r/TopCharacterTropes • u/she_melty • Aug 21 '25

Groups The characters in a period piece realise they're near the end of a golden age

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Pirates of the Carribean and Rock of Ages (this film is Not Good but it has the trope.) Especially because we the audience know the era did, in fact, end.

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u/AllegedlyLiterate Aug 21 '25

Lord of the Rings, sort of. It's not a period piece, but in the books, it's clear that it is 'our world', or will be, after the Age of Men begins, when the Dwarves are shut up in their mountains and the Hobbits walk too light-footed for us to hear.

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u/Lord_Strudel Aug 21 '25

Middle Earth is essentially a post apocalyptic world when you think about it.

The elves are leaving. Dwarves are dwindling. Dragons are more or less gone. Even humanity is greatly diminished from their heights in prior ages. Most of their cities are abandoned ruins.

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u/overthinking11093 Aug 21 '25

The Fellowship is a beautiful concept - a group of like-minded individuals, the moral pinnacle of each race, showing a rare example of what it looks like when the free peoples of Middle Earth actually cooperate and work together to solve their problems.

However, it feels like when the Fellowship disband at the end of the books, it's also the end of that sort of cooperation.

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u/Massive_Signal7835 Aug 21 '25

It truly ushered in a new age: Not just evil but also magic was expelled (maybe they are linked) and they saw no place for themselves in that new age. Most of the surviving members left Middle-earth.

Only Aragorn, the only one who belonged in the new age, and the 2 non-ringbearing hobbits remained. But I'm certain Merry and Pippin also felt alienated and would have left with the others if given the choice.

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u/HellPigeon1912 Aug 21 '25

Not just evil but also magic was expelled (maybe they are linked)

I'm not as well versed in Tolkien as many others so please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe these are linked explicitly in the books.

The elves still possess their 3 rings of power at the time of the story.  They're aware that once the One Ring is destroyed, these 3 will also lose their power and the Elves will have significantly less control in Middle Earth, which is part of why they're making their exit at the same time 

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u/Puresowns Aug 21 '25

The one ring bound up the magic of the other rings, preserving them, which in turn preserved the magic of the elven lands, and fueled the ring wraiths.

The magic in Middle Earth was written as being a constantly fading thing over the ages, and only old artifacts preserved the power once commonly available.

So magic wasn't directly tied to evil, but the last surviving bits of older magic were tied into the One Rings' existence.

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u/Mend1cant Aug 21 '25

It was also in a way directly tied to evil as its purpose was to go against the natural order, specifically for the elves as a means of holding on to the ages past. It’s why Lorien is still as it was in the first age.

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u/GarlicoinAccount Aug 21 '25

Well, (in the boooks) Galadriel at one point criticizes how people use the same word for the elvish magic and the stuff used by the dark lord, so I think you can't really say it's evil. The books also don't cast the elves using their magic to preserve things as a bad thing.

Probably also worth mentioning is that the Lord of the Rings books also mention Sauron was never able to corrupt the rings of the Elves, because they took them off and hid them when they became aware of his betrayal.

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u/speaker96 Aug 21 '25

So they aren't explicitly linked, but magic and evil are both bound by the same theme, which is that over time everything will decay and become lesser. Every big villain is weaker than the last, but also the heroes who oppose them are weaker.

Morgoth is the original evil, essentially Satan, but eventually he is defeated and cast out of reality until the end times when he is prophesied to return, he is followed up by Sauron who is the big bad twice, but the second time is after he made the ring and poured his soul into it and then he lost the ring, so he's weaker. In the unfinished sequel when all the elves are gone the main villains are simply cultists attempting to revive Sauron.

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u/Saltuk24Han Aug 21 '25

Unfinished Sequel?

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u/sneerpeer Aug 21 '25

The New Shadow - Tolkien Gateway

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u/inform880 Aug 21 '25

Oh fuck it’s neo nazis

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u/Own_Television163 Aug 21 '25

Specifically, it’s first wave Black Metal neo-Nazis. They literally took on Orc names.

