Death, Immortality and the Afterlife [Lord of the Rings]

Today we go over the concept of death and immortality, as well as explaining how the afterlife works in Lord of the Rings. If Elves are immortal, can they die? And if they do, what happens to them after that? Is there a heaven, or is there just the void? We answer these questions and more in this episode!

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast. My name is Brett, and today I have a request from a listener from the Spotify Q&A function! We have Ali who said, “Anything Lord of the Rings!” which is almost daunting with how much there is to talk about there. Lord of the Rings is one of the most well thought out stories of all time, I think, and picking just one topic has been pretty tough.

I thought back to a time a few years ago when I was out for dinner and a beer with someone I used to work with and we got to talking about audio production. I mentioned that I wanted to start a podcast, and, of course, this was a couple years before I had put any serious thought into starting one, and I gave them the basic premise of what I would want the show to look like. It was a bit different than what you hear today, but I think that’s all for the best. Anyways, the conversation was steered towards Lord of the Rings and I ended up explaining (in layman’s terms) how death works in Middle Earth and how death is not equal for every race. After I finished, a couple who was sitting at a table behind us came over and politely apologised for eavesdropping and said that if I ever ended up making the podcast that they hope to find it because they really liked what they heard and said it actually encouraged them to pick up the Silmarillion because they had no idea there was so much thought put into the lore.

As much as I love Lord of the Rings, I can not recommend reading the Silmarillion. I read it many years back, and it’s possibly the most boring book that I’ve ever encountered. But I think that’s by design. It’s written more like a history textbook than a novel, so if you’re into that kind of thing then it might be right up your alley, otherwise it’s a snoozefest no matter how much you might love Lord of the Rings. 

Back to my point– it was that story that brought me to doing this episode on death and the afterlife in Lord of the Rings. It’s something that I’ve thought about doing many times, but thought that it might be too boring and too convoluted and maybe not everyone would want to hear about it.

Another reason why I think that this topic in particular is a great place to start with Lord of the Rings is that Tolkien once said that death and immortality is the overarching theme for the series in a letter from 1956 that reads:

The real theme for me is .. Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race [Men] 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race [Elves] 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete. But if you have now read Vol. III and the story of Aragorn [and Arwen], you will have perceived that.

Which I find fascinating because when I think of Lord of the Rings, I think of the story of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee first and foremost, and themes of loyalty, compassion and selflessness. But it makes sense that death and life beyond death are the main themes in Tolkien’s eyes seeing as there’s so much to do with death and the dead like the Barrowwights, the Dead whom Aragorn leads from the White Mountains, the faces of dead elves that Frodo sees in the Dead Marshes and so much more.

 So that’s what we’re talking about today: death and the afterlife in Lord of the Rings. As most people know, Elves are immortal and men are not. However, immortality does not mean that one cannot die, but rather that their spirit can live on. Elves remain unwearied with age and can recover from wounds that would be fatal to a man, but they can still be killed in battle. The end result for Elves is that their body will end up in Valinor, meaning the Land of the Valar which is also known as the Undying Lands, which was across the sea on a continent westward of Middle Earth called Aman, also known as the Blessed Realm. Even if an Elf is not killed in battle, their spirit will eventually grow weary of Middle Earth and return to Valinor.

When men die, they go beyond the circles of the world, where even Elves know not of. That’s kind of it– there’s not a whole lot more I can say about the deaths of men. Is there an afterlife? Maybe. But death was Eru’s gift to men. Immortality is a curse of sorts, bound forever to Arda and forced to constantly suffer the past while men are allowed to die and have their souls unbound from the Earth. From the Silmarillion:

Therefore he [Eru] willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.
[...]
It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful. For the Elves die not till tile world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries; and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence they may in time return. But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the Strangers.
Death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy. But Melkor has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope. Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Iluvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World's end, and Melkor has not discovered it.

Now, that’s the general idea; Elves go to Valinor, and men get an all-season pass to the rollercoaster in the cosmos, but we can’t just leave it at that. We mentioned Valinor and the Valar, Aman and Eru and I think that the best way to understand Valinor is to understand the Valar, and to understand the Valar is to understand Eru so let’s start there. I want to briefly talk about the creation of the earth and the ones who created Valinor so that we can get a better understanding of it.

Eru Iluvatar is essential the one true God, being the supreme deity of Arda– Arda being Quenya for “realm” which is their Earth where the peoples of Middle Earth and Aman lived. Aside from Middle Earth and Aman, there was also the Dark Land to the South which was a result of the Battle of the Powers and where no one lived. It’s rumoured that the Numenoreans might have visited there, but it’s not said whether they established any sort of dwellings there. Then there is the Burnt Land of the Sun to the east, which was also believed to be uninhabited.

