Talk:Fourth Age
Earth History and Current Age Speculation
Is this speculation based on comments or thoughts from either J. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien or anyone else centrally connected to the Lord of the Rings saga?
This article should be strictly reserved for information on the fourth age in the realm of middle-earth (or more correctly [Arda]) put for forward by J. R. Tolkien and his collaborators. Although some speculation and elaboration is required due to the sketchy nature of details regarding the 4th age, the last 3 paragraphes (as of the 13th January, 2006) require major rewriting or preferably outright removal (possibly to be placed elsewhere) due to 1. appearing to be largely third party speculation and 2. not being directly related to the 4th age of middle-earth.
Which age?
So....that would put us in which age??? Someone should really work with this idea and give us Tolkien fans a little more to work with. So, if the ending of an Age is usually denoted with the downfall of the Tyrant, would we be seeing the beginning of the 7th or 8th Age?--66.243.55.44 19:52, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)Adam Hayden
Myth and Reality
This is not good. IMO we shouldn't even be discussing which age we are in, as Middle Earth is the stuff of fantasy and shouldn't be allowed to mix with real dates. Besides, it's all speculation, and speculation has no place in a book of facts supported by sources.
The constitution of the ages
At the end of each age what happens? The Years of the Trees ended with Ungoliant taking the light of the Two Trees. The First Age ended with the destruction of Beleriand and the banishing of Morgoth. The Second Age when Sauron's ring was captured and the destruction of Numenor. The Third Age with the destruction of Sauron's ring.
As for the Second Age, however, Sauron was defeated early on, and was taken prisoner. And in the Third Age, Sauron (the Necromancer) was defeated again in Murkwood.
My concept is that maybe victories on the side of the Elves and their allies the Men do not necessarily constitute a new age. Maybe it's something else. One thing to note is that the Third Age is not finished until the Ring-Bearers travel west. The similar cannot be said of the First and the Second ages, though.
I had an idea that the ages were correspondent to something other than destruction, but perhaps that failed me. But as I said, the changes are not perfectly correspondent to victories, as (if memory serves) Morgoth was defeated at least once before the First Age was finished (certainly Sauron was wounded badly in one battle in that age), but of course Sauron was defeated at least once in the Second Age before the end. Help me out here. -- D. F. Schmidt (talk) 07:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)