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Sam and Rosie's deaths

Sam did not die; he followed Bilbo and Frodo into the West:

S.R. 1469 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the seventh and last time, being in 1476, at the end of his office, ninety-six years old.

S.R. 1482 Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid-year's Day. On September 22 Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the Towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.

My kids have my copies of the books and I had temporarily forgotten about Sam, then remembered later in the day. I figured you'd call me on it. But it doesn't change my argument about every other mortal in the story.

As another person commented, you're one tough cookie to expect Arwen to take Aragorn's and her own deaths with a positive attitude, considering that her experience as a mortal woman was a tiny fraction of her life and she was not granted the vision that Aragorn evidently had about the eternal continuation of the soul. That is how I understand the doom/gift of men: doomed to die but gifted with an immortal soul which death cannot touch. From Arwen's experience as an elf before becoming mortal (well, half-elf), elven death is true death because while the elves are immortal in body if unharmed by accident or battle, when they die that's it. That's why they have to journey physically back to the Blessed Realm. At least, that's how I've always understood the back story of Middle Earth.

Personally, I think you're reading too much into a few phrases and putting your own spin on it. This is one of those "Balrogs have wings / not" arguments that I don't think we're going to settle, but I admit your take is interesting and thought-provoking.

For me, Lord of the Rings has a "happy" ending considering that death will take all mortal men (and women) and the elder races are doomed to fade away (or, worse, become evil). That much was known and set before the story really began, and there is nothing that the characters could have done to change those two things. The essence of tragedy is that the characters make the wrong choices and don't do the best they can with the opportunities at hand. In this case, the characters make the right choices, so I can't call it a tragedy.

S.R. 1469		Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the seventh and last time, being in 1476, at the end of his office, ninety-six years old.
S.R. 1482		Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid-year's Day. On September 22 Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the Towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.