There’s a whole weird history with Arda where originally it was a flat earth, which I can’t believe was an actual thing, because the Valar wanted to build it to be symmetrical. It wasn’t until it was attacked by Melkor (also known as Morgoth) that the geography changed and it became spherical. We’ll get back to Melkor, but won’t go over this period entirely because it’s a whole other thing going over this as well as the first and second age before the time of the books.

Back to Eru; you might not have heard of him, since he wasn’t mentioned in the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Hobbit, but only in the Silmarillion, even though he technically had an involvement in the trilogy. Eru is a transcendent being, existing beyond the world in the timeless void. He first created a group of angelic beings called the Ainur who helped Eru shape Arda through the Music of the Ainur, which is basically a chorus of Eru’s thoughts given their own life so that the creation of life wasn’t solely on the shoulders of Eru. One of these Ainur was Melkor that we mentioned before. The way I like to think about this is in terms of the Greek Pantheon: Eru was Zeus, who was the most powerful of the Gods and leader of them, and then the Ainur were basically the rest of the lot. They still held great power and were of the first to come into existence, but were ultimately nothing before the power of their leader.

Eru had the ability to create life, as we could have guessed, and it was he alone that held that power to create independent life along with the ability to shape reality using the Flame Imperishable. He created the bounds of Ea, which was essentially the universe as it meant “World and All That Is”. Ea lay within the Void, where Eru resided outside of and assumedly where the spirits of man would go when they passed. He then gave the Ainur the option to go into Ea and shape it as they pleased.

The ones who chose to do so were called the Valar and were in control of shaping Arda. But as mentioned before, they could not themselves create life but could only shape it if they were given the chance, as one Valar, Aule, proved by giving shape to the Dwarves while consciousness was given to them by Eru. Elves and Mankind came directly from Eru’s thoughts, and were known as the first and second children of the Iluvatar respectively. The Valar were accompanied by the Maiar who were lesser Ainur. You might recognize the Maiar by title as they were incarnated as wizards in the Third Age which we would come to know as Gandalf, Sauruman and Radagast, among others like a certain Balrog. There were two Maiar who were actually in control of the sun and moon. The one who guided the sun was named Arien, and the one who would steer the moon was named Tilion.

Following the creation of Arda, the fourteen Valar who shaped it dwelt on a hidden island on the Great Lake called Almaren. But after it was destroyed and the earth was reshaped, the Valar relocated to Aman and founded the realm of Valinor where they constructed the golden city of Valimar.

They would come to be known as the “Powers of the World” and were essentially Gods, but they were not equal. Now, this might be subjective, but this is how I have interpreted the lore. Among the Valar, the strongest among them was Manwe who was the leader and King of the Valar being the eldest of the Valar. He had a brother, who we talked about before, named Melkor, who was just as powerful as Manwe, but had no authority because of his aforementioned treason.

Now I don’t want to go too far into the history of the Valar on this earth because, as I’ve mentioned before, there is just way too much there to stuff into one episode, and it hardly has anything to do with the afterlife that I want to establish. I do think it’s important the set them up as the all powerful beings of Arda not only to set up the creation of Valinor, where the Elves go when they die, but to establish that Gods do exist and they are physical creatures that technically anyone could interact with if they were able to get to one of their strongholds. I think that’s interesting in itself because it shows Tolkien’s path from pagan influences, in this case having a sort of pantheon of Gods that physically existed in the world much like Greek or Norse mythology, into the more Judeo-Christian theology as we get into the Lord of the Rings series and with the concept of Valinor being a direct parallel to heaven.

There are plenty of references to different mythologies and religions throughout Tolkien’s work, and I wonder if there’s something to be said for all of the themes in his work. We know that Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and so the themes on resurrection and an afterlife should not be surprising. It’s the themes of reincarnation and paganism that are surprising to me from a Catholic in the 1900’s. But then again, just because someone belongs to a certain denomination does not mean that they are doomed to have a singular view, and I caught myself having forgotten that in my research of this episode. That may be an off tangent, but I’m learning how to be a better person here, give me a break.

So now that we know who Eru Iluvatar and the Valar are, let’s talk a bit more about the continent of Aman and Valinor. As I mentioned before, the Valar originally resided in Almaren, but after the devastation caused by Melkor they migrated to Valinor. The major city in Valinor was Valmar, which was home to the Valar and the Vanyar. The Vanyar were the descendents of the first Elf Imin, his wife Iminye, and six other pairs. They were known as the Fair Elves or the Light Elves. Under the leadership of Ingwe, the Vanyar were the first to set forth on a journey to sail west and reach Aman, where they stayed. 

