*Throws hands in the air* There is such a thing as character development and tying off of loose ends. That's the point of the Scouring of the Shire.

Not all books end completely tidily with everything wrapped up in a package with a bow. Tolkien chose to represent a more realistic view of war, and show a bit of a reconstruction period.
 
I did too when I first read it when I was 11 or 12. But in hindsight, I tend to pick things apart (the Hobbit movies were just a mess from the get go IMO, but I've covered that).

In the Scouring, the once mighty Saruman is reduced to lording over hobbits in hobbiton and going by "Sharky?" Why didn't Tolkien make him a real joykill bartender in Bree instead.

It happens, the man who brought us Star Wars and Empire brought us Jar-Jar and the prequels.

There's a cutting room floor and the equivalent for books for a reason.

Well, I don't think my literary criticism skills have atrophied since I was fifteen - the reverse if anything. And yes, the once mighty Saruman is reduced to lording it over hobbits - not even with hopes of anything long-term because as soon as anyone important finds out about it, he will be out on his ear, but because spite has consumed him to such an extent that he would rather make a horrible nuisance of himself for a few weeks than repent of his evil ways and accept the offer of mercy that Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel were willing to advance. That's the kind of personality that Lewis would not have found difficult to include in The Great Divorce.

Evil turns in on itself. Saruman goes from looking to conquer Rohan and set himself up as a rival to Sauron himself, to a small-time bully spoiling the Shire just to get back at the hobbits who played a part in his downfall. Meanwhile, those same hobbits who once would indeed not have dared raise a hand to him have grown up to the point that Saruman and his minions are no kind of a threat any more. That's character and plot development. Jar-Jar was just silly and obnoxious.

If you like your stories to end "Then the rightful King was crowned and everyone lived happily ever after" then I'm not here to cry out on you for it, but we actually get a bit of a look at what happened next and what was going to happen, and we find out that Frodo for one did not live happily ever after. That doesn't belong on the cutting room floor.
 
that's great, but my original comment was that it was anticlimactic.

Compared to the ring journey, the war of the ring, it's conclusion, how could it not be?

Hey look, yet ANOTHER conflict but way less intense.


But to each their own :salute:
 
Looking back at this, I have decided that the main problem (well, not problem) is that Tolkien was writing for an audience that was not used to the blockbuster summer movies that we see all the time. His audience didn't expect everything to be wrapped up in a nice little bow like a modern audience does.
 
Looking back at this, I have decided that the main problem (well, not problem) is that Tolkien was writing for an audience that was not used to the blockbuster summer movies that we see all the time. His audience didn't expect everything to be wrapped up in a nice little bow like a modern audience does.

Or that Tolkien was writing for his own pleasure and was really into that language thing?

That's cool and all but doesn't necessarily translate to good reading.
 
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But that's how it works. Writing styles have changed since the '40s. I, as well as generations of Tolkien readers, actually enjoy the Scouring of the Shire. Personally, I see it as a necessary part of the story. The Shire is not the safe haven that everyone thought it was. The Hobbits have to grow up and learn that nothing, not even the Shire, is perfect.
 
that's great, but my original comment was that it was anticlimactic.

Compared to the ring journey, the war of the ring, it's conclusion, how could it not be?

Hey look, yet ANOTHER conflict but way less intense.


But to each their own :salute:


The Shire ending scenes don't really contribute much to Tolkien's linguistic forays; if he was simply into having linguistic fun at that point, those chapters would probably have been about the Elves. I think those chapters exist because Tolkien was making a point--given what I know about Tolkien's beliefs, I think he was being intentionally anticlimactic. Tolkien called history "the long defeat," and he wanted to bring that feeling across in LotR. Without the Shire scenes, we wouldn't get that impression. We would be left with Aragorn's crowning and a feeling of triumph. That isn't what Tolkien wanted to leave us with.

Tolkien could not have emphasized that Aragorn's victory did not solve all Middle Earth's problems without the Shire scenes. Whether you think Tolkien should have tried to include that idea is another matter, but it was definitely not an accident or an example of Tolkien getting carried away with his fantasy world. It's not a J. K. Rowling-style "19 years later." Rowling clearly included her epilogue for fun, because she liked the characters. Tolkien's reasons, right or wrong, go far deeper.
 
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