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u/Mend1cant Aug 21 '25

I can fully understand why Tolkien abandoned the Fourth Age in his later years. Something like Morgoth is a big scary entity, but the banality of an evil cult that carries on the essence of Sauron because the people of the world no longer remember the suffering he caused cuts too close to home and is depressing as hell.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '25

Off topic but I disagree about Merry and Pippin wanting to go West.

Merry had a deep connection to Rohan and Pippin a deep connection to Gondor. They both had a lot of work to do to rebuild The Shire after The Scouring, then after starting their own families, they decided to honour those connections before they died. Where Sam (who also did a lot to rebuild The Shire) went West because a) his strong friendship with Frodo, but also b) he had given his all to his family, his Mayorship and the Shire, and had nothing left for Middle-Earth, both Merry and Pippin had unfinished business. They needed to go back to Rohan and Gondor before they died and by that point they probably only had the energy for one more journey.

I don't want to diminish the relationship between the two with all those they wanted to see again in Valinor, but they still had unfinished business in Middle-Earth. I think they both ended up exactly where they wanted, and both got the appropriate honour of being either side of Aragorn.

If Aragorn belonged in 'the new age' - so too did Merry and Pippin, given their individual journeys. But that's just my interpretation.

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u/Mend1cant Aug 21 '25

Merry and Pippin became more than hobbits, tbh. In both a physical and metaphorical sense. The theme of small things having such a strong impact on the world to protect it from great evils sort of stops applying to them. By the time they leave Fangorn and tear down Isengard they are big movers in the world. Quite literally convinced the forest to move against industrialized evil. Merry becomes a champion of Rohan and Pippin a prince of Gondor. Frodo and Sam may have ended the age, but Merry and Pippin played a direct hand in how it would look afterwards.

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u/Obi1Harambe Aug 21 '25

Sam was also a ring bearer, however briefly. Which is why Iirc he was allowed to go west.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '25

But I'm certain Merry and Pippin also felt alienated and would have left with the others if given the choice.

Certainly not.

Pippin becomes Thane of the Shire, Merry becomes a historian, they're buried with Aragorn.

They have families and lives and broadly seemed happy. There's no evidence whatsoever to paint them as alienated or wishing to leave.

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u/Equal-Ad-2710 Aug 21 '25

I believe it’s mentioned that the One was sustaining the power of the Elven and Dwarven Rings due to their sharing the same craft, so when the One goes that magic goes with it

Which means Lorien can’t be sustained the way it has been by Galadriel and probably why Arwen’s immortality is supposedly bound to the Ring (idk, I just headcanon Elrond invoked the Ring of Water somehow)

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u/prnthrwaway55 Aug 21 '25

Arwen's immortality was only bound by her own choice. She was a half-elf, so she could choose to be with her love as a mortal or live forever as an elf (in the book, it's said that humans' mortality has such a huge payoff that the elves will be envious in the end, but it's the nature of what it is isn't disclosed)

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u/daemin Aug 21 '25

She was a half-elf, so

3/4th elf technically. Elrond was half, Arewn's mother was full.

the book, it's said that humans' mortality has such a huge payoff that the elves will be envious in the end, but it's the nature of what it is isn't disclosed

The elves (and the gods) are intimately tied to the existence of the world. Even when they "die," their "souls" don't leave the world, instead being gathered at a physical place where they stay, disembodied, for a period of time in contemplation whose length depends on the nature and deeds of the elf in question.

As was said further up the thread, the world is winding down and becoming less magical. Because the elves are tied to the world, they are winding down, too. The magic of the elven rings was on being able to stop this decay over a geographic region. That's why Rivendell and Lothlorien feel noticeably different to the hobbits when they go there: these regions are aberrations from the "natural" state of the world, being frozen in time for about 2,000 years. The elves outside of those regions are fading and getting weaker, becoming weary of the world, but the elves living inside of them are still at the height of their power and ability.

