Editing Valinor (section)

=== Paradise ===

{{further|Death and immortality in Middle-earth|Cosmology of Tolkien's legendarium}}

[[File:Pearl Poet.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Earthly Paradise]]: Eldamar has been compared to the place dreamed of in the [[Middle English]] poem ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''.{{sfn|Drout|2007}} Miniature from [[Pearl Manuscript|Cotton Nero A.x]] shows the Dreamer on the other side of the stream from the Pearl-maiden.]]

Keith Kelly and Michael Livingston, writing in ''[[Mythlore]]'', note that [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]]'s final destination, mentioned at the end of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', is Aman, the Undying Lands. In Tolkien's mythology, they write, the islands of Aman are initially just the dwelling-places of the Valar (in the Ages of the Trees, while the rest of the world lies in darkness). The Valar help The One, [[Eru Ilúvatar]], to create the world. Gradually some of the immortal and ageless Elves are allowed to live there as well, sailing across the ocean to the West. After the fall of Númenor and the reshaping of the world, Aman becomes the place "''between'' (sic) Over-heaven and Middle-earth".{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} It is accessible only in special circumstances like Frodo's, allowed to come to Aman through the offices of the Valar and of Gandalf, one of the Valar's emissaries, the [[Istari]] or Wizards. However, Aman is not, they write, exactly [[paradise]]. Firstly, being there does not confer immortality, contrary to what the Númenóreans supposed. Secondly, those mortals like Frodo who are allowed to go there will eventually choose to die. They note that in another of Tolkien's writings, "[[Leaf by Niggle]]", understood to be a journey through [[Purgatory]] (the Catholic precursor stage to paradise), Tolkien avoids describing paradise at all. They suggest that to the Catholic Tolkien, it is impossible to describe Heaven, and it might be sacrilege to make the attempt.{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} The Tolkien scholar [[Michael D. C. Drout]] comments that Tolkien's accounts of Eldamar "give us a good idea of his conceptions of absolute [[beauty]]".{{sfn|Drout|2007}} He notes that these resemble the paradise described in the [[Middle English]] poem ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''.{{sfn|Drout|2007}}

{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
|+ Cosmogonies of Tolkien, Catholicism, and Medieval poetry{{sfn|Drout|2007}}{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}}
! Tolkien !! [[Catholicism]] !! ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]'', [[Paradiso (Dante)|Dante's ''Paradiso'']]
|-
| "that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be"<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955}}, book 6, ch. 4 "The Field of Cormallen"</ref> || [[Heaven]] || [[Paradise|Celestial Paradise]], "beyond"
|-
| Undying lands of Aman, Elvenhome in Valinor || [[Purgatory]] || [[Earthly Paradise|Earthly Paradise, Garden of Eden]]
|-
| [[Middle-earth]] || [[Earth]] || [[Earth]] 
|}

The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] adds that in 1927 Tolkien wrote a poem, ''The Nameless Land'', in the complex stanza-form of ''Pearl''. It spoke of a land further away than paradise, and more beautiful than the Irish [[Tír na nÓg]], the deathless otherworld.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=324–328}} Kelly and Livingston similarly draw on ''Pearl'', noting that it states that "fair as was the hither shore, far lovelier was the further land"{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} where the Dreamer could not pass. So, they write, each stage looks like paradise, until the traveller realises that beyond it lies something even more paradisiacal, glimpsed and beyond description. The Earthly Paradise can be described; Aman, the Undying Lands, can thus be compared to the [[Garden of Eden]], the paradise that the Bible says once existed upon Earth before the [[Fall of Man]]. The Celestial Paradise of Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle" lies "beyond (or above)", as it does, they note, in [[Dante]]'s ''[[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradiso]]''.{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} [[Matthew T. Dickerson|Matthew Dickerson]] notes that Valinor resembles the [[Garden of Eden]] in having two trees.{{sfn|Dickerson|2007}}

[[File:Fates of Elves and Men.svg|thumb|center|upright=3|Fates of Elves and Men in [[Tolkien's legendarium]]. Elves are immortal but can be killed in battle, in which case they go to the [[Halls of Mandos]] in Aman. They may be restored by the Will of the [[Valar in Middle-earth|Valar]], and then go to live with the Valar in Valinor, like an [[Earthly Paradise]], though just being in the place does not confer immortality.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=269-272}}{{sfn|Drout|2007}}{{sfn|Kelly|Livingston|2009}} Men are mortal, and when they die they go beyond the circles of the world, even the Elves not knowing where that might be.]]