The Decision to Croak.

[Boromir88]

Sorry for the bad title, I just like the word "croak." Anyway, I want to know the significance (if there is any) in Tolkien's characters just deciding to croak? What I mean is, there are characters (that I will get to in a minute) that I guess feel their lives are fulfilled and just decide, "Ok it's time to kick over."

For instance, Aragorn takes the Numenorean "right" in deciding when to die, so he croaks on March 1st 1541.

Then Arwen all depressed goes to Lorien and croaks.

Merry and Pippin go to their respective Kingdoms that they served and spend their last months there and croak.

Sam after his time as mayor is done goes to Aman. Sam at the time I think was approaching 100, which means Frodo (if still alive and I assume so) was around 110. Meaning they would probably croak soon.

So, what's with Tolkien's characters travelling to a place, and then shortly croaking? Have they reached fulfillment in their lives and so they go to their own special place of rest (like Merry to Rohan, Pippin to Gondor, Arwen to Lorien) then shortly after just decide to croak, since they have fulfilled their life? What's the special significance/theme behind this (if there is any that is)? Just seems too coincidental that Tolkien has all these characters go to their own place that means something special to them and soon decide to kick the bucket.

[Alchisiel]

I think the reason Arwen went to Lothlorien to die is that is where she and Aragorn fell in love. It had a lot of memories for her. I think that's the same reason Pippin and Merry went to Gondor/Rohan. There were a lot of memories there for them and they both were very honored "guests" so why not go back there? I think it's the same as when someone dies and is cremated they want their ashes placed in the ocean or placed on a particular piece of land that was special to them.

With Merry and Pippin they might have reached the fullfillment of their lives and so they left the Shire. I don't know. I think with Arwen the sorrow she felt was so great that she didn't want to live anymore. I'm sure there is a special signifigance to it but someone smarter than me will have to figure that out.

Just my thoughts.

[Firefoot]

I don't think it's so much that they all go places so that they can die so much as they go places because they are going to die. (I hope that makes sense.) To go through each of your examples:

Aragorn: by most standards, Aragorn was pretty darn old (more than 200); he was a mortal man and he was going to die; Aragorn recognized this. If you recall, one of the downfalls of the Numenoreans was that they began to start trying to make their lives longer and longer, though this did not work. It was a lot more noble of him to die peacefully and willingly than to try and cling to his last years, slowly becoming a crazy, helpless old man, a shadow of his former self, whereas this way he was "an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world." I think that you are right that some of it is that he felt his life fulfilled. He was getting too old to do much good to anybody, and he would not be leaving his kingdom helpless; his son was perfectly ready to be king. He was simply ready to die. Aragorn's death is one of my favorite pieces of Tolkien's writing.

As for Arwen, the whole reason she stayed in Middle-earth was because of Aragorn. She certainly wasn't needed in Gondor by anyone; she had no reason left to stick around. So she went to the one place left that held real meaning and comfort to her - Cerin Amroth, where she and Aragorn were engaged. She just didn't have any reason left to live. Her case is one where a character went someplace for the purpose of dying.

In Merry and Pippin's case, I like Alchisiel's comparison of a person wanting to be cremated when they die, though I don't think that's all of it. Like Aragorn, they were getting to be pretty old - anything over a hundred was considered a pretty ripe age for Hobbits - and they were going to be dying soon. Like Aragorn, they weren't really needed anymore, and they probably wanted to see all their other friends one more time and say farewell to them before they died. These other places and people would have meant just as much to them as the Shire and their hobbit friends and relatives.

Sam, of course, was originally quite torn up by Frodo's leaving him, but he went back to the Shire and lived a pretty full life (13 kids, for Pete's sake), but he was getting old, too old to be mayor any more, (notice a theme?), and his Rosie had died. There wasn't anything holding him in the Shire anymore; it was time for him to go to Frodo, his beloved friend and master.

The major theme that I'm seeing here is an acceptance of death and dying; living life to its fullest but not being afraid to let it go when the time comes. It's because of this acceptance that the characters do go places and tie up the loose ends. It shows a certain maturity and nobility in the characters that they do not go on living just for the sake of being alive enough to breathe - and then only to die witless in their beds. There is no point, much less any honor, in dying this way. By accepting their deaths, the characters are able to live their last years happily and die peacefully.