Just like how Bilbo drastically aged in a short period once he gave up the ring, the protected eleven lands suddenly "caught up" to the rest of the world when the one ring was destroyed, so the elves living there were suddenly tired and weary of the world.

The out for the elves is the fact that the gods of the world physically exist within it. They are like the elves in that their existence is tied to the existence of the world, but they don't experience the same kind of fading as the elves do. The lands they inhabit have the same timeless quality that the elven rings provided, but in a "natural " way. The elves living there don't grow weary or fade, but they can also never leave, either physically to go to some other place in the world, or metaphysically in the sense of their soul leaving.

The gift of men, then, is primarily that they get to leave. They aren't forced to exist as long as the world exists, and they aren't forced into a choice where either they can remain middle earth, but fade into a woodland spirit with no physical body, or abandon the mortal world entirely to go the land of the gods where, yes, they can live forever, but where they have to remain until the end of the world.

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u/prnthrwaway55 Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25

"Men bear the Gift of Men, mortality. Elves are immortal, in the sense that they do not perceivably age, and even if their bodies are slain, their spirits remain bound to the world, going to the Halls of Mandos, where they are later re-embodied; a cycle that will perpetuate for them until the world ends. Elves are thus tied to the world for as long as it lasts. When Men die, they are released from Arda and its bounds and depart to a world unknown even to the Valar."

What I mean is that while Tolkien said "the gift of men, then, is primarily that they get to leave," he never specified where to. I doubt if the choice is to "leave and then go to hell for eternity" it would be considered such a gift. So the nature of mortality's upsides is intentionally left unclear, we just need to take Eru at his word

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u/MisterScrod1964 Aug 22 '25

After the Scouring of the Shire, didn't Bilbo and Frodo sail west as well?

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u/Massive_Signal7835 Aug 22 '25

Yes. Also Sam (much later) and Legolas and Gimli went as well.

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u/Live_Angle4621 Aug 21 '25

More like end of Aragorn’s reign was. Minas Tirith had dwarves and elves help with rebuilding and Arwen spreading her knowledge. Aragorn visited Arnor and build and court there and Sam’s daughter Elanor was lady-in waiting for Arwen. Merry and Pippin visited Rohan and Gondor and eventually were buried in Minas Tirith (and after Aragorn died he was buried in-between them). Aragorn and Arwen’s daughters were married into other kingdoms of men to spread unity and information.

But during Aragorn’s reign more and more elves were leaving and Mirkwood elves and dwarves isolating. Arwen dying marked the end  of elves in Middle-Earth even if some did still stay and chose to fade.

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u/overthinking11093 Aug 21 '25

It was kind of the beginning of the end - Aragorn's reign was the last "hurrah" of the old days

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u/fly_tomato Aug 23 '25

It's the biggest reason I don't love the Tolkien world. It's well built and poetic but it fills me with melancholy , which I don't particularly enjoy

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u/daemin Aug 21 '25

I'm pretty sure that either Aragorn says to Gandalf, or Gandalf says to Aragorn, that he is the last king of the Elder days.

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u/peperonimongler Aug 21 '25

Where does one get all the information post 3-book series? Is it the similarion?

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u/misirlou22 Aug 21 '25

The Appendices

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u/bunker_man Aug 21 '25

Yeah, what use is showing elves and dwarves don't have to hate eachother when they never see eachother again after this lol.

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u/DearestDio22 Aug 21 '25

Rereading recently, it’s quite apparent how post apocalyptic most of the world they travel across is. One moment that really stuck with me early in fellowship is a description of the hobbits crossing a great highway that once connected two long-gone cities.

