So I'm not a writer [as it will soon become painfully apparent], and I once asked Prerna how I ought to begin this thing. She said I should start out with the saddest thing I'd ever heard, that way if I can't pique your interest, at least I'd get your sympathy. An emotionally engaged reader is far better than an intellectually engaged one, as any politician could tell you. But I won't attempt to shock you like Alan Moore/Hollis Mason, won't recount to you the tale of the Mechanic and the last Flight of the Valkyries. For one, it's pretty fucking tasteless, and secondly, I'm already pretty damn certain that the Oscar goes to Tolkien.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.
What's the saddest thing I've every heard? It's the first question, the oldest question, the question hidden in plain sight. The one you've been running from all your life: What happens when we die?
Do we simply "just stop"? Or is there something else?
["And where would it take me?"
"On," said Dumbledore simply.]
Why do we live? Why do we die? Why are some images and themes so universal—so goddamned transcendent? Why do we have religion? Myths? Stories? Is it because we need to believe in something, some sort of collective consciousness in order for our ancient, slowly amassing agricultural societies to survive?
Maybe. But I think it might be something even more sinister. I think it's meant to help us deal with Death.
I could tell you he died, but that wouldn't be enough. You wouldn't understand the sheer, raw pain unless you had something to relate it to. And unless you've experienced it for yourself, you don't know—you can't know—what it is to see someone that you love turn into a thing, a personless, soulless thing, in a second, to look into eyes you once knew and have only the Void stare back. But life must go on. The planet still turns. We cling to religion, to myth, to stories to give ourselves a semblance of control over the senseless and incomprehensible. It's futile. Meaningless.
…Human.
So let me tell it to you in a way you can understand it. In the only way I can explain it, the foolish, juvenile, selfish, way that I try to force myself to accept it.
You land on a planet. The Library. So big it doesn't need a name. Just a great big 'The'. "Biographies!" says the Doctor. "I love biographies."
"Yeah, very you," Donna Noble retorts "Always a death at the end."
"You need a good death," the Doctor cajoles. "Without death there'd only be comedies. Death gives us size."
And later, much later, you hear a poignant voice-over as they stand there again, Sonic Screwdriver on top of the diary holding in their hands the very keys to the Future. "What do you think?" the Doctor asks. "Shall we peek at the end?"
"Spoilers, right," Donna decides with a slow shake of her head. They walk away.
"When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end. But however hard you try you can't run forever. Everyone knows that everybody dies…and no one knows it like the Doctor," the dead woman speaks. Calm. Accepting. Reassured. The music swells. Curtains. Fade to black. A treatise on Death, of losing, of giving up and going on anyways. The Doctor—with Donna—has finally found his humanity. Your friend, your family, perhaps even your lover or children have died. You wonder if they can be gone so suddenly from existence whether they ever really existed at all. But that's okay, we're meant to wonder that.
…And for that one instant, in that exact second, I can sometimes force myself to say it: Legolas died, and it was all my fucking fault.
But we're cheated of that closure. Reminded again that this is a children's show, that our hero has always been Voldemort, he was never Harry Potter despite how many times he lays his life on the line for others: "But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all," River breathes. "Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call... everybody lives."
Fuck you, Moffat. Fuck you, Professor McSpoilerAlert. Fuck you for taking an episode that deals with our doubts and fears in the face of the uncertain and the unknown and destroys the very essence of what makes us human. Because the hard, inescapable facts are as follows: we are born, we live, we die, and grasping at immortality has never ended well for any of us. How many Dark Lords and Downfalls of Númeanor must there be before we realize? Death is permanent. Inescapable. Unavoidable. Death is the ticking clock, the backwards countdown that drives us to insanity and inspiration…and anyone who says differently is selling you something. There is no hard drive at the end of the universe or disembodied consciousness of a child where I can download my dead friends to. No CAL, no TARDIS, no ghosting, no Dread Pirate Roberts, and no Resurrection Stone. There are no Deathly Hallows, no Aslan, no Eagles coming, not even a time-traveling, skin-changing alien with a hero complex who steps in at the last moment with God-like powers to rescue us (but only when it's entertaining/convenient, and never on Sundays).
No.
In all my reading, all my searching, screaming, crying and cursing, I still find David Wong said it best: People die.
PEOPLE DIE.
People die. All alone. In the dark. Pointlessly and a long way from home. No reason, no fate, no destiny, just an accident, just some pointless, cruel cosmic joke. Hoban Washburned. Fred Weasleyed. Rory Williamsed. Something so goddamned stupid and impossible that you tell the Gods—if they can be called Gods when they're so unjust, uncaring, or impotent—to go and fuck themselves.
