[jdege]

Tolkien knew better than to pretend that evil could be defeated for all time, even in fantasy.

In his fantasy world, evil had already been defeated for all time, on three different occassions.

There is no sense, in the "final" victory of the West over Mordor, that this time would be any different, that men would not again slip into error, that evil would not grow again in a different form.

[Sam Cree]

"Tolkien knew better than to pretend that evil could be defeated for all time, even in fantasy. In his fantasy world, evil had already been defeated for all time, on three different occassions."

Yeah...it's true, I think.