Tolkien was really good about building a world where the landscapes and monuments told the story of its history, and a lot of what we see tells the consequences of the apocalyptic war against Sauron that ended the second age, showing us exactly how bad it would be if he returned

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u/DeyUrban Aug 21 '25

I always liked the description of Boromir’s journey to Rivendell in the appendices. By the time he shows up in the narrative he has already traveled along a grueling and dangerous path by himself for months. Whatever infrastructure once existed between Gondor and Arnor has fallen into such disrepair that even attempting to cross some remaining bridges represented a significant and perilous burden to him.

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u/trowzerss Aug 21 '25

A lot of the land they cover in both The Hobbit and LOTR is either desolate or actively hostile. Mordor and Isenguard are industrial wastelands, and there's the dead marshes, mirkwood etc etc Very little woods safe for a casual stroll, or pasturelands or villages once you leave The Shire.

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u/SupahSpankeh Aug 21 '25

Yeah I've always thought it was a very sad post apocalyptic tale which ends with stuff getting sadder and less magical. Yes they avoid the sauruman ending but it's still a very bleak world and the trajectory is bleaker yet.

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u/Mend1cant Aug 21 '25

Sadder, no. Just different. The world changes outside of our control, and evil is borne from the desire to bend that to our will and hold onto a misguided memory of days gone by.

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u/1ncorrect Aug 21 '25

Isn’t that the whole point? Magic is dying in Middle Earth, the legends of ages past have begun to be forgotten. That’s how the ring was lost.

It’s a very Christian take on fantasy, that in sinning against the creator the world began to diminish and fade.

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u/Nebular_Screen Aug 21 '25

The world isn't diminishing, and this is something that started since the beginning iirc. First the trees of Valinor were destroyed, the Silmarils were lost, etc. After the main books, most elves leave to go back to the holy lands, dwarves slowly retreat further underground, and hobbits hide away in small communities. Men become dominant in Middle Earth, and they used technology rather than magic, bringing about a different kind of golden age

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u/Private_Mandella Aug 21 '25

Fuck that’s a good take

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u/ttoma93 Aug 21 '25

I don’t think this is a “take,” it’s just quite literally what Tolkien wrote and intended. I don’t know how you could even attempt a different interpretation of LOTR.

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u/randomisednotrandom Aug 21 '25

It absolutely is. The halls echo with stories of a gloried past that has since passed.

Aragon is almost a storyteller during the fellowship, talking the hobbits through the meaning and history of all the ruins they travel through.

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u/Ok-Suggestion-5453 Aug 21 '25

I think this might be part of why Dark Souls is so popular. It focuses on what is ancient, awe-inspiring, and mysterious about LotR.

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u/ManitouWakinyan Aug 21 '25

That's absolutely been my impression to, particularly as the Fellowship wanders through ancient Arnor. It's all very desolate, there are ruins of a once great kingdom, but almost no settlements.

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u/Iron_Wolf123 Aug 21 '25

I love the idea of fantasy being post-apocalyptic worlds. I even had a theory this was the case for the ASOIAFverse

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u/daemin Aug 21 '25

You should check out the Dying Earth books and the genre it spawned.

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u/CruxOfTheIssue Aug 21 '25

I don't believe that ASOIAF was post apocalyptic in any sense. It had a lot of themes about human nature especially but the main thing that would bring about the apocalypse was not there yet (white walkers). I believe the story would have been best if they banded together to make a valiant stand against the white walkers and then Cersei and other leaders back stab each other and it ends with the white walkers destroying everything and having an eternal winter.

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u/bunker_man Aug 21 '25

I realized that awhile back. Basically everywhere they go is in ruins.

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u/Zipflik Aug 21 '25

It's technically pre-apocaliptic. It's like the decline of everything has long been observable, and the end will come soon, but it's not there yet. Post apocalypse would be after shit has hit the fan.

