Return of the King: Narrative Conclusion
Appendix G
Narrator: The appendixes at the conclusion of the Red Book of Westmarch go on aimlessly about ancient royal lineages, contradictory chronologies, the extended family tree of every hobbit that managed to be at Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party, comparative calendar systems, and an exhaustive discussion of the proper pronunciation and grammar of nearly every language used in Middle Earth. Rather than ramble our way through all that drivel in this re-telling, let us skip straight ahead to what all of you REALLY want to know. Namely, what
truly became of the nine companions that comprised the Fellowship of the Ring after the successful completion of their quest. Please note that, since this is an appendix, we shall go about it alphabetically to show no favoritism or displeasure (actual or implied) of a particular member of the Fellowship.
Aragorn
(aka:
Strider, Estel, Elessar Telcontar, Envinyatar, The King, etc...)
As part of an agreement with Master Elrond for the posting of bail money, Aragorn married Arwen Evenstar and rightfully claimed the throne of Gondor. This particular move, becoming King, was useful in protecting him with diplomatic immunity from any further legal action. It's good to be the King, but taking yet another new name surely didn't hurt considering the problems Middle Earth's police forces had with updating paperwork in those days.
Though truly blessed and beloved in his iron-clad eternally binding marriage to Elrond's daughter Arwen, Aragor-- Errr... I mean... "Elessar" was very personally disappointed to discover that elves only have sex once every seven years no matter how fond of kissing, hugging, and ear fondling they are. Worse still, elven women seem to virtually loose all interest in such vulgar expressions of affection entirely after the birth of their first child. One must admit that this does go far in explaining the extreme rarity of human-elf relationships in the long annals of Middle Earth history (not to mention why there never seemed to even remotely be enough elves around given their lifespans).
There is only one recorded instance when this particular...
frustration is known to have actually influenced the King's capacity to make decisions in any way. That was when Elessar sent Faramir, Steward of Gondor, off to Ithilien as Lord of Emyn Arnen along with his new wife Lady Eowyn of Rohan because (and I quote), "those two going at it like bleeding rabbits all ruddy day and all ruddy night is driving me raving mad!"
King Elessar Telcontar would also became renowned late in life for his raising of exceptional horses. This interest certainly served to further bring the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor closer together. Elessar's most prized stallion after the passing away of Hasufel was one called Hidalgo (the name translating roughly from Sindarin as "he who runs with great urgency across very hot sand").
Boromir
Unbeknownst to his compatriots (or even his dear brother Faramir), Lord Boromir did not die after going over the Falls of Rauros. Nor did he die after being stung and strung upside down by the foul spider Shelob in her lair of Torech Ungol. It came to pass that Boromir was eventually discovered by a group of orc children who immediately nicknamed the proud warrior "Mr. Piñata." Sadly (after a few birthday parties in Cirith Ungol), no further mention, sighting, or rumor of Boromir is ever again made.
Frodo Baggins
Having paid the heaviest price of any of the hobbits on the quest, Frodo tried afterwards to retire in peace and quiet at Bag End to write this Tale of the Ring. He also spent many a long hour desperately trying to make sense of Bilbo's incomplete scribblings.
Deciding one day to leave several months in advance for the Havens of Mithlond to await completion of the ship being built to take him to the undying lands, Frodo surprised Sam and his new bride Rosie Cotton by giving Bag End and all his remaining wealth to them. Only in the undying lands would he ever fully be healed of the terrible hurts inflicted on him during his time as Ring-bearer and poor Frodo could hardly wait to get there.
While staying in a small beach house on the Gulf of Lune, Frodo continued working on his composition and even found time (with the aid of a discarded wooden board from Cirdan's shipyard) to invent a pastime known as "wave riding." This rapidly caught on with many of the younger elves living near the Grey Havens and together they even developed a particular language of terms to use for this new sport upon the water. Frodo himself was always regarded as the best of the wave riders even given the wondrous dexterity of his elven friends. It is a matter of record in numerous sources of the time how infamous he was among them for his "hang nine" maneuver while "threading the eye" of a "choice" wave.
During a "righteous" day of wave riding, Frodo befriended a dolphin of unusually keen intelligence whom he lovingly named Flipper. It is a testament to Flipper's loyalty to Frodo that Flipper followed the ship carrying Frodo, Bilbo, Elrond, Galadriel, and Gandalf all the way to the undying lands and did happily reside near it's shores and wave riding friend forever more.
Gandalf
(aka:
Mithrandir, Tharkun, Olorin, and several others names no longer remembered)
With his labors finally complete and still having a good bit of time to kill before leaving Middle Earth, Gandalf started a highly successful delivery service aided by the Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains. If you needed to get something from Edoras to Minas Tirith and it absolutely HAD to be there overnight, FEDEX (First Eagle Delivery Express) was the way to go.
