There Could Have Been a Different Ending to the LOTR. Would it Have Been Better?

Recently I came across an interesting video about the unpublished, original ending to the Lord of the Rings. This would have been in the form of an epilogue. Take a look at the video for yourself. As the author of the video notes, Tolkien seems to have favored this ending but he reports in some of his writings that he did not ultimately include it because of an overwhelmingly negative response from those to whom he showed it. Why might this be? I admit to not yet having been able to read the epilogue in its entirety myself, but going off of what is remarked upon in this video (which seems well done), it would appear to me that a fundamental problem with the epilogue is that it is in some ways dissonant with some of the themes of the Lord of the Rings and even sends conflicting messages within itself.

One of the novel's most significant themes concerns the view of nature and simplicity as the ideal or most "human" way of living. The Shire is representative of that simplicity in its purest, most preserved form, and the hobbits themselves serve, in part, to represent the idea of man at his most natural, even unfallen state (of course, Aragorn also plays into this, but suffice it to say that the theming and symbolism in Tolkien's writing is polyvalent). This is why, though some may find the Scouring of the Shire a bit vestigial or superfluous - and understandably, given that they follow the climax of the story - still others consider it so essential that they regard the films' exclusion as being a serious, fundamental mark against them. The Scouring was important to Tolkien because it serves to juxtapose the theme of nature/simplicity with its parallel themes concerning technology and society. In the Scouring the simplicity of the utopian Shire is lost as all the evils of the rest of the world have invaded it. We can see these ideas found in the epilogue in various ways, including in Aragorn's having forbidden men to enter the Shire. The Shire is, in Tolkien's Middle Earth, a paradise and the ideal world. Even the restored kingdom of men is comparatively tainted, and so they are excluded almost as fallen man is excluded from the Garden of Eden. In returning home, Sam has undertaken a journey from that ideal Shire out into the wider world. He has experienced adventure. He has seen incredible sights that no Hobbit could ever imagine, and he has even gotten to see the Elves and their world, something that he had always longed to do. Yet Tolkien's overall message is that in the Shire the Hobbits always had the perfect life - the life untainted by evil, by the cares of the wider world, by technology, etc. What Sam had longed to see and experience was all in a sense illusory - for he already had it in the Shire.

Though I am a big fan of Jackson's films, the ending is one thing that I think they actually get sort of wrong - and oh how ironic it is given how much time is given to the multiple endings of the Return of the King. The problem is that when we finally see Sam come back to Rosie and Elanor, the idea Tolkien wanted us to have was that he truly was home in the fullest sense, having everything he could ever want or need or even yearn for. Yet whenever I watch the film (which is at least once a year, and usually more frequently) I can't help but feel a bit deflated when Sam comes home and greets his family and heads into his home. The films do such a good job of creating an amazing world and showing the incredible sights and adventure and love and kinship among the fellowship that it's hard not to see Sam as returning to a life that is comparatively empty compared to all he has lost. - and of course, that's not at all what Tolkien intended. It's the complete opposite, in fact! This, then, is I think, the problem with that epilogue: it ultimately has Sam looking beyond the Shire and back into the greater world. In one sense, certainly, there is a profound indication that all that he needs is there at home in the Shire, as we read that Elanor fulfills all of his longing for the elves. Yet on the other hand, we're told that she is Elven in many of her characteristics - so there is perhaps a subtle message, even if unintended, that The Shire itself has NOT fulfilled Sam in itself, but rather what has seen his longing fulfilled is that something of the outside world has come to the Shire in Elanor. Perhaps there was a deeper meaning here in Tolkien's mind so that it is not so much that Elanor is truly Elven - how could she be, after all, as a Hobbit? - but that Sam perceiving her in that way points to his having found true fulfillment there, at home, in the Shire. That seems a subtle point to try to get across in Tolkien's particular style of writing, if he did intend it this way.

Then, of course, the epilogue ends finally with Sam hearing the sea almost as if it calls to him. This may be even more harmful to the overall ending, because remember that Tolkien crafted much of the rest of the epilogue, and the ending of the book, and even as far back as the Scouring of the Shire to reveal how the Hobbits in general but especially Sam - who had for most of his life longed to see those things beyond the Shire - have gone to the world, seen all one could ever hope to see and more, and found their true fulfillment in the Shire. If we read that even as he takes his family into his happy home and closes the door Sam is thinking, not of what he has, but of what he once had and what he might have again by leaving the Shire, then a major part of the message that Tolkien shaped his entire story around is lost or at least severely compromised.