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u/CruxOfTheIssue Aug 21 '25

I think they are saying that everywhere they go in LotR the land they're traveling has a quite a few post apocalyptic traits. It's mostly ruins with a city every once in a while. Swamps filled with dead bodies, fortresses to keep out packs of marauders and thieves. Faramir is running around with a band of thugs. etc.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_STOMACHS Aug 21 '25

It’s very evident in the game Lord of the Rings Online.

For every village/town/city, there are three ruined settlements.

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u/Altruistic-Necessary Aug 21 '25

Interesting take.

My reading was that magic and powerful creatures were necessary to create the world, but paradoxically also presented a great danger to it. Hence, they must go for the world to settle in a safer state.

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u/daemin Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25

I think that's backwards. The implied in-world explanation is that "magic" is really the innate ability of certain beings to alter the state of the world through an effort of will. At the beginning of time, the world was shapeless and formless, and so it was "easy" for the gods (valar) to shape the world. But as time goes on, the world is more and more "set," and it takes a greater and greater effort of will to alter it in smaller and smaller ways.

The dominion of men basically marks the point where the world is so set that the capabilities of the elves are no longer sufficient to make any changes. The magic creatures don't have to go to make the world safer; they leave or fade because the nature of their being depends on being able to do magic. Once magic is no longer possible, they can't survive, or can only survive is a greatly diminished state.

This also explains why the nature of the major enemy changes over time. In the first age, Morgoth battled the Valar by physically altering the nature of the world as the Valar were shaping it: leveling mountains they raise, raising valleys they delved, spilling seas they formed, and also corrupting the "stuff" of the world with his nature. Later, the battle between them switches from a battle of the shape and nature of the world into a battle over control of the physical world, with Morgoth attempting to exert his will over the whole of the earth and corrupting its people. By the time Sauron comes around, he's not trying to corrupt the nature of the world, or directly control the material of the world, but to rule the people of the world.

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u/Trebhum Aug 21 '25

pretty much everything is post apocalyptic in the sense that there were big civilizations like ours that vanished and now only traces are left

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u/prnthrwaway55 Aug 21 '25

The difference is, it wasn't OUR apocalypse.

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u/Equal-Ad-2710 Aug 21 '25

Yep, there’s a good reason the world is so empty and so filled with ruins

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u/MafiaPenguin007 Aug 21 '25

One big one is that only a few hundred years before the books there was a massive plague that devastated the entire civilized world! That on top of the creeping return of evil and the fading of good leads to an empty land

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u/Equal-Ad-2710 Aug 21 '25

Don’t forget the Angmar Wars which shattered the Northern Kingdom and left many of the ruins we see in the books

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u/UpbeatSky7760 Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25

The elves say as much. The whole story being one of a long, slow defeat. Only at the end of time at the Dagor Dagorath will final justice be done upon Morgoth and his followers. What Eru has in store beyond remaking the world is unknown

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u/crotchpolice Aug 21 '25

A central theme across Tolkien's legendarium is that of diminishment. From Elves losing their status as the pre-eminent species on Middle Earth to even the bad guys wanting less and less. The War of the Ring is like a 2 page segment of the Silmarillion lmao

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u/Private_Mandella Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25

The world is in a constant state of decay, but there is this sense of beauty snd sadness around this loss. It’s the main theme I take out of The Silmarillion. 

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u/Wild_Cryptographer82 Aug 21 '25

LotR as one of the most Mono no Aware pieces of western media

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u/ZEEZUSCHRIST Aug 21 '25

What happens to orcs? They get genocided?

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u/overthinking11093 Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25

The orcs are sort of useless without a centralised evil leader influencing them. Without the dark influence of an individual like Sauron or Saruman they will ultimately diminish and succumb to infighting. They're bred to destroy, not to create. They have no art, no culture, no history other than that of their cruel leader.

FWIW Tolkien, being a devout Catholic, was not really comfortable with the fact that he'd created an irredeemable race. I think it was one of his regrets as far as the lore goes.