[Guinevere]

I agree with everything Firefoot has said.
(Though I thought it rather hard on Arwen - at the point when Aragorn laid down his life, she wasn't ready to go yet - only after he had died she saw that she couln't go on living on ME without him. Wouldn't it have been better for her to die by his side?)

One other person to take "a last journey" is Gimli !
He was 261 years old when he sailed West with Legolas. (which is about as old as Dwarves get when not prematurely killed, judging by the Line of the Dwarves of Erebor)
And his motive was probably to see Galadriel once more before he died.

btw I was really puzzled by the title of this thread!
(Croak?? I thought that was the sound frogs make... what connection is there with dying?)

[Boromir88]

Some excellent replies so far by everyone :thumbs up:. Just wanted to make one thing more clear...

(Croak?? I thought that was the sound frogs make... what connection is there with dying?)

It's more of a improper slang term. Yes, it's the sound that frogs make. Kind of like a squawk. But it's also a slang term to die/pass away, bite the dust...one of those sayings. (Dictionary.com)

[Lalwendë]

Isn't Death somewhat different for Aragorn compared to other mortals? He is descended from the Numenoreans who originally were given the 'gift' of choosing when to give up their lives - which as a result could be very long; it was when the Numenorean kings started to resent the need to make a choice on when to die that their lives started to become shorter anyway - thus taking the decision to love a long life away from them anyway.

I'm not sure that it says anywhere in the text whether Merry and Pippin had grown physically old by the time they left for the south and their deathbeds - it doesn't even say whether they died at the same time. As far as we know they simply knew they were getting old and so decided to spend their last years elsewhere, eventually to be buried there.

It does seem that Aragorn did remain relatively 'youthful', much as the old Numenorean kings may have done, and like a good king, he did not shirk taking the decision of when it may be the right time to make way for his son. I do find it interesting that while Aragorn fully accepts that he must make this decision and he accepts it with good grace, Arwen finds it much more difficult and lingers for quite some time, as though she can't quite shake off what she had accepted through the long years before meeting Aragorn would be her 'fate' as an Elf.

[Firefoot]

I do find it interesting that while Aragorn fully accepts that he must make this decision and he accepts it with good grace, Arwen finds it much more difficult and lingers for quite some time, as though she can't quite shake off what she had accepted through the long years before meeting Aragorn would be her 'fate' as an Elf.

I agree. I think that this has something to do with the fact that because Aragorn was born mortal, he had always had some notion of death; his father died when he was very young, and he had the experience of his mother's death, as well as numerous others of friends and kin. Maybe death was more of a fact of life to Aragorn than to Arwen - it was one thing for her to say, "Yes, I'll remain mortal with you," and quite another for her to experience it. She did not have the same experience with death as Aragorn - she spent her time with the Elves, and even when she lost her mother, Celebrian didn't die; she "just" passed into the West. She parted with Elrond, but he still lived. She even says it herself:

"But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."

Even though Arwen had accepted the reality of mortality, she still seemed to view it with a distanced Elvish perspective.

[Lalwendë]

Arwen has a very special position as she was given the 'choice' - and she would have had this choice even if she had not met and fallen in love with Aragorn - that as the daughter of Elrond, the Half-Elven, she would one day need to decide whether she would be mortal or not. Well, meeting Aragorn seems to have decided this for her, even though it must have been incredibly difficult to accept the eventual loss of her family. I wonder if the actual 'change' to mortality, if there was such a thing, took place at the moment of her decision to die? She lingered for some time, but she was not Numenorean like Aragorn so she did not share that 'gift' of a mortal long life, surely?

[Firefoot]

She wasn't Numenorean, but she was still part Elvish, and I'm sure that would have contributed to her longevity of life. My guess is that, though she made her decision a while ago, she could still have changed her mind to be Elvish up to the point when the gray ships left at the end of the Third Age. I don't think that the change to mortality was an immediate thing but much more gradual. At first perhaps quickened aging, then maybe becoming more prone to hurts and sicknesses, before eventually dying. But just because she chose mortality wouldn't have meant that she gave up all her Elvish attributes - I highly doubt that she was as vulnerable to sickness as Men, and she still would have lived a fairly long life, I suppose.

[radagastly]

First, about Arwen. I've always believed that Arwen's CHOICE was made when she laid herself down and died. Until then, she still could have chosen to take a ship to Valinor and remain immortal. I've always believed that her journey to Lorien was when she did her "soul-searching" to decide whether she would die or take a ship to the West. There was the pull of "Arda" trying to keep her alive, and her love for Aragorn pulling her away to see him again, beyond the Veil, in the Void.