The city of Valmar was built on the great Plain of Valinor beyond the mountain shield of Pelori. It had great golden gates, gold-domed buildings, and streets paved with silver. Being the place where the Valar congregated, Valmar is seen as the capital of Valinor and is likely Tolkien’s proper version of Heaven, as the city’s structures, streets, and gates are very similar to those mentioned of the city of God in the book of Revelation.

The entire land of Valinor was surrounded on three sides (excluding the north which was surrounded by ice) by a huge mountain range, which I just mentioned, called the Shield of Pelori. Beyond that was the sea that connected it to Middle Earth. The ice range in the north used to physically connect Valinor and Middle Earth before the War of Wrath.

The second group to sail west were the Noldor, also known as the Deep Elves. However, they were tricked by Melkor and used this ice range to go back to Middle Earth, among those was Galadriel. After the war, when the connection was severed, they were seen as rebels and were not allowed back to Valinor for many years. For a time after the exile of the Noldor, and before the ruin of Numenor, there was a chain of small islands called the Enchanted Isles which ran along the Eastern Coast of Valinor. These islands created the Shadowy Seas which were there to prevent mariners, mortal or immortal, from reaching Valinor by sea. Eventually, pity was taken on the Noldor when Middle Earth began to fade into the age of Men, and the once exiled Deep Elves were able to pass back into the Undying Lands at their own accord when they felt it was their time to do so.

After the First Age with the destruction of the island of Numenor when the earth was changed, Valinor was no longer a physical part of Arda and thus could not be reached by Men. Elves could reach it if they sailed the Straight Road, which sounds a lot easier than it is for the Straight Road was only accessible by ships that were capable of passing out of the Spheres of Earth. And, yes, this basically means that in order to reach the Undying Lands, Elves had to travel through space. The Straight Road is a route that left the earth’s curvature through sky and space to where the land of Aman now resided. It followed the old path that the first Elves first used to travel to Aman and was only accessible to Elves, but was not open to travel on a whim. The Straight Road was only open when the grace of the Valar deemed it was the right time and on occasion, the Valar would extend the invitation to the Ring Bearers, like we see with Bilbo Baggins. The only other exception that I can find is that after the death of Aragorn, Legolas would sail to Valinor and bring with him his Dwarf lover– I mean friend, Gimli.

So that might shed some light on the Lord of the Rings movies and as to why the trip to the Undying Lands was so urgent and fleeting. Valinor is no longer physically part of the world, and any Elf who wanted to ascend to the Undying Lands to be with the Valar would have to seize the opportunity to go when the time arose, for no one knew when the next ship would set sail. It’s like the worst form of subway travel because if you miss your train, you have to wait until you’re retired to take the next one.

While that explains what, where and when Valinor is, I want to try to explain the how and why an Elf would want to go to the Undying Lands. Back in the beginning, I mentioned how the Elves’ spirits will eventually grow weary of Middle Earth and yearn to return to Valinor. So let’s talk about spirits, and what exactly that means.

To put it plain and simple, there are two distinct components that men and elves consist of: Fea and Hroa, or spirit and body. The spirit, or Fea, comes from the Secret Fire of Iluvatar which is able to create life, whereas the body, or Hroa, is what contains that form and is shaped from the material of Arda. Death, simply, is the separation of these two. When Men die, their spirit is shot into the cosmos where it will joyride in the void for eternity, whereas the Elves’ spirit is said to be houseless or in exile without a body. So without the body, the spirit is powerless vice versa.

The Elves’ fate is to live as long as Arda exists, unlike men who were given the gift of Death. Elves are bound to the world and cannot leave it, even after death. I said this before, but it’s worth reiterating that Elves do not die of old age or disease and that is because their body is much more resilient to their spirit, and so it is able to stave off these things unlike Men who would succumb to it. So Elves are immortal, but they can still die. An Elf can have their body killed, or they can lose the will to live as we see with the grief-stricken Arwen. When an Elf dies, their spirit is unbound from their body, but still bound to the world where it is called back to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor where it will be judged before being given a new shape. Mandos was one of the Valar who was the keeper of the Houses of the Dead, or the Halls of Mandos. He was sort of the Hades of the Valar, and the Halls of Mandos were a sort of purgatory.

In the Halls of Mandos, the ideal scenario is that an Elf’s spirit is judged after a time of waiting and they can be reincarnated into a new body that, if allowed by Mandos, would be identical to their previous body. Alternatively, an Elf’s spirit could be judged poorly and denied reincarnation if it had done too little good or too much evil in their past body. That, or a spirit can decide to stay in the Halls of Mandos until the end of Arda, when it is set free.