If I sound angry, it's because of the stories I allowed myself to be told, over and over again until I believed them. You know the lies, you've heard them before, you're living them as we speak. That the hero lives. That being good and kind and brave will save you. That karma evens things out in the end. That our good intentions and actions have good consequences. That if we are hurt or die it all happens for a fucking reason, a Greater Good.
…Yeah. Right. Fuck you, Ida, for ever believing in fairy-tales. For ever allowing yourself to be lied to again and again until you couldn't help but believe them.
Yesterday an Elf died in New York City. The last of his kind. The only left on Arda. The world didn't stop spinning on its axis, the trees didn't take up lamentation, the sun didn't refuse to rise. It's all lies. Smoke and mirrors. The light of Wingelot and Eärendil's Silmaril caught in a mad woman's dreams. Because the truth is far more terrible than that, and the Truth is that the Universe. Doesn't. Care. In the face of so much terror, death and suffering, Time roars on, unchanging. We are born, we live, we die, and even the Eye of Sauron himself couldn't find the amount of fucks the Universe gives.
How did it happen?
An accident. On the tracks. His sharp eyes spotted Gimli first, down on the switchboard, axe in his stiff hands, facing down the metal dragon barreling towards him with all the bravery befitting a Dwarf of Erebor. "Baruk khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!" And that was the way he'd chosen to die: being eaten by a dragon in this strange hell, while he still had the strength to wield an axe and not be ashamed. He was old. Confused. Lost. No songs would be sung of the deed, but in his heart he'd know, and in the Halls of Mahal they would see and know that the blood of Dúrin the Deathless did indeed run in his veins.
"Gimli—!" And there it was. That patent joy, relief, hope, and desperation of seeing a sea bird take flight, that elation he found in the face of a child. We'd found Gimli, he was alive, he was safe—
He was the son of a King. One of Frodo's nine companions. He shot down the fell beast above the Anduin, ran with the Three Hunters, was girt in armor at Helm's Deep, and rode the Paths of the Dead. He came at last to Lebennin, where the gulls struck his heart. He slew Oliphants in the hell of the Pelennor, and rode out to the Black Gate to give his life as a diversion for the Ring-bearer's quest. He was the healer of Ithilien, and brought wild trees there to tame and sang of the Sea. Still he waited, waited until Aragorn's death and Gimli's old age to risk the Ban of the Valar by bringing his friend, risk their wrath and ridicule for daring the beg for Tuor's favor, as Itarillë and Lúthien before him…
But he never got the chance. He got stuck here instead. And if he'd died then, doing any of all those great deeds he'd done, we'd mourn him, a lament for Laegolas Thranduillion, Prince of Eryn Lasgalen and Ithilien, the fallen soldier. But he didn't get to die that way. Not an arrow, a spear, or a thrust of a sword, he wasn't killed on the battlefield, didn't even get the dignity of knowing he faced death. He simply jumped from the platform before I could stop him, and within three springing steps was struck down.
I saw the moment it happened, his hair iridescent in the train's beams, running swiftly then that terrible lurch! and he was flung away.
He's an Elf. He's not dead. He's an Elf. He's not dead.The dragon roared on. Gimli was just a shaky silhouette in the flames of its fire.
It seems so stupid to me now. But in my head it all made sense. That if I could save Gimli they'd be alright. He'd be okay. That the Valar wouldn't—couldn't—be that cruel as to let all this be in vain.
I heard Scott shouting for me, Nessa screaming, I brushed past Spiderman standing stricken on the platform. I tore down the tracks, one arm over my face, eyes squinting and tearing in the wind and light. I dove and dragged him down as the screech of the train's brakes stole all other sound, my heart pounding in my ears as the whoosh of the dragon's wings and breath swept by overhead like the wrath of Ancalagon the Black.
I did it, I told them, my heart in my throat. I saved you. I saved you both.
Above us, the train rolled to a screeching halt.
I got up, my face full of grit and tears. Scott was sprinting towards me, Spiderman looked sick, Nessa had fallen to the platform, mouth etched in a silent scream. My eardrums were still ringing, my vision blurred.
I wheeled and looked expectantly. But still but still at the bus stop he looked up, half-expecting to see her lovely, even, rhythmic run…and I did. For a moment I really, truly did. But there is no bridge to Terabithia. Narnia was only ever four frightened children making stories in a wardrobe, hiding from a war. Hogwarts was just a dream that Harry had, to save himself from the Dursley's abuse. "She is the last," I heard Schmendrick say in that second of awful, splintering silence. "She is the last unicorn in the world."
"She would be," Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world that comes to Molly Grue." He was the last, the last Elf in Arda, and he'd come to me…yet everything I ever was or believed in burst at the sight of something blonde and bedraggled strewn carelessly across the line.
