The New Shadow: A Defense of Tolkien's Abandoned Sequel to The Lord of the Rings
As if one could somehow exhaust Tolkien’s stories from the dawning of the First Age to the closing of the Third, many of us still have an appetite for what might happen in Middle-earth following the demise of Sauron and the coronation of the rightful king of Gondor. If you fall into this category, you are not alone, as Tolkien himself began to tell this story - at least for about 13 pages. In a 1964 letter to Colin Bailey, here is what Tolkien had to say about this would-be sequel to The Lord of the Rings:
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.
With all due respect to Professor Tolkien, I disagree.
When I first discovered this abandoned idea, I thought Tolkien was right to end things where he did. Afterall, his grand story is a fairy tale in the truest sense, so it seems right that it would conclude with a final defeat of evil and triumph of good rather than a sense of endless meandering. As Tolkien argues in his essay, “On Fairy-stories,” such stories are a reflection of the true fairy story, or the true myth, to borrow Lewis’s language, of the Christian Gospel. Consequently, it makes sense that there is an eschatological element to the conclusion of his canon. However, I don’t believe this would be diminished by having the story continue onward, unless we had a “somehow Sauron returned” moment, or Aragorn became corrupted by power, or there was some other disappointing turn that undid the victory of Return of the King. The Ring was destroyed and the king took his throne. However, even Tolkien prophesied a final return and defeat of Morgoth in the end. In other words, we have no reason to believe that evil died with the Third Age.
In his synopsis of The New Shadow, Tolkien makes the point that Men would become discontented in their new order and desire a bit of chaos, whether merely for personal gain or for something more explicitly diabolical. While by no means unique to Tolkien, this wisdom concerning human nature could make for a compelling and admonishing story. We are creatures of change and, without a clear evil to overturn, we are inclined to pursue change in the wrong directions. Dostoevsky famously makes this point in Notes from Underground:
Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element.
Yesterday’s victory can often become the enemy of those who forget the myth to which it belongs. Instead of seeing peace and justice as the spoils of noble sacrifice, they become tyrants supposed to mitigate real “freedom,” whatever freedom is supposed to mean. The bigger story - the more real story - becomes lost as myopic vision is enamored by a vague potentiality born of the void. As Gandalf says in Unfinished Tales, “They had begun to forget: forget their own beginnings and legends, forget what little they had known about the greatness of the world.” Without the great beginning, legends, and the greatness of the world itself, people are prone to maximize the wrong things - often themselves.
Now, it may be argued that this is true, but also that it is simply not a story that needs to be told at this point in Tolkien’s legendarium. This certainly seems to be Tolkien’s conclusion. However, I believe it could have played an important role in linking Middle-earth with the current world. Many of you are likely already familiar with this element of Tolkien’s storytelling, but it’s worth stating that Tolkien sought to set his world within our own as an English mythology. Far from disrupting this continuity, a somewhat disenchanted Fourth Age story would serve to remind us of what happens when the great legends are forgotten. Would it be a dark and depressing story? Quite likely, but maybe we need a dark story that reminds us of what happens when we lose our sense of enchantment. Maybe we need a hero who learns the value of escape and recovery, of rediscovering the old paths with the hope that, even in the tundra of disillusioned despair, deep roots are not reached by the frost.
What are your thoughts? Was Tolkien right to abandon this story, or would it likely have been a valuable addition?
About the Author
Andrew Snyder holds a Ph.D. in theology with a dissertation on Søren Kierkegaard’s theology of self-formation. He is a professor of philosophy and theology, a contributing author to The Holy Spirit and the Reformation Legacy, the host of the Mythic Mind podcast, and the founder of the Mythic Mind Humanities Guild. You can follow him on Twitter @andrewnsnyder and subscribe to his personal Substack on The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien at Andrew N. Snyder.
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It’s hard to believe that more Tolkien stories of any kind would be a bad thing.
He may have been right *at the time* that the freshly optimistic Anglophone world couldn’t handle a depressing story about a subsequent fall of man. It might have come across as cynical or pessimistic. Maybe this is true. Pastoral, even.
But GOLLY we could use it now.