I am supremely late to the party but I saw your conversation with @thelordofgifs about the Kin-strife and the Fall of Númenor, and I wanted to say that I find the tension between Tolkien’s knowledge that he is writing what functions to some degree (in the context that he knows, in a world before the normalization of secondary world fantasy) a fairy-story and Tolkien’s awareness that things must feel grounded and realistic and must engage at least a little with real-world issues.

An argument could be made frankly that the reason so many of the things about his work are contradictory is this tightrope walk, the balance between “this feels good and soft and warm to me and provides emotional comfort” and “this is about people who feel verisimilitudinous, who behave like flawed humans” - you mentioned The New Shadow in one of your replies, and that’s actually why I sent you this ask in the first place because the reason TNS fell through is this exact emotion/realism balance, as Tolkien knew that Gondor would turn bad again if he were to continue the story in the way that a sequel would require and he felt that it would cheapen the accomplishments of the protagonists if he “allowed” that to happen.

(about this post)

Yeah I agree! It's honestly an element that I enjoy more than not, because a happy ending is more interesting to me if there is something that complicates it. "Every issue ever is resolved" feels both untrue and too saccharine. The specific case of the Númenorean/Gondorian fear of mortality tickles me because it's a) SO central and b) puts such a deep and ugly flaw at the very heart of the supposedly righteous restored kingdom. I think it's better writing if it remains there, even if the execution is flawed at times.

I think TNS fell through for several reasons. It would have cheapened the ending of lotr but it also would have been a far too jarring break in genre- even Tolkien at his bleakest is still fundamentally writing epic fantasy (that has, through the existence of lotr, a happy if bittersweet ending. Even if these specific characters won't make it there, it's coming). The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin could not be more different in tone, but there are dragons to defeat in both of them (and there are dwarves, enchantments and woodland elven kings...). It's all part of the same overarching fantasy story and TNS, by virtue of being set after the fading of magic, can't be part of that (I think this might be why Tolkien sounds so utterly unenthused when talking about it).

(I still like to toss it around in my head sometimes and ponder what could have made a compelling sequel, despite being glad it never came to be and opposed to a lotr sequel in general. for fun)