A Tolkien Question

[Silent Cal]

Specifically, a question to the Tolkien buffs:

What happens after the end of the Return of the King, since it all seems rather uncertain? Did Tolkien have any writings/plans on the post-Aragorn era?

What's the future of Middle Earth from then on? Will the Orcs be exterminated? Will the Elves finally vanish? What about the Dwarves, Hobbits and Ents and other races?

Will the now-united Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor be able to conquer the known world a la Rome? Or perhaps we might see some rather nasty invasions from barbarians like the Haradrim?

 

[freodhoric]

He gives hints here and there. I think it's in the Hobbit where he mentions that the Orcs will be very important in the next Age. Something about an affinity for machines. I must look that up.

Most of the Elves do vanish, but i think the lesser Elves, like the ones in Mirkwood, stay.

I don't think Gondor becomes a conqueror a la Rome, but is a beacon of civilization for generations to come.

I don't remember any special mention about the Dwarves and Hobbits. Or the Ents, and i really want to know what happened to the Ent-wives.

 

[MerryPrankster]

I think the Elves, sooner or later, eventually all go to the West. I think the Reunited Kingdom has a lot of wars in the East against the Haradrim, who might still worship Sauron and in any case dislike Gondor and came far too close for comfort to destroying it this time around.

Not sure about Orcs and Dwarves. I think they eventually died out.

 

[Deleted member 4898]

The Dwarves just die out a little bit, and eventually just hide in their caverns until they all die.

 

[Silent Cal]

Why do the dwarves die out?

 

[MerryPrankster]

Why do the dwarves die out?

Well, they breed very slowly (women are only 1/3 of the population and many Dwarven men don't marry b/c they're more concerned with crafts) and took large losses in the War of the Ring.

At least I'm pretty sure about that--I'm definitely sure about the second part.

 

[Silent Cal]

So, in the end, there'll be only humans, hobbits and perhaps orcs left, with little enclaves of elves (probably forest-dwellers mainly in Mirkwood, but also in other, singificantly samaller forest enclaves) and dwarves being pushed towards extinction by human and/or orcish expansion. If the Ents don't die out before, an Industrial Revolution-level expansion would certainly bring them into conflict with the humans and/or orcs, which would probably ultimately spell their doom.

I can see species like the nazghul, wargs, and trolls hunted into extinction.

 

[Major Major]

Specifically, a question to the Tolkien buffs:

What happens after the end of the Return of the King, since it all seems rather uncertain? Did Tolkien have any writings/plans on the post-Aragorn era?

What's the future of Middle Earth from then on? Will the Orcs be exterminated? Will the Elves finally vanish? What about the Dwarves, Hobbits and Ents and other races?

Will the now-united Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor be able to conquer the known world a la Rome? Or perhaps we might see some rather nasty invasions from barbarians like the Haradrim?

There is some material in the Appendices. The United Kingdom had to fight a number of battles, but nothing like the all-out battle for survival against Sauron.

The Elves faded or went across the Sea, thought this took a while -- a hundred and twenty years later, when Elessar finally gave up living, it's mentioned that Celeborn was now living in Rivendell with the sons of Elrond. It was a very long-term thing.

Tolkien began a sequel, "The New Shadow". It was set during the reign of Elessar's and Arwen's son, and had to do with the problem that evil was no longer quite so obvious. Like the Byzantine nobles dressing up as Huns, the young bloods of Gondor had begun playing at being Orcs. (Whether they dressed in the heighth of fashion and went out to play the old ultra-violence, to tolchok some old veck and viddy him swimming in the old red red krovvy . . . Anthony Burgess also noticed that, understand.)

However, JRRT gave up "The New Shadow" very soon. He could see it wasn't going anywhere.

 

[Thande]

To add to what Major Major said, there's a bit in Unfinished Tales which suggests that the Reunited Kingdom will eventually turn into Númenor once more, falling into evil ways, and it will be destroyed in turn (possibly in the Ice Age that then leads to our own history). The reference is when he talks about the 'Faithful' of that time confusing things so they believe that Gandalf is the incarnation of Manwë on Middle-earth, when in practice he was only one of his servants.