Did the Hobbits go to Valinor to die?

Khôr’nagan said:

I demand to know why there can be parallel universes and not perpendicular universes.

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But Lotho, don't go bursting people's bubbles, now... Some might think Middle-Earth is real. Would you really want to destroy their fantasy?

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Thanks for the quotes from Tolkien's letters. If these can't convince them that they weren't going to die (immediately, as they believe), nothing can.

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Beorn said:

Tolkien: (referring to the ME Heros who went to Valinor) ... the mythical idea underlying is that for mortals, since their 'kind' cannot be changed for ever, this is strictly only a temporary reward: a healing and redress of suffering. They cannot abide for ever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will 'die' – of free will, and leave the world.

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The passing 'oversea' to Eressëa (an isle within sight of Aman) was permitted to, and indeed urged upon, all Elves remaining in Middle-earth after the downfall of Morgoth in Angband. This really marked the beginning of the Dominion of Men, though there was (in our view) a long twilight period between the downfall of Morgoth and the final overthrow of Sauron: lasting, that is, through the Second and Third Ages. But at the end of the Second Age came the great Catastrophe (by an intervention of Eru that foreshadowed, as it were, the End of Arda): the annihilation of Númenor, and the 'removal' of Aman from the physical world. The passing 'oversea', therefore, of Mortals after the Catastrophe - which is recorded in The Lord of the Rings - is not quite the same thing. It was in any case a special grace. An opportunity for dying according to the original plan for the unfallen: they went to a state in which they could acquire greater knowledge and peace of mind, and being healed of all hurts both of mind and body, could at last surrender themselves: die of free will, and even of desire, in estel. A thing which Aragorn achieved without any such aid

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`Middle-earth', by the way, is not a name of a never-never land without relation to the world we live in (like the Mercury of Edison). It is just a use of Middle English middel-erde (or erthe), altered from Old English Middangeard : the name for the inhabbited lands of Men `between the seas'. And though I have not attempted to relate the shape of the mountains and land-masses to what geologists may say or surmise abouth the nearer past, imaginary this `history' is supposed to take place in a period of the actual Old World of this planet.

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But Lotho_Pimple, don't go bursting people's bubbles, now... Some might think Middle-Earth is real. Would you really want to destroy their fantasy?

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am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. The name is the modern form (appearing in the 13th century and still in use) of midden-erd > middel-erd, an ancient name for the oikoumenç, the abiding place of Men, the objectively real world, in use specifically opposed to imaginary worlds (as Fairyland) or unseen worlds (as Heaven or Hell). The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if a little glorified by the enchantment of distance in time.

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Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today.... Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find."

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It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.... Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed

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To turn, if I may, to the 'human Touches' and the matter of when I started. That is rather like asking of Man when language started. It was an inevitable, though conditionable, evolvement of the birth-given. It has been always with me: the sensibility to linguistic pattern which affects me emotionally like colour or music; and the passionate love of growing things; and the deep response to legends (for lack of a better word) that have what I would call the North-western temper and temperature. In any case if you want to write a tale of this sort you must consult your roots, and a man of the North-west of the Old World will set his heart and the action of his tale in an imaginary world of that air, and that situation : with the Shoreless Sea of his innumerable ancestors to the West, and the endless lands (out of which enemies mostly come) to the East. Though, in addition, his heart may remember, even if he has been cut off from all oral tradition, the rumour all along the coasts of the Men out of the Sea.

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Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is usually better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to 'Middle-earth'. This is an old word, not invented by me, as reference to a dictionary such as the Shorter Oxford will show. It meant the habitable lands of our world, set amid the surrounding Ocean. The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. But this is not a purely 'Nordic' area in any sense. If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then MinasTirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy.
Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction'. That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man's home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other pans; but it is not 'sacred', nor does it exhaust my affections. I have, for instance, a particular love for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That it is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil. The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a 'Nordic'.

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May I say that all this is 'mythical', and not any kind of new religion or vision. As far as I know it is merely an imaginative invention, to express, in the only way I can, some of my (dim) apprehensions of the world. All I can say is that, if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire, for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region (I p. 12). I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap# in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of 'pre-history'.
I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. However curious, they are alien, and not lovable with the love of blood-kin. Middle-earth is (by the way & if such a note is necessary) not my own invention. It is a modernization or alteration (N[ew] E[nglish] Dictionary] 'a perversion') of an old word for the inhabited world of Men, the oikoumenē: middle because thought of vaguely as set amidst the encircling Seas and (in the northern-imagination) between ice of the North and the fire of the South. O.English middan-geard, mediaeval E. midden-erd, middle-erd. Many reviewers seem to assume that Middle-earth is another planet!
Theologically (if the term is not too grandiose) I imagine the picture to be less dissonant from what some (including myself) believe to be the truth. But since I have deliberately written a tale, which is built on or out of certain 'religious' ideas, but is not an allegory of them (or anything else), and does not mention them overtly, still less preach them, I will not now depart from that mode, and venture on theological disquisition for which I am not fitted

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HoME X: Morgoth's Ring: Myths Transformed: Text XI: Aman and Mortal Men
"But if any should ask: why could not in Aman the blessing of longevity be granted to him, as it was to the Eldar? This must be answered. Because this would bring joy to the Eldar, their nature being different from that of Men. The nature of an Elvish fëa was to endure the world to the end, and an Elvish hröa was also longeval by nature; so that an Elvish fëa finding that its hröa endured with it, supporting its indwelling and remaining unwearied in bodily delight, would have increased and more lasting joy [sic]. Some indeed of the Eldar doubt that any special grace or belssing was accorded to them, other than addmitance to Aman. For they hold that the failure of their hröar to endure in vitality unwearied as long as their fëar - a process which was not observed until the later ages - is due to the Marring of Arda, and comes of the Shadow, and the taint of Melkor that touches all the matter (or hröa) of Arda, if not indeed of all Ëa. So that all that happened in Aman was that this weakness of the Elvish hröar did not develop in the health of Aman and the Light of the Trees.

But let us suppose that the 'blessing of Aman' was also accorded to Men. What then? Would a great good be done to them? Their bodies would still come swiftly to full growth. In the seventh part of a year a Man could be born and become full-grown, as swiftly in Aman a bird would hatch and fly from the nest. But then it would not wither of age but would endure in vigour and in delight of bodily living. But what of that Man's fëa? Its nature and 'doom' could not be changed, neither by the health of Mana nor by the will of Manwë himself. Yet it is (as the Eldar hold) its nature and doom under the will of Eru that it should not endure Arda for long, but should depart and go elsewither, returning maybe direct to Eru for another fate or purpose that is beyond the knowledge or guess of the Valar.

Very soon the fëa and hröa of a Man in Aman would not be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain of both. The hröa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee from the hunter or turn svavgely upon him. But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hröa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its thought that it received through the hröa and its senses became meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda. And he could not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence. But if he remained in Aman, what should he come to, ere Arda were at last fulfilled and he found release? Either his fëa would be wholly dominated by the hröa, and he would become more like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fëa were strong, it would leave the hröa. Then one of two things would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate, by violence, and the hröa, in full life, would be rent and die in sudden agony, or else the fëa would in loathing and without pity desert the hröa, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain to destroy."

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