As I understand it, the mythology of the elves is that they are
basically immortal but they move to other "shores". In LotR, they are
in middle earth. They came to middle-earth from other shores and lived
there for something like 10k years. And I don't mean as a general
people. Elrond and others specifically.

Remember that Tolkien was heavily influenced by Norse mythology with
planes of existence like Midgard and Asgard. Those roughly, but not
exactly, translate to earth and heaven, but Tolkien was taking them at
their face value of just being other lands that people pass to at a
certain point.

Bilbo and Frodo as hobbits weren't elves but they weren't really
humans either. But the experiences that Bilbo and Frodo had made them
kindred spirits to the elves and they could never just be hobbits
anymore.

Gandalf. Well that's a bigger question. There's some question about
what Gandalf is. At a superficial reading of the books he could be
human, but we know that he has lived through several incarnations.
He's 2000 years old by the end of LotR. IIRC, the extended mythology
makes him into a special being that's not elven and not human. Think
something like an angel assigned to live in the world.

There are lots of web sites that go into crazy details that have been
gleaned from not only the books, but Tolkien's notes and lectures and
such.

On 11/11/05, G <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Return of the King has been on encore lately, and I've got a question to you 
> Tolkien geeks: Why do Frodo, and Gandalf, and a host of others, HAVE to hop 
> in a boat and sail away at the end?
>
> Did i miss something? Why can't Frodo just go home?
>
>
> 

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