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Merry, Pippin, and Sam had endured many horrors throughout the original trilogy—although not nearly as many as Frodo—but they ultimately had very happy endings. Yes, they were heartbroken to say goodbye to Frodo in the end, but they had survived a harrowing journey and returned to the Shire as heroes. Sam also married Rosie Cotton, whom he had long had feelings for, and had children. This is apparently where the new story picks up, with the hobbits retracing the steps of their previous journey. The trouble is, this movie is about to break J.R.R. Tolkien’s own rules.
Tolkien Didn’t Want A Sequel After Return of the King
There’s little doubt that J.R.R Tolkien wrote some of the greatest fantasy stories of all time with The Hobbit and the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. In fact, not only are the books brilliant in their own right, but also, these stories stood the test of time, as (along with some excellent help from Peter Jackson) the trilogy movies became some of the best book adaptations of all time as well.
It makes sense that after such an epic conclusion with Return of the King, it would be difficult to write a sequel book, and it turns out that Tolkien started to but ultimately decided against it. Specifically, Tolkien reportedly had a scrapped sequel story to Return of the King, tentatively titled The New Shadow, that was set about 100 years after the War of the Ring.
There isn’t much to go off of, as there were evidently only about 13 pages of that story ever written—a massive deviation from the stories he ultimately wrote, as anyone who has picked up a Lord of the Rings book can attest. In part, it was likely difficult to move forward with something that felt as exciting as the previous story. However, with Tolkien’s apparent decision to scrap the book, it seems he decided Return of the King shouldn’t have a sequel, and now that rule is being broken.
