I wonder if I am the only person who was disappointed by the Lord of the Rings. I loved The Hobbit, and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, but I felt the last volume didn't really live up to the first two. It may be that, in spite of the grave dangers and woundings the characters went through, they kept moving forward, which is essentially an optimistic direction. It may be that the forward motion of the journey narrative betrays the apocalypse narrative. It does not ever feel as if the forces of good are pushed back to the final standing ground, and that darkness has engulfed everything, even though the novel says that repeatedly. Rather, the main characters are always moving forward. I would have liked the last book to have been physically at the end of the world. Personal taste, perhaps.
yours, Peter T.