Silver Glass - Tolkien’s Take on Death

I was fortunate to have a long holiday break at the end of December.  A full week to rest!  I decided to use part of that time revisiting one of my favorites - The Lord of the Rings.  Back in college I used to re-read these books during my month-long winter breaks, but since I only had a week this time I opted to dust off my old box set of extended edition DVDs.  

I worked my way through the ~11hrs of LOTR film trilogy over the course of five chilly winter mornings, and I’m here to report that it totally holds up! :)

It also inspired me to share this moment from The Return of the King, where Gandalf relays the Tolkien version of death and presumably a heaven-like experience as afterlife -

“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.

GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”

You can watch the clip here if you desire:

“Death is just another path, one that we all must take.”  I love this quote.  It’s equal parts blunt and elegant, straightforward and mystical, dazzling and comforting.  

Tolkien himself was intimately familiar with death.  He fought in WWI where he lost many friends, and then lived to see the horrors of war rise again in WWII.  I can almost imagine the young British linguist turned lieutenant, crouched in some trench along the Somme, conveying these very words to his frightened heart-sick soldiers.

I’d like to think he would approve of Howard Shore and Annie Lenox memorializing these beautiful words again in their haunting musical eulogy “Into the West.”

~ Anna