Closure (Redux)

In my mind's eye, I still look upon the great climax of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. In the last section of that book, entitled The Return of the King, we see the defeat of Sauron, as mad Gollum falls into Orodruin and brings the Great Ring with him into the fires of creation.

The eagles are coming. The hosts of Sauron are scattered. The Servants of the Ring, once feared through all the lands of Middle-Earth — they are turned to shadows and dust.

And yet, as Brian Duffy says in Tim Powers's The Drawing of the Dark, "Much has been lost, and there is much yet to lose."

Certain things have gone on too long. Saruman's foul experiments and his corruption of the halflings have sequelae that must be dealt with. Though he was cast out of the Order and his staff broken, his poisonous tongue still holds power. The snake pit needs to be cleansed, the captives must be freed from the dungeons that they allowed to be built.

Having read the novel, we remember that the true heartbreak comes at the end, when the hobbits return to their homeland and find that it is scarred, damaged, corrupted beyond belief. They must fight to bring sanity and wholesomeness to what was lost and broken. And some wounds, as has been said before, will never heal until the ending of the world.