As for the general decision to "croak," I think there is an inevitable "disconnection" with the world as it is. What I mean is that the older you get, the less you understand where society is at, and where it is going. I realize that sounds rather cynical, but I think about my grandparents. When my father's parents were first married, they lived in a (rented) log cabin without any plumbing or floors. Grandpa hunted and Grandma went into the woods to gather berries and other edibles. They grew a garden for the veggies etc. By the time my Grandmother died, humans had walked on the Moon, and this Internet site existed (and, in fact, I was already a member, under another name). That's a huge transition. I can only think that, eventually, you just can't keep up. It's time to go away and leave room for the people who can deal with it better than you can. Arwen is an exception. She does not fit the rule.

As for Merry and Pippin, I'm not so sure they "chose" to give up the ghost so much as they knew it was soon to be their time. There is nothing like age to realize that you long for those "college" days when you were young and healthy and (dare I say it, sexy!) The scars of a life create aches and pains that never really heal. They're imprinted on your soul, and you become more cautious, more wary. In the meantime, the World continues to progress. People's concerns just aren't what they were during the 'dark times." To dare quote (or misquote) Dylan Thomas (I'm not sure,) "You can't go home again."

You eventually just can't understand what thing's are about in the world you are living in, and it's time to go. If you did undersand, you wouldn't be ready to leave yet.

How depressing is it to realize that eventually, the world will out-grow you, and your only option is to turn away from it, to leave it entirely.

I can only quote Gandalf from "The Last Debate" in RotK.

Other evils there are that may come, for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherin we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

[Lalwendë]

I suppose there could be two ways of looking at Arwen's choice. Firstly, we could say that her choice to be mortal or Elven was linked to whether or not she wished to remain in Middle-earth. Arwen and her brothers were in a unique position as children of Elrond, who had been half-Elven and who had already made his decision. Part of the decision he made also involved accepting that as an Elf his 'natural' home would be the Undying Lands and accepting that one day he would go there. So we might say that Arwen's decision hung on whether or not she wished to go to the Undying Lands. Of course if she did, then after Aragorn's death they would be forever parted until the end of the world.

Or we could also look at it through Tolkien's ideals about marriage as a binding sacrament. Once Arwen had consummated her marriage to Aragorn would she be bound to him and therefore mortal? This seems like the most straightforward answer but then it raises questions of how the relationship betwen her hroa and fea could be altered by such a choice as that would be to fundamentally alter her nature.

Also why did she linger on if she had become mortal by marrying Aragorn? As I've said, she was not of Numenorean blood so presumably she did not have the same 'gift' which Aragorn possessed of being able to choose the moment of death. Wouldn't she age as any ordinary mortal woman might? This suggests to me that either she was 'gifted' herself with that choice. Would such a thing be permissible?

[Raynor]

Also why did she linger on if she had become mortal by marrying Aragorn?

Well, as an inner drive, she "was not yet weary of her days"; another explanation is that this was her fate (even if she did have the choice of Elros at hand), found in one of the variants of the story in The Third Age, HoME XII:

and it came to pass for her as Elrond foretold that she would not leave the world until she had lost all for which she made her choice

[Lalwendë]

and it came to pass for her as Elrond foretold that she would not leave the world until she had lost all for which she made her choice

That's an odd quote. We might assume that she would have left then, once her own children had aged and died, but her son (and daughters?) were still alive when she left for Lorien and death - as they too would be what she had made her choice for. Although in any case, she would have to decide to leave them behind, just as Aragorn had to. That, I would guess, is one of the hardest aspects of having to choose when to die - the knowledge that you will have to say goodbye to your family.

[Raynor]

Well, she made the choice of Luthien at the time of her wedding with Aragorn, at which moment her children weren't necessarily an existing motivation.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Well, she made the choice of Luthien at the time of her wedding with Aragorn, at which moment her children weren't necessarily an existing motivation.

Well, one would have to ask whether she had sufficient foresight to know that she would have children - if she did then one would have to assume that they would have played a part in her decision.

I think children would have been assumed anyway, & transmission of her divine blood to future generations was also a part of her motivation.

I stated on another thread my own thoughts on Arwen's decision:http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...0&postcount=13