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Originally posted by ElfBane:
What do you mean "left Middle-Earth"? All my references say that only Gandalf returned to Valinor. Saruman was disembodied and his spirit denied return. The fate of Radagast, Alatar and Pallando are, to the best I can find, undetermined.
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True, I too have been unable to find any definite statement of the 'fate' of the remaining Wizards....so we must move forward on conjecture alone. The Istari were chosen for the specific mission of guiding and coordinating the Elves and Men of Middle-Earth against the threat of Sauron. (They were apparently restricted to being counselors rather than warriors of might, perhaps intended solely to counteract Sauron's guile, re. his corruption of Numenor and the Elven-Smiths of Eregion.) Once Sauron was finally overthrown and his dominion shattered, would the Istari not be free to return? Their
desire to return can be shown by the fact that Gandalf did so, despite his well-documented appreciation for all sorts of Middle-Earthy things.
As for Saruman, whether his shapeless spirit wanders still over the realms of Middle-Earth, or whether he passed out through the Door of Night, will probably never be known. The same goes for Sauron, though he is more likely to have followed the latter path, to join his master Morgoth.
Quote:
Originally posted by Aragorn1:
What about elves?
They are all immortal and, apart from those "awoken" at the start of the first age, have been born.
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Ack! I am caught in error. The italicized portion is what I forgot:
"For the Elves do not die until the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject), neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries; and dying they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor,
whence they may in time return."
So, essentially, Elves not only live for many thousands of years, but those who die from sheer tedium (and perhaps all others, the text is unclear) are free to come back from the dead of their own accord. "True" death for the Elves is the Darkness Everlasting, which apparently can only occur as a result of breaking a vow sworn to Illuvatar, and means being excluded from the Second Song of the Ainur.
Still, the connotation of 'immortal' I was using was not "one who does not die," but "one who
transcends life and death." This applies to the Vala and Maia--none are ever implied as coming into existence via any means other than the thought of Eru. Nor are any ever known to die: Sauron, Gandalf, and Saruman all manifested some outward semblance of self without any living physical body to support it. Gandalf, in particular, describes the reincarnation process (albeit in rather hazy detail), and Sauron is known to have had his body destroyed at least twice before his final overthrow.