breaking of the fellowship.

[Reumandar]

When does the Fellowship really end... does it end when Gandalf falls into darkness or when the ring is destroyd, or when aragorn takes his leave of them after he marries Arwen?

"Here then at last comes the ending of the Fellowship of the Ring", said Aragorn. "Yet i hope that ere long you will return
to my land with the help that you promised."

Okay discuss. That was not an answer, merely a place to get started

[markedel]

The real end would be the death of Aragorn, in the sense that with his death the last real link to the "elder days" were severed, and the Fellowship is sort of an embodiment of such things.

[UnStashable]

Well if your going to look at as a link to the elder days then i would argue when Legolas Gimli and Sam Depart M.E. but i think its broken after Boromir frodo/sam leave and Boromir dies. The Original 9 walkers can never truly be reunited again. And the remaining members are never agian united while the ring exists.

[Dain]

The Fellowship is broken when Frodo & Sam leave for Mordor Pippin & Merry are taken by the Orcs and Aragorn Gimli and Legolas go in search of them. Becourse from that moment the Fellowship is never really united again

[Radagast The Brown]

I think the fellowship is broken when Sauron defeated and the good ones win the war... but could be you're right, couse in this time Boromir died too.

[Celebrian]

I actually think the fellowship is broken when Gandalf falls into the abyss. By the time he rejoins them he only sees three.

[Khadrane]

I think it ends when Boromir dies, Merry and Pippin are captured, and Frodo and Sam head to Mordor. But it could be when Gandalf dies, or any of the other suggestions.

[BeardofPants]

I don't think the loss of a member of the fellowship really counts as the breaking - hence Gandalf's "death" doesn't really cut if for me. I think it was broken when Frodo decided to to it alone, and broke the fellowship. And THEN Aragorn et al decided to pursue Merry and Pippin instead of pursuing the ring bearer. That's when it was broken. Of course, I guess you could make the argument that they were all still working to ensure the ring didn't get into Sauron's hands... Gandalf, Aragorn, et al creating a distraction and all, at the gates of Mordor. But I personally think that because they weren't directly helping Frodo; their part in the fellowship was over.

[Nibs]

Along the same lines of other posts... it's called the Fellowship of the Ring. I suppose that would mean that as long as there was a group of them, with the purpose of destroying the ring (which was the original idea), they would be the remnant of the Fellowship. Since they all did succeed in assisting Frodo and Sam even after parting, I'd say they never quite "broke up". They never really went separate ways, in my opinion. Just a thought.

[Nilvasaien]

Tolkien described the "breaking of the fellowship" as the time when Frodo and Sam head to Mordor on their own (Book II, Chapter X).

I always felt that the Fellowship survived while the members still lived. That feeling of belonging to something greater than any individual would have existed until none of the members lived. Just my opinion

[katya]

i would have to agree with a lot of people and say that the fellowship ends in (go figure) "the breaking of the fellowship" and "the departure of boromir" you know that time. they all get split up and only sam and frodo are still going to mordor. so it's broken. i dont think it was when gandalf "died" because it just doesnt seem right...he's still alive or whatever. well i dont know if there is a difference between the fellowship "breaking" and "ending". i have said what i think about breaking but i would think it ends when all the members are departed, dead, whatever.

[Menelvagor]

I'd say that the fellowship was never really gone until Frodo departed for Valinor. They were still united in cause and effort, and afterwards though friendship mostly, but it's hard to be more separated than half of the members crossing the oceans. They do call it the sundering seas for a reason; at that point they were truely never going to see the fellowship together again. Another interpretation, though, could be when Frodo claimed the ring on Orodruin; then the fellowship were, for however short a time, no longer working for the same purpose.

[Earniel]

I think the fellowship broke when Frodo decided to go to Mordor on his own. But to me it never really seem to be the end of it then. I felt that the fellowship ended only when the very last member departed from Middle-earth.

[Elbereth]

Interesting posts! I would say that there are several times when the Fellowship breaks, when Gandalf falls, when Merry and Pippen are captured, Frodo and Sam go to Mordor, and Boromir dies, and when Gandalf and the hobbits go back to the Shire, Gimli says 'we will not all be gathered together again.' Yet it is interesting to note that in the appencixes in the part where there is a timeline of what happened to the Fellowship members after the book, the last thing on it is the date when Legolas and Gimli set sail to Elvenhome, and the words Tolkien uses here are 'and when that ship was passed an end was come to the Fellowship of the Ring.' (or something close to that, I don't have the book at hand) So I guess that maybe Tolkien thought that breaking and ending were different. Just a thought.