Lord of the Rings on Film

Lesson 5: The Return of the King

The end of the quest and the return home. The Grey Havens

Naturally there is much to celebrate once the eight Fellowship members are reunited. Not only has the quest succeeded, but the friends are delighted to see each other again, and Aragorn is now King of Gondor. At his coronation, Legolas smiles at him and steps back to reveal Arwen and Elrond – Arwen and Aragorn can marry at last.

The Gondorians bow to Aragorn, as do the hobbits who are stunned when Aragorn and Arwen, then everyone, kneels to them. Aragorn is now king and sings at his coronation:

Et Earello Endorenna utulien. Sinome maruvan are Hildinyar tenn Ambar-metta. [Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.]

The hobbits return home, thirteen months after the beginning of the quest. The scowls they get from a Shire resident are quite funny, as he clearly has no idea that his freedom has been saved by the four riding in front of him. The hobbits retire to the pub and are enjoying a very well-deserved drink when Sam sees Rosie Cotton and almost sends his seat flying in his haste to get to her. They are married shortly after.

Happily ever after, you would think, but Frodo cannot settle. In saving the Shire he has ensured that he cannot enjoy it – the memories and the burden of carrying the Ring are too great, and every year he is plagued by the wound received on Weathertop. He completes Bilbo’s Red Book with the story of the Lord of the Rings, and decides to go to the Grey Havens.

Merry, Pippin and Sam go with him, but do not at first realise that Frodo means to go with Gandalf and Bilbo. But Frodo is insistent, and after giving Sam the Red Book to finish, he boards the Ship with Gandalf, Bilbo, Elrond and Galadriel (Celeborn is also there although in the text he does not leave with Galadriel). The ship sails into the west.

Sam returns home, to Rosie and his children, and says, "Well, I’m back." They go into their hole and the door shuts behind them.

The book

In the book, the hobbits return to find that Saruman, under the alias Sharkey, has practically enslaved the Shire (a hint of this was given in the text of The Two Towers, when Aragorn is surprised to see the tobacco Longbottonm Leaf among the ruins of Isengard; he thinks that Saruman must be in league with someone in the Shire). But, as Gandalf points out to the hobbits, they are now trained to deal with situations like these, and certainly after facing Mordor and the Nazgul organising an uprising against men and hobbits seems like a small task. The hobbits duly raise the rest of their kin, and the Shire is reclaimed. Saruman is killed by Grima, who is then shot by a hobbit. The Shire goes back to its peaceful existence.

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