Why Tolkien Had to Abandon His Dark Sequel to LotR

In the late 1950s, Tolkien began work on a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, which was entitled The New Shadow.

Although Tolkien revisited this work a number of times, he only managed to bring himself to write a handful of pages before the idea was put aside.

And the mysterious content of the envisioned book would not see the light of day for many long years.

That is until, in 1996, Christopher Tolkien made the abandoned manuscript public with the release of The Peoples of Middle-earth.

Thus we learned of the content of this unfinished work, and it was surprisingly dark.

The New Shadow is set in the Fourth Age during the reign of Eldarion, the son of Aragorn and Arwen.

By this time, the great deeds of King Elessar had faded into distant memory, and tales of the War of the Ring lingered only as a faint shadow upon the early childhood of those few who had witnessed the end of that age.

One such man was Borlas, son of Beregond, elderly and frail.

Borlas lived a quiet life, tending his garden beside Anduin.

With the white city rising in the distance.

There, Borlas sat in conversation with a friend of his son.

A younger man called Saelon.

As they speak, Borlas reflects on the nature of evil.

He speaks of a darkness that does not vanish with the passing of years.

A dark tree, he calls it.

Rooted deep in the hearts of men.

It may be cut back, but it will ever grow anew.

And cannot be destroyed permanently.

Deep indeed run the roots of evil, said Borlas.

And the black sap is strong in them.

That tree will never be slain.

Let men hew it as often as they may, it will thrust up shoots again as soon as they turn aside.

Not even at the Feast of Felling should the axe be hung up on the wall.

Plainly you think you are speaking wise words.

Said Saelon.

I guess that by the gloom in your voice, and by the nodding of your head.

But what is this all about?

Your life seems fair enough still, for an aged man that does not now go far abroad.

Where have you found a shoot of your dark tree growing?

In your own garden?

Saelon then recalls a moment from his youth when Borlas caught him stealing unripe fruit from his garden.

And smashing it with a childish glee.

Borlas had scolded him harshly, condemning the act as orc's work.

Saelon tells him now that those words lingered far longer than the rebuke itself.

They stirred a lasting curiosity in him regarding orcs.

He then revealed he had come to believe that evil is not the sole province of the orc.

And that the same darkness that drove them can also be found in the hearts of men.

Surely even a boy must understand that fruit is fruit.

And does not reach its full being until it is ripe.

So that to misuse it unripe is to do worse than just to rob the man that has tended it.

It robs the world.

Hinders a good thing from fulfillment.

Those who do so join forces with all that is amiss.

With the blights and the cankers and the ill winds.

And that was the way of orcs.

And is the way of men too.

Said Saelon.

No, I do not mean of wild men only, or those who grew under the shadow, as they say.

I mean all men.

Saelon turns the discussion towards their long habit of felling trees for their own ends.

He tells the old man that when seen through the eyes of trees, there is little difference between men and orcs.

For both take what they need without asking, and leave stumps where living things once stood.

Borlas argues that no wrong is done when wood is taken for honest and necessary purposes, and when it is used well rather than squandered.

To him, the true mark of orcish behavior is not the felling of trees, but the reckless waste.

The thoughtless destruction of what is taken with no care for its worth.

With that, Borlas tries to bring the conversation to a close, as though uneasy ground has been reached.

But Saelon's mood darkens, his voice grows solemn.

And he presses the old man to speak plainly, to reveal what truly lay behind his earlier remarks about the dark tree.

He then dares to utter a name that strikes fear into the heart of Borlas.

The name.

Herumor.

It was not of your orchard, nor your apples, nor of me, that you were thinking when you spoke of the re-arising of the dark tree.

What you were thinking of, Master Borlas.

I can guess nonetheless.

I have eyes and ears, and other senses, Master.

His voice sank low and could scarcely be heard above the murmur of a sudden chill wind in the leaves.

As the sun sank behind Mindolluin.

You have heard then the name?

With hardly more than breath he formed it.

Of Herumor?

Borlas looked at him with amazement and fear, his mouth made tremulous motions of speech, but no sound came from it.

Saelon confides in Borlas that since the death of Aragorn, a quiet unrest had been spreading throughout the world of men.

More and more people, he said, were no longer content with the world as it stood.

And their dissatisfaction grew with each passing day.

Unease took hold of Borlas, he pressed Saelon to speak plainly, asking what Herumor is demanding.

And what deeds he would have his followers undertake.

But Saelon refused to answer.

Instead, he offered a bargain.

If Borlas wished to know the truth, all of it.

He must walk with him after nightfall and learn of it not through words, but via a road best traveled in darkness.

I warn you rather to clothe yourself warmly after nightfall.

He said.

That is, if you wish to learn more.

For if you do, you will come with me on a journey tonight.

I will meet you at your eastern gate behind your house.

Or at least I shall pass that way as soon as it is full dark.

And you shall come or not as you will.

I shall be clad in black.

And anyone who goes with me must be clad alike.

Left alone, Borlas's thoughts turned to the reports of sailors found drowned along the coast.

And to a ship that had vanished.

A slow and uneasy suspicion took hold of him.

