Tolkien, THE FORCE AWAKENS, and the Sadness of Expanded Universes
(some spoilers near the end of the post, though I try to be vague)
Not long after completing The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R.
Tolkien briefly began work on a sequel called The New Shadow, set
100 to 150 years later during the reign of Aragorn’s son Eldarion. (The main
link between the two stories is the minor character Beregond, the noble but
disgraced soldier of Gondor whose son, Borlas, would have been a major
character in The New Shadow.) The New Shadow reveals
that the eucatastrophic fairy-tale ending of The Return of the
King was extremely short-lived; with the Elves and the Wizards
gone from Middle-earth, the Dwarves moving underground, and the
Hobbits now isolated in what amounts to an enclave in the Shire, Men
are quickly falling back into their old bad habits. In fact the Men of
Gondor already seem to have forgotten much of the details of the War of the
Ring, even though it remains in living memory: they seem not to remember, or
take seriously, the fact that they once strode with gods and angels in a war
against pure evil, and were victorious. Instead, children play at being Orcs
for fun; the death of Elessar has been an occasion for political striving and
reactionary plots; and even something like a secret death cult of
devil-worshipping rebels seems to be spreading through the elites of Gondor.
Tolkien wrote 13 pages of it.
He later wrote:
I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the
Downfall, 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 around doing damage.
I could have written a ‘thriller’ about the plot and its discovery and
overthrow — but it would have been just that. Not worth doing.
https://gerrycanavan.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/tolkien-the-force-awakens-and-the-expanded-universe/
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