Can someone explain to me where men go when they die?

Can someone explain to me where men go when they die?

It's not Valinor, correct?

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m.youtube.com/watch?v=KXVtpOHQqvY
youtube.com/watch?v=4QfHKv86gRQ
youtube.com/watch?v=I-wtm2vVXns
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they just die, user

Apparently Tolkien wrote in a letter, that human spirits leave Middle-Earth upon death, and it was phrased (surprise surprise) in a very Christian way.

So basically this: youtube.com/watch?v=AZQxH_8raCI

They go beyond Ea, beyond the Halls of Mandos, the Doomsman of Valar.

I think that a lot of fans have basically said that humans, the ones who never chose the Shadow (Morgoth's or Sauron's), would go on to be by Iluvatar's side, to sing with him into creation the next world that comes after Ea, after Dagor Dagorath.

They go to the Halls of Mandos, the Valar (god) of Death. There they sit around and wait for the end of the world, whereupon they will cease to exist. However, some Elves reincarnate (as themselves) and return with wisdom from the Valar for their kin. Also, some elves refuse the Call, and become wraiths. These spirits are extremely evil and incredibly dangerous, in olden times human necromancers would summon them to gain their secrets but this almost always ends with the elven soul (it's "faer") possessing the human and easily crushing his puny mortal faer, becoming an undead abomination.

That sounds like hopeful speculation.

For all we no they just slink off into nothingness and darkness and their "soul" doesn't exist anymore.

>men

Wait I thought you meant Elves. Humans go to Eur, the One, the Creator god. What happens to them then is unknown, but given Tolkien was Catholic, some kind of heaven is probably to be expected. Humans spirits lack the power to refuse the call, but very occasionally they may be cursed to remain as impotent shades, as with the dead Men of Dunharrow.

>the elven soul (it's "faer") possessing the human and easily crushing his puny mortal faer, becoming an undead abomination.

This is the case with the "barrow wights" from the Old Forest, they're the bodies of ancient human kings possessed by body-less elvish spirits.

Fea, fear is the plural.

Technically correct, the best KIND of correct! Have an electromechanical Messiah.

Post your favorite track from the soundtrack:

youtube.com/watch?v=kH9ZDFBI1EU

山に埋めてさようなら

と読むんだよ芋と同じで育って増えたら掘りおこそうって事だ、ドワーフは楽しみと言ってただろ

I really like this version.
youtube.com/watch?v=UbU0n8E4Hcc

Not fond of that ending.

I'm not familiar with that dragon, but I'm curious.
What franchise/character is that?

Ancalagon, from Silmarillion.

Largest winged dragon that ever existed.

Oh!
It's just that with all the powerlevel nonsense graphs I've see in the past few months, I thought this was semi-literal, and was from some sort of Space-Fantasy story.

Thanks for clarifying.

Nah, it's just plain old Ancalagonposting.

>Largest winged dragon that ever existed.

So is there a larger, non-winged dragon? Or did you just needlessly say add winged.

Most drawings massively exaggerate his size though.

Valinor (the name of the continent is actually Aman) is not Heaven, nor does it actually make one immortal. It's called the Undying Lands because those who are already immortal reside there. As for what happens to men when they die - they do go to the Halls of Mandos for a time, but what happens after - nobody knows, not even the Valar.

Yeah, in fact it makes mortals die faster since they're closer to the true powers.

>Valinor (the name of the continent is actually Aman) is not Heaven

Bilbo referred to it as such.


Day is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!

It's probably the Hall of Illuvatar

Not him, and I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's hardly proof of anything.

People, fictional characters included tend to take poetic license while writing poems.

>I'll find the heavens fair and free
I'm fairly sure he's referring to the sky here.
Well, Aman is sort of like Heaven for a mortal, the Valar reside there and all, but it's not the afterlife.

First, it doesn't have capital letter, so it's a generic paradise that exists in several religions and second, Bilbo's poems were 'translated' over the ages until they reached us, so the 'translator' obviously used the words closest to his and our understanding.

>First, it doesn't have capital letter, so it's a generic paradise that exists in several religions and second, Bilbo's poems were 'translated' over the ages until they reached us, so the 'translator' obviously used the words closest to his and our understanding.

It would be lower case regardless of whether or not it was the real "Heaven" because from Bilbo's perspective it would never be referenced like that as a proper noun, but as simply "Valinor" or "The Undying Lands" which is it's proper name in his native tongue.

They go to the Halls of Mandos for a short while to dwell on their earthly life before leaving to parts unknown. But since Tolkien was a hardcore Catholic, I think we can presume that Men join Iluvatar in the Timeless Halls, IE Heaven.