Unfortunately, FEDEX became wildly in demand and the Eagles of the North unionized after only 6 months to demand higher wages and a better veterinary plan. Rather than give in, Gandalf closed the business and sold off his client list to his fellow wizard Radagast the Brown's struggling parcel delivery service (you may have heard his motto, "what can Brown do for you?").
It was shortly after closing FEDEX that Gandalf launched another commercially successful endeavor with a chain of bistros selling "Middle Earth's Largest Buffalo Wings!" It was at this time that several scholars noted an alarming decrease in the population of northern eagles. Soon after the last of the Great Eagles disappeared from the Misty Mountains, Gandalf closed his eateries citing "problems with our supplier."
While consequently being sought out for serious questioning by Eriador's Animal Species Protection and Conservation Agency (ASPCA), Gandalf was last seen in Middle Earth looking for a fast ship heading west.
Gimli
After helping see to the repair of Minas Tirith, Gimli returned to Helm's Deep in Rohan to fully explore the Glittering Caverns of Aglarond. At his suggestion, the Rohirrim of the Deeping Coomb held a spring music festival there after a heavy rainstorm threatened to cancel the festivities. In a bizarre combination of the lighting effects of the caves, Gimli's combat move inspired dancing, and the harmonic stylings of a new bardic group called the "B and G's" - Diskho was born.
Catching on like wildfire, the Diskho craze kept Gimli busy hosting dance and music competitions as well as overseeing the production of glittering stone Diskho balls for export to feast halls throughout Middle Earth. Unfortunately (or
thankfully depending upon your taste), Diskho proved to be a relatively short lived fad and Gimli eventually found himself in need of something to do.
Working for a while as an assistant to the famed archeologist Irensaga Jones, Gimli was directly responsible for the recovery of many lost artifacts from the 2nd Age before teaming up with Legolas Greenleaf once more.
Legolas
Having heard for the first time the crying of gulls while traveling with Aragorn and Gimli through the seaward lands of Lebennin, the ancient and mystic sea-longing of his people stirred within Legolas's elven breast. Naturally, he answered the call and turned pirate. Receiving a letter of Marquis from King Elessar, Legolas signed on with a ship in Pelargir called the Black Silmaril to attack and pillage the enemies of Gondor.
So fierce was the Black Silmaril in battle that it became legendary in Umbar and Harad as a deadly ghost ship crewed by undefeatable phantoms. All stuff and nonsense, of course, but there is no denying the contribution the vessel played in finally breaking the power of the southern Corsairs and allowing Gondor to reclaim control of Umbar from the Haradrim.
Meeting up by chance with his old friend Gimli, Legolas convinced the dwarf to join up with him and see if they could follow a strange nautical compass that Gimli had found on one of his archeology expeditions. Supposedly the key to finding the treasure horde of a long lost empire or some such, the peculiar compass didn't point north.
Legolas and Gimli were last seen sailing off into the mists aboard the Black Silmaril.
Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took
(aka:
Merry and Pippin)
For two hobbits that started this tale as mere comedic relief, Merry and Pippin did extraordinarily well for themselves. Merry had won great honor and esteem among the Riders of Rohan who named him Holdwine in their language. A hobbit with the name "hold wine" might seem redundant, but it would always be a source of pride for him. Merry wedded Estella Bolger and later succeeded his father Saradoc as Master of Buckland.
As for Pippin, having been knighted by King Elessar for his services to Gondor, it was often wondered by hobbits who saw him regularly whether he ever took his fancy arms and armor off even to sleep. He eventually married Mistress Diamond of Long Cleeve and managed to became one of the greatest Thains in Shire history.
Together, Merry and Pippin invested heavily in their lifelong love of pipeweed, effectively taking over and expanding the industry. This was an extremely profitable move on their part that went wonderfully for several decades... right up until a research study was released by the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith directly linking the smoking of pipeweed to several serious health ailments. The avalanche of lawsuits seeking damages was mindboggling, overwhelming, and assuredly bankrupting.
The duo headed to the Havens looking for a boat heading west, but found they had missed the last one by several years. Making their way to Minas Tirith, Merry and Pippin spent their final days living quite happily in the company of King Elessar and Queen Arwen. Of course, the law King Elessar enacted at the beginning of his reign forbidding any member of any law enforcement organization other than the Tower Guards entry into his palace may have had a lot to do with that.