"Ida!" Scott cried. "IDA! IDA, NO—!" He wanted to save me. Spare me. But I had to look. I had to see. I took off at a dead run, blinking unbelieving through my stupid tears. In the Philosopher's Stone, Rowling describes that goddamned dead unicorn out in the Forbidden Forest and I bawl every fucking time. And there he was, like Lady Amalthea, sprawled out on the tracks with his limbs all twisted and his blonde hair mixed with dirt. And in all the universe, in all of time and space, there'd never before been and never would ever again be something so very beautiful or sad.
"Don't be dead don't be dead," I begged him, but it was obvious even before I reached him: those crystal eyes were open, blank as Dobby's, looking up at the tunnel's ceiling uncomprehending of what they saw. And like Fred Weasley that horrible look of hope was forever etched on his upturned face.
"C'mon!" I shouted at him, shaking his shoulders, his limp head lolling. "You can't die! You're supposed to live forever. C'mon, Legs, you can't die like this—!"
"Ida," Scott said. "Ida," I felt a hand on my shoulder, like Moody dragging Harry away from Cedric Diggory.
"No!" I clung to Legs. To the hope, the desperate need that he would—that he had to!—come to life again. "Live," I choked. "Wake up." There had to be something. Athelas. Ennervate. Lucy's Cordial. The Long Song. True love's fucking kiss. Anything—!
"Help him!" I screamed. "Somebody, please just fucking help him!"
"Ida," Spiderman said, "Ida, he's gone."
"No!"
Spiderman knelt.
"Don't you touch him!" I snarled., as desperate and fey as Éowyn before me. "Don't you fucking touch him—!" Because I knew, I think, even then, that once he shut those hollow eyes that it'd be real, it'd be permanent, that Mandos or Hell or the fucking Flying Spaghetti Monster would swallow him up, that'd I'd never see him again, never speak with him again, never hear that silver laugh…
And if it could be real for him, it could be real for Prerna. If I lost him I'd lose her, too. That Death could and would come for us all in the end. Not today, Arya Stark pleaded with Syrio. Not today! But he-of-many-faces takes many forms, and not all of them are merciful.
Dumbledore said Death was the next great adventure, but it's not the one Legs would've wanted. He would've stayed for Gimli. He wouldn't go On. Not alone. "You have to get up," I begged him, cradling his face. "You don't die, you can't die, you're supposed to take Gimli to Valinor, you, you were going to heal him and make him immortal, you destroyed the Ring you fought in Cormallen you just can't fucking die like this—!" It was just so fucking pointless. So unnecessary. So cruel.
And here at last, on the shores of the sea, came the Breaking of their Fellowship. Yet even here, with the windswept waves and the wailing of gulls he would find no peace. I had a fleeting glimpse of him in an empty King's Cross Station, all alone, lingering on in darkness and in doubt, like nightfall in winter that comes without a star. And eternity, infinity even, seemed so unfathomable and yet suddenly all so real. He'd wait there alone for Gimli, looking East to Arda. Like Ender, he would look a long time.
…He would look forever. And Gimli would never come. The Elves are eternal, the Dwarves are not. And even then, their halls of rest were sundered.
Staring down at that empty, broken shell that only a minute ago had housed my friend I was struck that he was so goddamned beautiful. And it was such a fucking waste. "You were so close," I sobbed as I smoothed his tangled hair. "You were so close, Legs, you can't give up now—"
Spiderman's fingers flitted across his face, and those endless pools of light and laughter went dark and silent for the first and final time. "There," he said. "He could be sleeping."
But Elves sleep with their eyes open, mingling the waking world with that of their dreams. And now those eyes were gone. "He isn't sleeping," I heard myself choke Samwise's words as tears tore at my throat. "He's dead—!"
"Oh, Ida—" I heard Vanessa gasp.
"It's not fair," I whined into Scott's chest as he cradled me. "It's just not fair!"
"I know, honey," my brother whispered. "I know."
But looking back on it now I know the worst thing of all wasn't the unicorn splayed out on the tracks with her long mane behind her. It wasn't the girl bawling into fistfuls of her brother's shirt. It wasn't the big Chicano boy rendered laughless for the first time in his life, or the woman without any words to say. No. It was the dwarf who just stood there, blinking and confused, too senile to know why he was even sad.
"Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, an sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf. And when that ship passed an end was come in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring." So it says in the Red Book, but they're wrong. Legolas died at 10:51 pm EST on December 17th, 2014 on the third rail of the subway lines of New York City…and the only living member of the Fellowship didn't recognize his face, couldn't even remember his fucking name.