This is sort of implied when Aragorn tells Arwen that "In sorrow we must go but not in despair, we are not forever bound to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

Interestingly, the idea of Hell doesn't seem to exist either. Evil men probably stay at the Halls of Mandos for a longer period of time, sort of like Purgatory but without the cleansing fires.

Is there religion in the ME? Whom do dwarves, men, hobbits worship?

The existence of a human afterlife is further reinforced by the debate between Hurin and Morgoth.

"This last I say to you, thrall Morgoth," said Hurin, "and it comes not from the lore of the Eldar, but is put into my heart this hour. You are not the Lord of Men, and shall not be, though all Arda and Menel fall in your dominion. Beyond the Circles of the World you shall not pursue those who refuse you.

Beyond the Circles of the World I will not pursue them," said Morgoth. "For beyond the Circles of the World there is Nothing. But within them they shall not escape me, until they enter into Nothing."
"You lie," said Hurin.
"You shall see and you shall confess that I do not lie," said Morgoth."

Now since more or less everything Morgoth say is bullshit, It's safe to say that Men have an afterlife.

Wasn't there some door into a black void where Morgoth, Sauron and maybe Saruman ended up when their power was broken? Although that's more like getting kicked off the edge of the world than Hell.

Tolkien didn't want there to be a religion per se, so there's no worshipping, just acknowledging the existence of higher powers and their effects on your life. And praises to them, but those are more like you'd praise your ruler or something along those lines.
When actual religion/worship was present, it was a bad thing. See: anything that has to do with Melkor.

Sauron and Saruman remained bound to Arda. Melkor was probably orbiting somewhere.

Door of the Night?

Those are located in the Uttermost West.

There's no such thing as an organized religion, though they do worship. Dwarves worship their creator Aule whom they call "Mahal" or "Maker". Elves don't actively worship Eru Iluvatar but his name is part of their wedding vows.

The Numenoreans worshipped Eru directly on the peak of Numenor's highest mountain from time to time. But this stopped when the Numenoreans became corrupted and converted to the worship of Morgoth.

Third Age men and hobbits worship no one. The Rohirrim sort of worship (or at least know of) the Vala Oromë who they call "Béma".

On another note, perhaps "worship" is the wrong word. "Venerate" better describes their relationship with the godly powers.

The Void is what I would call a Spirit Prison. See it as the Tolkien equivalent of Dante's Judecca. Only the biggest sinners and evildoers end up there.

they don't go to heaven where the angels fly

Where did Ungoliant come from exactly?

It seems like Ungoliant is a piece of the Void brought into Middle Earth that Melkor might have given some sentience to.

That would explain why she could kick his ass.

A side-effect and also embodiment of Melkor's discord. She's greedy, prideful and gluttonous and vomits pure darkness with a hate for everything but herself. She's more of a force of nature than an actual being. Like an evil Tom Bombadil.

Yes, Glaurung the Father of Dragons was even more HUGE.

That song is about Elendil, the Elvish mariner who sailed to Valinor using a Silmaril.

Just Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman were condemned to eternity as powerless and body-less spirits.

Isn't Elendil Numenorian?

Highly doubtful. In fact, I'm just going to say you're wrong.

>eternity
Not really, since they're bound to Arda.

lads anyone got a screencap of the "mënüë" funny shit about the menu meme

Yes, he meant Earendil.

Yes he was, I meant Earendil.

>Elendil, the Elvish mariner
RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE

it's Eärendil and he's half-elven

Literally a Black Hole that has taken physical form.

She devours every small piece of light that even comes close to her, and her hunger and thirst is endless. She spews forth darkness that kills all light. She has no endgame or overall plan, she just wants to absorb things to feed her own emptiness.

>half-elven

No such thing, half elves choose whether to become fully Elvish or fully human. Earendil chose Elven like his son Elrond, his other son Elros chose human and consequentially died long ago.

...

...

...

Why are Sup Forums LOTR threads always so great and full of discussion on the lore and such?

Because lotr is comfy and about friendship and the importance of trees and songs and brotherhood. It rubs off on you, I unironically love everyone in this thread.

I am literally crying. This thread and other lotr threads like it, are all that remains of intelligent life on Sup Forums. Lost. All lost. A whisper of a shadow of long lost glory.

Two of my favourite illustrations. The descriptions of the Gates in The Book of Lost Tales are amazing.

Eh there's always /tg/.

>The descriptions of the Gates in The Book of Lost Tales are amazing.

Man, I'd love to own the complete History of Middle-Earth, but that fucking price-tag.

Hopefully, there's something somewhat affordable at this year's book fair in my city.

>That song is about Elendil, the Elvish mariner who sailed to Valinor using a Silmaril.

Wat.

Nigger it's about Bilbo leaving Middle Earth as he sets out from the Grey Havens.

If you're not obsessed with having the exact same editions for every volume, you can get them for about $9 or 10 from a site that even offers free shipping.

