 21, 2004: Message edited by: Ainaserkewen ]

[Angry Brandybuck]

A tragedy, however, tends to follow more specific lines than just 'getting worse'. These lines were set out by one of the Greek Philosophers (maybe Aristotle):
It must feature a tragic hero, who has one Hamartia (I think I'm getting the Greek right), a fatal flaw in his character, be it pride or whatever.

It is this fatal flaw that leads to the Hero's downfall.

At the end, usually after most of the other characters have died, the Hero has an awakening, and he realises that it was his own flaw that has caused all of this to happen.

However, I think you're right that LoTR is tragic, but it is not a tragedy.

Some post-modern tragedys have not followed this form because, well you know post-modernists! I do not think, though, that we can call Tolkein a post-modernist.

[SamwiseGamgee]

But what you just laid out in guidelines for a tragedy seems to concur pretty closely to Frodo, don't you think?

[Gorwingel]

I agree, it is a rather tragic story. At the end of it I actually became rather angry, and very sad. But I think the anger and the sadness was because I had grown so connected to the charaters and I really didn't want to say goodbye.

Now going back to the main topic of this thread. I really have to say that we can't really determine if the Fourth Age was really worse because we don't know much about it (Tolkien did write part of The New Shadow, but since he didn't finish it. We really don't know if he actually wanted it to be part of the complete history of ME). I personally don't think that the next ages would really be worse, I just think that they would be different. Like when you talk about the leaving of the elves... Probably most "normal" people in Middle Earth had never seen an elf because there just wasn't that many left. The elves were probably already "history" for many of them. So them leaving ME to go to Valinor probably wouldn't make much difference for them in their daily lives.