Samwise Gamgee
(aka:
Sam)
There are few examples of loyalty, devotion, and faithfulness recorded in all of hobbit lore to equal those displayed by Samwise Gamgee, steadfast companion and dearest friend of Frodo Baggins. Yet even after all the fame and glory his noble deeds rightly earned him, Sam returned home and humbly took back up his beloved craft of horticulture. Discovering the magical properties of the magic dust given to him by Galadriel of Lothlorien (see "box of soil" MP:FotR Scene 13), Sam toiled throughout the Shire. To the astonishment of all, Sam's labors blossomed the following year with a summer of extraordinary beauty and plenty causing Samwise to be revered among hobbits as the greatest gardener to ever live.
Sam married Rosie Cotton who bore him thirteen children, the eldest of which was Elanor the Fair who became a handmaid of Queen Arwen in Gondor. Though he did not intentionally seek public office, a side effect of being held in great esteem by his fellow hobbits resulted in Sam's election as Mayor of Michel Delving no less than seven times. Even a scandal involving the "sniffing" of the remaining magic elven dust during his second term failed to undo his popularity.
Sam: Whoa! Everything is so... GREEEEEN.
In 1434, Shire Reckoning, King Elessar made the Mayor (Sam), the Master of Buckland (Merry), and the Thain (Pippin) all Counselors of the North-kingdom. However, these appointments seem mostly to have just been an excuse for the hobbits to get away from home on occasion and attend lavish parties.
Sam: Hoy now... you can hardly fault us for that. After thirteen kids, have you
seen the size of Rosie's hips these days?! I'm ready to follow Mr. Frodo to the undying lands in a rowboat if I have to!
It should come as no surprise, given his amazing dedication to Frodo and all, that Sam was last seen heading west out to sea in a rowboat.
Merry: Wait-- WAIT! This can't be the end, I haven't gotten to do a musical number yet!
Pippin: What are you going on about, Merry?
Merry: You know, a musical number. You got to do one and it clearly states in my contract that the comedy relief shall be treated equally in all ways.
Pippin: Well, go ahead then. It's not like anyone ever bothers to look at all the appendix bullocks that authors tack on to the end of a series like this anyway.
Merry: Ahem. Mee, mee, mee...
[music]
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
The country where rider's horns call,
Raiding, camping, or feasting,
In the great golden hall.
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
The women there are so tall.
You're so near to Isen,
So far from Mordor,
Quite a long way from Harad,
To many miles to Gondor.
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
You make me saddle sore.
You're so sadly neglected,
And often ignored,
When conquest is planned,
By an evil overlord.
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
The land where I am adored.
Your horses so swift,
Your prairies of grass,
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
You kick Gondor's ass.
Pippin: Hey!
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
The country no orc shall pass.
Your horses so swift,
Your prairies of grass,
Rohan, Rohan, Rohan,
You kick Gondor's ass,
Yes, you kick Gondor's ass.
Pippin: Humph. Feel better now?
Merry: Yes, a fair bit.
Pippin: Good. Time to go find us a few pints of beer then.
Merry: To right, Pip!
Hstaphath: You know, I'd just like to say that there are many people in the world today who, through no fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane. Some of them became sane later in their lives. It is up to people like me and anyone crazy enough to have set through all this, since we are obviously out of our tiny little minds, to try and help these people overcome their sanity. You can start in small ways with ping-pong ball eyes and a funny voice and then you can paint half of your body purple and the other half green and then you can jump up and down like a sugar-high ferret in a bowl of treacle going "Poing, Poing, Poing" And then you can go "Ni! Ni!" and then you can roll around on the floor going "Eowyn, Arwen, Eowyn, Arwen" or--
(SMACK!)
Hstaphath: Really now... that was
entirely uncalled for! I didn't expect a kind of Khandish Inquisition--
(audience reacts expectantly)
(cut to the Prancing Pony Inn)
(the three members of the Khandish Inquisition suddenly burst out of the front door and run frantically toward the west gate of Bree)
(closing theme music starts playing)
(the trio of Cardinals leap into a carriage pulled by 6 very large black horses)
Ximinez: Two-- errr, three to XenoCorp please.
(superimposed credits start rolling past)
Biggles: Look, they've started the credits.
Ximinez: Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
Biggles: Come on, hurry. Hurry!
(the carriage careens wildly through the Shire)
Ximinez: There's the animation credit, only five left.
(the frantic bumpy ride throws the members of the Khandish Inquisition around the inside of the carriage)
(the credits reach the producer)
Ximinez: Bloody hell, it's the producer-- quick!
(they leap out of the carriage and into XenoCorp)
(cut to the forum)
(they burst in)
Ximinez: Nobody expects the Khandish--
Ximinez: Oh bugger!