I live in the Balkans, so free shipping is something that tends to not cover my particular neck of the woods.

Book Depository is about one of the few sites who actually mean "free shipping".

But also, there's the problem of border control and the ludicrous taxes they can slap on you, that can often enough cost you more than the product you ordered online.

No, really, they're fucking retards who can't tell the worth of something, and they often don't bother to look it up online, so they just slap you with some random numbers.

I like Book Depository, but doesn't "free shipping" usually simply mean adjusting the prices to include shipping costs? Would be nice if that's not the case.

I don't know about any others, but BD never charged me anything more than what the book's price was stated to be on the site itself.

You misunderstood. I mean the shipping costs are already included in the price.

Oh that.

I don't think that's the case either, considering I compared the prices via multiple websites.

Kinda like real life.

Nope.

Sup Forums trilogy stream when

he was good friends with CS lewis.

How does it make you feel that lotr was made by a christian?

Pretty good actually.
Only people who either didn't read the books or read it when their balls haven't dropped yet don't know that the entire series is an ode to the spirit of humanity as defined by Christian values.

Not a Christian myself, but as far as Christianity inspired works go, Tolkien's books are damn good.

By the by, for the folks who are knowledgeable about the film trilogy, wasn't there 2 different versions of them? I'm not talking about theatrical and extended, but rather the difference in color filters. Like, I saw this one old .gif where Sauron is smashing Elves and Men at the beginning, but the sky is blue/dark blue, but in the regular stuff I saw it was more like sepia tinted or something.

>tfw can't even find a good torrent for the extended trilogy on either KAT or TPB

I really should look into getting in PTP sometime soon.

>These spirits are extremely evil and incredibly dangerous, in olden times human necromancers would summon them to gain their secrets but this almost always ends with the elven soul (it's "faer") possessing the human and easily crushing his puny mortal faer, becoming an undead abomination

[citation needed]

yeah that's very true, I never thought of it like that

>I really should look into getting in PTP sometime soon.
rutracker you fucking idiot
and there are good torrents on regular trackers

It was real in his mind.

youtube.com/watch?v=4xf-X5KTMKU

Doesn't RT have dubbed stuff for the most part?

Dunno if this counts. I just always really liked these parts in the movies.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=KXVtpOHQqvY

youtube.com/watch?v=4QfHKv86gRQ

It might have been the blu-Ray vs the DVDs; they messed with filters a lot on that one.

Impossible to choose a favourite, really, but this one I really like:
youtube.com/watch?v=I-wtm2vVXns

This too
youtube.com/watch?v=hSoR43Pq79g

Let's get some music here
youtube.com/watch?v=uTdslTHloFM

How did LOTR succeed in being so good? It was a true work of love and passion unlike most fantasy movies. The amazing music, good performances, incredible sets and costumes... Will anything ever beat LotR?

No, dual audio more like.

Because the people who worked on the trilogy put their heart and soul into it. Because they thought it was worth giving a damn.

Now?

Well, all you have to look at that Hobbit abomination and see what's the result of not giving a shit.

youtube.com/watch?v=NT5-ZLJTi0I

best one coming through. Simplistic and full of feeling, while music from Tolkien's inspiration tends to be overdone and unnecessarily baroque.

Would you kindly link me a torrent with one that's got decent quality of sound and video without it being bloated up to shit and beyond?

But wasn't the Hobbit mess because Del Toro left and then they didn't have enough time to fix it?

>But wasn't the Hobbit mess because Del Toro left and then they didn't have enough time to fix it?

Yep. People blame Peter Jackson but he didn't even want to make it but was roped in after Del Taco left and the studio then said "lol you get no pre-production" which, by his own admission, left him scrambling to shoot shit while winging everything.

I mean consider that the LOTR had like 2 years of pre-production, with everything meticulously storyboarded, the props and set largely made, and the various teams ahead of work and prepared with a clear vision of what they were going to be making.

Although Peter isn't entirely innocent, as he likes CGI too much.

Came here to post this. Passing of the Elves is a great track. Sad they cut the scene out of the theatrical version, but I guess out of any movie, the extended editions of LOTR are also considered on the same level.

Also, Bridge of Kazad Dhum from Fellowship is a second favorite.

What do you think happened to Gollum after his death?

Were his 'sins' forgiven?

Not sure if they've been posted but youtube.com/watch?v=mpELe90QuLg and youtube.com/watch?v=JgcoBKWTW14 are objectively the best songs of the entire magnificent score.

He probably went to the void like I imagine the Ring Wraiths did, or his spirit just travels around aimlessly and powerlessly like Sauron's.

He was a mortal, so he just went wherever mortals go.

I could arrange this at some point if enough people are interested

reply if you are