If an Elf were to die in Valinor, this process was non-negotiable. You would be sent to the halls and await judgement. If one were to die in Middle Earth, however, they could refuse the summons to have their spirit sent to the halls and instead roam bodiless in Middle Earth, but they would not be allowed to be reincarnated into a new body. This was seen as a sign of a tainted spirit to the Valar, however, and those who decided to have their spirit stay in Middle Earth were often tempted by the Dark Lords and brought under their dominion. There were some, however, who refused the summons of Mandos simply to haunt somewhere that they frequented in their life, but they were forbidden to commune with the living. But there existed Necromancers, like Sauron, who were able to commune with these beings regardless and bend them to their will.

Due to the marring of Marda by Melkor, the Elves living in Middle Earth suffered a weakening of their bodies over long periods of time, which is where the yearning to return to Valinor came from. This waning caused their spirit to consume their bodies over time until they became something like a wraith, but this would only happen in Middle Earth. Over in Aman, this did not happen.

So to sum it up, when an Elf’s spirit is separated from their body, they are summoned to the Halls of Mandos where they await judgement and potentially get reincarnated into a physical body once again. It’s basically a DMV for souls, where you wait until the underpaid, uninterested government workers decide to give you your permit or tell you to go to Hell… literally.

But in all this, we haven’t mentioned the Dwarves’ afterlife. And that’s because we know less about it than we know about Men. The most that we get is from a single paragraph in the Silmarillion where it states that the Elves believe that after death, Dwarves return to the stone from which they were made. But according to Dwarven tradition the Valar who created them, Aule, known to them as Mahal, gathers their spirits in a separate hall set apart in the Hall of Mandos where the Dwarves will help rebuild the earth when it is reformed. But if that’s true, we don’t know. The Dwarves will tell you that their souls can be reincarnated, as the legends say that Durin was reincarnated seven times. But I think that’s mostly a tall tale to keep the Durin line in power. Don’t tell the Dwarves I said that…

Then there are the Maiar, the servants of the Valar, who are immortal as well and will basically be sent back after death if the mission given to them by their Valar master was not completed, as we see with Gandalf being reborn. There are also half-elves, who would suffer the same fate as men unless they had contact with the Valar and were given the choice to live the life of an Elf in which case they would continue as an Elf would.

The only exception I can find of men being caught in a state between death is the Dead Men of Dunharrow, or the Army of the Dead, who walk as spirits because they were cursed by Isildur until their oath was fulfilled. Another who walked the earth in a similar state are the Ringwraiths who were men that succumbed to Sauron’s power through wearing the Rings of Power which gave them a form of immortality, but reduced them to invisible wraiths who were bound to the power of the One Ring and were under Sauron’s control. I’m not sure that I would call either of these existences truly immortal, as they are cursed in one way or another to roam Middle Earth without a body, and are entirely subject to another’s will. Whereas true immortality, as seen in the Valar or the Elves, means that they still own their bodies and are beholden to their own will.

But that’s all I can muster up about death, immortality and the afterlife in Lord of the Rings. I think I’ve covered everything here, but there is so much information in Tokien’s writings that it’s hard to be sure if I’ve covered everything because every time I think I’m done, I’m writing another paragraph because I’ve found something else! But I’m going to call it a day here, and hope that no one calls me out for being the uncultured swine that I am.

Men are mortal beings who were given the gift of death, and their spirits roam the cosmos after their physical bodies perish.

Dwarves are a bit of a mixed bag, and their fate depends on who you ask. It’s assumed that their spirits are sent to a separate hall to await the end of times so that they can rebuild the earth, but we don’t know that for sure.

Elves have immortal spirits no matter where they dwell, and have immortal bodies as well as long as they dwell in Valinor. Their souls go to the great DMV in the sky when their bodies perish to await judgement and are usually reincarnated.

And with that, I want to ask what you think! Do you think that the gift of death given to men is truly a mercy, or do you think it’s a cruelty that they are doomed to have only a fraction of the existence that is granted to the other races? Or do you think that immortality is the true curse? Personally, I wouldn’t want to live forever. I find that the question of, “if you found immortality, would you take it?” comes up often, and my answer is usually the less popular opinion. I think that to live forever is to know nothing but loss, and a limited existence is what gives us purpose. We can learn to live, and experience just enough loss to give an appreciation for our existence. To live forever is to never have a silver lining, for to be eternal is to live without consequence, and I believe that it’s that consequence– the fight or flight– that gives us meaning.

You can find us online @loredtodeath on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts. You can find me on social media as well, mostly Instagram because I was born too late to understand what the Hell Tik Tok is. And if you have any questions, feedback, or ideas for an episode, please shoot me a message on Instagram or use the Spotify Q&A section on the app to drop a comment!

Remember to not get caught up in the fantasy of your own existence. We won’t live forever, so pick up the phone and call a loved one. I’ll be sure to Lore you to Death in the next episode.

Yes I’m bringing that joke back and it’s here to stay baby!