Perhaps Saelon intended to not merely lead him away, but draw him to this same silent end.

A mysterious disappearance.

Despite his concerns, he resolved that he would go with Saelon all the same.

For he had been blessed with a long life.

And he believed that it may be for a good reason, so that someone who still remembered the world as it was before the great peace.

Would be there to witness what now unfolded.

With that resolve firm in his heart, Borlas returned to his house.

But when he reached his front door, he stopped.

For it stood open.

The door under the porch was open, but the house behind was darkling.

There seemed none of the accustomed sounds of evening.

Only a soft silence.

A dead silence.

He entered, wondering a little.

He called, but there was no answer.

He halted in the narrow passage that ran through the house, and it seemed that he was wrapped in a blackness.

Not a glimmer of twilight of the world outside remained there.

Suddenly he smelt it, or so it seemed.

Though it came as it were from within outwards to the sense, he smelt the old evil and knew it for what it was.

Here, the tale of The New Shadow abruptly ends.

What Borlas discovered within that darkened house is never revealed.

Nor is it known what role Saelon truly played, or what design stirred behind his words.

It is easy to feel, as I do, that this is the opening of a powerful sequel.

One cannot help but wonder whether remnants of the orcs had endured beyond the fall of Sauron, lurking in secret places.

Or whether a descendant of Aragorn might rise in time to confront and overthrow this gathering darkness.

Yet Tolkien chose not to go on, and in a letter written in 1964, Tolkien made his feelings on the matter.

Unmistakably clear.

I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Mordor.

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 center of secret satanistic religion.

While Gondorian boys were playing at being orcs and going round doing damage.

I could have written a thriller about the plot and its discovery and overthrow.

But it would be just that.

Not worth doing.

Here Tolkien draws a distinction between a story that merely entertains and one that truly matters.

A tale built around conspiracies, secret societies and political unrest could be gripping, even successful as a thriller.

In his eyes, it would lack the moral weight and spiritual resonance that he believed worthy of the legendarium.

Then eight years later, in 1972, just 15 months before his death.

Tolkien reflected on The New Shadow one last time.

I have written nothing beyond the first few years of the Fourth Age.

Except the beginning of a tale supposed to refer to the end of the reign of Eldaron about 100 years after the death of Aragorn.

Then I of course discovered that the King's Peace would contain no tales worth recounting.

And his wars would have little interest after the overthrow of Sauron.

But that almost certainly a restlessness would appear about then, owing to the, it seems, inevitable boredom of men with the good.

There would be secret societies practicing dark cults, and orc cults among adolescents.

Tolkien tells us in this passage that once Sauron was overthrown, the wars of men would lose their mythic gravity.

Any struggles that followed the Dark Lord's fall would be smaller in scale, diminishing in meaning and unworthy of becoming great tales in their own right.

The Fourth Age then would be a quieter place, less grand, and shaped by the ordinary restlessness and dissatisfaction of men.

A story set in such an age would inevitably feel anti-climactic when set against the vast moral and spiritual stakes of The Lord of the Rings.

Taken together, these two letters then, definitively explain why Tolkien abandoned The New Shadow.

But they may also lead readers to wrongly assume that Tolkien abandoned the sequel soon after finishing the initial draft.

Interestingly, there is strong evidence which suggests otherwise.

In a biography, Humphrey Carter records that in 1965, Tolkien came across a typescript of The New Shadow and sat contemplating it until 4:00 in the morning.

Christopher Tolkien adds further weight to this revelation in The Peoples of Middle-earth, where he wrote that he discovered a used envelope amongst his late father's possessions.

Which was postmarked the 8th of January, 1968.

On the back of this envelope, Tolkien had written a passage concerning Borlas.

Expanding on his circumstances at the opening of the story.

This is clear proof that Tolkien was still thinking about The New Shadow as late or later than 1968.

Which would have been 18 years or more since he wrote the initial draft.

Yet, despite this apparent ongoing interest in the idea behind the sequel, the work would grow no further.

For Tolkien passed away in 1973, five years after the date on the envelope.

Whether The New Shadow was best left unfinished or not, remains a subject of quiet but persistent debate amongst fans.

For some, the suggestion that evil would rise again after the fall of the Dark Lord, cast a long shadow over the ending of The Lord of the Rings.

For if evil was destined to return, then the hard-won victory of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn would feel less like a true deliverance.

And more like a brief pause in an endless cycle.

Ultimately, this vision was bleak, offering little room for the kind of hope that lay at the heart of Tolkien's mythology.

And while it may be true that evil can never be wholly erased from the hearts of men.

Stories need not chase it endlessly into the dark.

Regardless of our opinions on the matter, The New Shadow was ultimately set aside.

And so the tale of Middle-earth ended not with the promise of inevitable corruption, but with the enduring belief.

That light truly could prevail over the darkness.

Thank you very much for tuning into Realms Unraveled.

I would like to take this opportunity to light the beacons and call for aid.

If you did enjoy this video, I would ask that you kindly click the like button below.

Also, I would be very grateful if you would consider subscribing and clicking on the bell icon.

And until next time, farewell, fellow explorers.

Of Middle-earth.