At the end of the book series, hobbits and elves sail to the east of the middle earth to unknown places and only humans stay in the Middle Earth. What happened next? Where did elves settled down? Were there any other adventures? Will there be a sequel to LOTR series?
asked Jun 6, 2014 at 12:15
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1I'm pretty sure the Hobbits and elves sail to Valinor, not unknown places. What happened after might be in one of the History of Middle Earth books, but I have never read them.– Feldpausch All4Jun 6, 2014 at 12:31
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3Lord of the Rings 2: The Revengening– Paul D. WaiteJun 6, 2014 at 14:04
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1Not all hobbits sail to Valinor; only Bilbo and Frodo do that. The rest of the hobbits stay in the Shire, which Aragorn declares off-limits to humans, or in Bree (where they've interacted with humans for centuries anyway).– Matt GuttingJun 6, 2014 at 14:05
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1In a way history, since it was set in the real world as an alternative folklore. Though strictly that makes it a prequel to history, rather than history a sequel.– Jon HannaJun 6, 2014 at 14:48
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2@MattGutting Nitpicking, but in the Fourth Age Samwise also sails West after his wife dies.– ssellJun 6, 2014 at 20:13
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3 Answers
Tolkien begun, but didn't complete, a sequel called the New Shadow which eventually saw publication in History of Middle-earth 12.
In his own words (Letter 256):
I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall [of Mordor], 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. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless – while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors – like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going round doing damage. I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow – but it would be just that. Not worth doing.
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2I did read that, as far as it goes. He seems to have decided that it couldn't be an epic, only a suspense novel, and he wasn't interested in that. Jun 6, 2014 at 14:02
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1So he didn't really have a good enough imagination to make a sequel... bummer.– TylerHJun 6, 2014 at 20:51
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2@TylerH Au contraire, he had so much imagination that he saw what would happen, and that none of that would be worth writing about. Jun 7, 2014 at 10:09
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1@TylerH - given that the whole point of the end of LotR was the ending of the mythical ages and of the personification of evil in the form of a Dark Lord, it's difficult to see how the story could have gone any other way. He'd already told his story and there was nothing more to say.– user8719Jun 7, 2014 at 18:00
Not as a sequence per se, but as an apocalypse of sorts; the Dagor Dagorath or Last Battle and Day of Doom.
Quoting the Second Profecy of Mandos:
[...] When the world is old and the Powers grow weary, then Morgoth, seeing that the guard sleepeth, shall come back through the Door of the Night out of the Timeless Void; and he shall destroy the Sun and the Moon.
(Truly) epic battle ensues.
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1Tolkien wrote a lot of stuff set in Middle-Earth, it's not always clear what he held as canon, and was still polishing, and what ideas he had rejected. The "Faring Forth" is another idea he wrote about...that the Elves would come back in the future and try to retake Middle-Earth, but would ultimately fail. Jun 6, 2014 at 21:06
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@Monty129 Actually that's a quote from the Silmarillion, finished around the same time as the LoTR series. Jun 7, 2014 at 0:06
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1Remember, the Silmarillion was never intended for publication as such -- it was Tolkien's working notes on his world, cleaned up a bit by his son for those of use who were interested in his working method and a bit more of the backstory. It's a historical/legendary reference, not a single story or even a set of short stories. Worth reading if you're the kind of person who re-reads all the appendices of LOTR every time you re-read the book even though you've read it 30 times before (which I am), but I wouldn't recommend it for most folks.– keshlamJun 7, 2014 at 4:50
"Will there be a sequel" -- not officially unless someone convinces the Tolkien estate that they can produce something which is completely true to JRRT's ideas and ideals and language. Odds of that happening are close to nil.
I'm sure there's lots of fan-fiction out there. Not canon, of course.
I don't know if anyone has established whether any of Tolkien's short stories occur in the same world, and if so at what time relative to the end of the Third Age.