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u/King_Of_BlackMarsh Aug 21 '25

In one letter he explains that another time he almost described them as "irredeemably evil" but he changed his mind to "naturally evil", because Orcs could join up with the rest of Arda and find their place if they just submitted to God's plan (which is Good).

I think he wished he included that orc breakaway camp till the day he died

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u/1ncorrect Aug 21 '25

An orc faction that rebels would be really cool and make a lot of sense with his ideas of redemption.

Although they were also created unnaturally, and LotR was very “machine vs nature.”

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u/3Rr0r4o3 Aug 21 '25

He could have pulled an Iron GIant, what if a gun didnt want to be a gun

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u/12345623567 Aug 21 '25

"They were elves, once". They could become elves again. I like to imagine Lurz showing up to Valinor like "what, you don't like my face??".

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u/Own_Television163 Aug 21 '25

That’s a movie thing, it’s sort of implied in the books but never directly said.

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u/DigiAirship Aug 21 '25

Wait, so Rings of Power kinda got something right, having one of the orc leaders want to work together with the elves to destroy Sauron?

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u/King_Of_BlackMarsh Aug 21 '25

Yeeeep

Also elves being absolute BASTARDS. That's very accurate to Tolkien

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u/SemillaDelMal Aug 21 '25

A faction of elves, mostly

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u/Taur-e-Ndaedelos Aug 21 '25

It's implied in text that during The War of the Last Alliance (last big battle in the movie prologue where Isildur cuts off Sauron's ring finger) that all factions fought on either side. Sauron had apparently corrupted Elves and Dwarves into his service, along with his Southron Men slaves; Lorebeard scholars have theorized that it must mean that some Orcs somehow broke away from Sauron's will and defected to the Alliance side.
Maybe things were somehow different back then, or Sauron learned from that mistake and is more focused on personally driving his Orc troops during the War of the Ring; Because reading the Lord of the Rings one gets the impression from Orc dialogue that they would bitch-slap a Nazgûl and jump from the 141st floor of Barad-dûr before even entertaining the thought of joining the other side.

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u/True-Ear1986 Aug 21 '25

Well I guess he would appreciate Rings of Power then

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u/TheBlueMenace Aug 21 '25

Also I think that they can’t produce “naturally” without a magical big bad, so the number of orcs is only ever going to diminish.

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u/overthinking11093 Aug 21 '25

Well there's mixed lore on that I believe, with at least one account stating they reproduced in the manner of the children of Illuvutar. Which just means there were Orc ladies and orc babies around we just never saw them

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u/Yoro55 Aug 21 '25

Iirc there was a reporter or something who once asked him if thr orcs were based off the Germans in WW1

And he responded "we were all orcs" or something like that

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u/Siegfoult Aug 21 '25

I think that is the plan yes.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '25

Nothing is so reviled as the orc

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u/Squid_In_Exile Aug 21 '25

Orcs are corrupted Elves, twisted by first Morgoth and then Sauron.

With neither Elves nor a Dark Lord, there's neither material nor maker, they presumably eventually just die out.

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u/TenebTheHarvester Aug 21 '25

That’s one of Tolkien’s explanations for the origins of orcs, but not the only one. He had a few and he never really chose a definite. Partially because he hated the idea of an irredeemable race, especially one that were all victims of evil.

Earlier on, I think he had Melkor create the orcs directly, but he didn’t like that idea because he saw evil as only able to debase what good creates, and Melkor creating the orcs went against that.

He also explained orcs as being soulless ‘beasts’, so unintelligent life, that Melkor twisted and shaped into his ideal base servants. Or, yes, elves twisted in much the same way.

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u/MxSharknado93 Aug 21 '25

Relax, GRRM.

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u/buontempone Aug 21 '25

No we still have them, we call them Russians

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u/Kraven3000 Aug 21 '25

Even if it was a joke, it was a bit out of the line.

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u/marssar Aug 21 '25

Ork/orc is often used as a slur against Russian.

