The Lord of the Rings: Sauron is dead – what now? This is how things continued in Middle-earth in the Fourth Age

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER

January 18, 2024 at 7:32 p.m

The end of “The Lord of the Rings” also marks the end of the Third Age. But what happened to King Aragorn and the hobbits in Middle-earth afterwards?

At the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Aragorn is crowned king, Frodo leaves Middle-earth and sails to Valinor, and the Third Age ends. But what happened in the fourth age? While JRR Tolkien summarized much of the first three ages of Middle-earth in detail, his books and other writings rarely discussed subsequent events.

The First and Second Ages of Middle-earth were discussed in, among other things, “The Silmarillion,” and Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” series “The Rings of Power” also takes place in the Second Age. “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” however, take place at the end of the Third Age, which spans 3,021 years. But even without a fourth “The Lord of the Rings” novel or film, it is still possible to say how Middle-earth developed after the final defeat of Sauron.

The Reunited Kingdom

Aragorn was crowned King of Gondor, but his domain was actually much larger. Gondor was once just a part of the larger kingdom of Arnor, which collapsed at the beginning of the Third Age. Elendil once founded Arnor, Isildur ruled after him and so Aragorn is not only the rightful ruler of Gondor, but of all of Arnor.

Therefore, Aragorn took Arnor again and fought with his army for all the areas that once belonged to Arnor. This is how the Reunited Kingdom came into being, where Aragorn ruled with Arwen at his side until he died at the age of 210.

The Age of Man

In the first two ages of Middle-earth, Elves were the dominant race, but that changed in the Third Age. Many elves moved to Valinor, others stayed behind in Middle-earth, for example in Rivendell or Lothlórien. When their magical rings lost their effectiveness due to the death of Sauron, the last elves headed for Valinor in the Fourth Age.

Things were also slowly coming to an end with the dwarves because they simply had too few children. Only a third of the dwarves were women and many dwarven women had no interest in marriage and children, causing the dwarves to become extinct in Middle-earth.

Peace for the Shire

Even though humans dominated the Fourth Age, hobbits continued to exist. After a brief reign of terror by Lotho Sackheim-Baggins, Saruman and their thugs, the Shire of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin was liberated after the War of the Ring and peace returned.

Frodo’s return did not last long as he soon departed for Valinor, leaving Middle-earth behind him, but his hobbit companions remained in the Shire for many years. With Rosie, Sam had thirteen children and was elected mayor several times. After Rosie’s death, he set off for Valinor.

Merry also married and had at least one son, and he also wrote the book “Old Words and Names in the Shire”. Pippin, however, remained a bachelor and the two friends died together in old age in Gondor.

As king, Aragorn expanded the Shire and made it an independent part of his kingdom. In addition, people were now forbidden to enter the Shire in order to allow the hobbits to live a peaceful life.

The sequel that never really was

Tolkien was working on a sequel to “The Lord of the Rings”, but ended his work on the story after 13 pages, which he found “too bleak”. Nevertheless, “The New Shadow” provides further clues about Middle-earth after the death of Sauron – and even hints at his return…