Well, looks like I'm Tolkien's defense lawyer now. Caitrin, I too tried to read "The Silmarillion" when I was 17, and thought it confusing and boring after loving "The Lord of the Rings." I read it 2 years ago and couldn't believe what I had found wrong with it the first time ."The History of Middle-Earth" is a 13 volume set edited by his son Christopher, which shows how Tolkien's vision began, evolved, and became what we know today. I have read 11 of those 13 volumes, and if you all had the love and devotion I have for Tolkien to read them, you would understand why he wrote his books as he did. I've have seen this evolution over the course of his life, and think that "The Silmarillion" is his greatest work. I've read and understood each concept, theory, character, place in revision after revision and am totally in tune with his thinking. It really is a beautiful thing that he created for us. I don't think of Tolkien as a "fantasy writer" with all the stigmas that come with it. He is even more than just an author. His artwork has highly influenced me, and his ideas are like a philosophy to me. Therefor, I, and anyone else who joins Tolkien on this magical tour through the history of his work will say that ending the world at the end of the book would have ruined his vision. Middle-Earth is OUR world, in an imaginary time, as Tolkien states himself, around 9000 B.C.. Ending it would have meant ending our world, and that was not what he wanted. And Peter, the armies of good were pushed to the brink. If Sauron got the Ring, the last hope of the world, his armies would have destroyed Aragorn, the last hope of humankind. It would have meant absolutely not hope at all forever. As for literary analysis, I often find it quite stupid. "Frodo as a Jesus figure" or "Aragorn in the Beowulf archetype." Come on, people! Tolkien tells you in the foreword to the Fellowship that his book IS NOT AN ALLEGORY!!!!!!!!!

--Mbo