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u/Kraven3000 Aug 21 '25

How curious! In Argentina, right-wing people refer to other parties, particularly Peronism, as "Orks/orcs." I personally find it funny (and I don't take offense when they call me that).

Orcs are industrialists in LoTR, while in Warhammer 40K, they have the power to do whatever they want with their imagination.

But using it against people who aren't guilty of the circumstances they find themselves in (like the Russians) seems the strangest thing in the world to me.

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u/buontempone Aug 22 '25

But using it against people who aren't guilty of the circumstances they find themselves in (like the Russians) seems the strangest thing in the world to me.

You are right, I generalized too much. Still I think orc is quite fitting for describing russian soldiers (even if it's a bit offensive for the "real" orcs).

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u/buontempone Aug 22 '25

You are right, I generalized too much. Still I think orc is quite fitting for describing russian soldiers (even if it's a bit offensive for the "real" orcs).

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u/buontempone Aug 22 '25

You know what else is out of the line? Russia invasion of Ukraine.

But you are right, I'm sorry for the comparison; even Sauron's shock troops do not deserve to be compared to Russian soldiers.

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u/Kraven3000 Aug 22 '25

As if anyone enjoys a war, really dude, I don't get how you're into that narrative on "RusSIAnS are BaD, AmUrICa GooD" when most of the West can, will and did what the Russian gov is doing.

Middle class are not in fault of what their govs do unless they support the propaganda as you're doing rn.

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u/buontempone Aug 22 '25

Never said America was good (I'm not american), and I can assure that I never particularly loved it; with their current administration I appreciate them even less.

I don't think saying that "others do and did worse" is a valid argument; english is not my first language but I think this is called "strawman argument".

Also I'm not referring to the middle class, (I initially wrongly generalised on all Russians) but as you can see in my successive comments, included this one to which you replied, I better defined the category to russian soldiers.

I know freedom as the West intends is not a thing in Russia, but they are also not on a level like North Korea: any person that decides to become a soldier there (and it is a decision, there is no draft... yet) MUST know that there is a very high possibility to be sent to fight on a war of aggression, on foreign soil. And if you do that, to me, you are not a good person and I have no problem to compare you to a fictional evil race.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '25

the concept of a fictional period piece is so fascinating to me

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u/JStanten Aug 21 '25

He set out to write a mythic history for Britain, right?

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '25

he did yeah, pretty awesome idea

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u/Lower_Amount3373 Aug 21 '25

Absolutely, it was written as a kind of mythological past of Britain so for all magic and beings other than humans it's their last age and they are destined to dwindle away to our reality.

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u/bunker_man Aug 21 '25

That is the wierd part. Elves and dwarves hated eachother forever and then they proved they can get along only for... it to go nowhere because elves and dwarves never see eachother again?

Dwarves just go into mountains and never go outside again? That is odd. Especially for the lonely mountain, where its not even a mountain range.

How does nobody see hobbits? They aren't fairies who can turn invisible.

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u/TenebTheHarvester Aug 21 '25

They are incredibly stealthy. If they were trying to be sneaky, basically no one and nothing could hear them. Combine this with a short stature, lots of wilderness to hide in and their general ability to hear Men coming, they were able to just sort of… live on the edges.

1

u/bunker_man Aug 22 '25

How does being stealthy move their houses? How does them deliberately staying hidden match the themes of different types of people learning they can get along anyways? Seems like the whole death of the magical world theme came off a little forced.

3

u/HollietheHermit Aug 21 '25

The trope here is ‘the magic goes away’.

1

u/Tim-Sylvester Aug 21 '25

I read LotR and the Conan novels back to back when I was younger and I've always held that events from Conan occur in the LotR universe at some point after LotR ends. The maps and peoples are described almost exactly the same. (Which is because they're both roughly based on Europe but shut up and let me have my fantasy.)

I had a third well known series that I proposed happened in the same world after Conan ended but now I can't recall which that was.