What Happened To Sam After Lord Of The Rings Ended?

As "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" wraps up, we see life come together for Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin). Having survived his quest and saved the world, the Hobbit hero returns to the Shire, marries his love, Rosie Cotton (Sarah McLeod), and settles down in Bag End with Master Frodo (Elijah Wood). Sure, he has to unexpectedly say goodbye to Mr. Baggins when it comes out that Frodo can't find rest and is headed off to the Grey Havens in search of deeper healing.

But even that turns out to be a good thing for Sam. In the book "The Return of the King," as he explains that he's leaving Middle-earth, Frodo tells Sam that his time to leave might come one day, but it hasn't come yet. He needs to stay and focus on his new life. "You cannot be always torn in two," he says. "You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do."

Soon after that, Frodo says goodbye, and Sam makes his famous final journey back to Bag End, arriving home where his wife and eldest child, Elanor, are waiting for him. He says he's back and... well, that's it. The story ends. For us in the audience, at least.

But it isn't the end for Sam, obviously. He has so much to enjoy, and be, and do, remember? And that turns out to be an awful lot of stuff, too. In fact, it turns out that the Hobbit gardener turned world-saving hero has only just started his long and prestigious career as a husband, father, historian, counselor, and mayor.

Sam may be a gardener by trade, but his fame from his adventure quickly moves him up the org chart back in the Shire. He focuses on public service, running for and winning the position of the Mayor of the Shire a few years after Frodo heads for the Grey Havens. The Mayor of the Shire functions as the leader of Michel Delving, the Hobbit civil center that functions as a sort of "unofficial" capital of the highly decentralized region. Mayors of the Shire serve for seven-year periods — and Sam ends up being so good at the job that he's re-elected seven times. This keeps him in office for nearly half a century and ends up being one of his primary duties throughout the rest of his life.

Sam ends up wearing two hats while in office, too. The appendices to "The Return of the King" contain a timeline of the events in and around the Shire in the decades following the War of the Ring. Along with tracing all seven of his mayorships, the timeline says that Sam, as well as Pippin and Merry, are made Counsellors of the North-kingdom by the King Elessar — i.e., Aragorn. The text says that the new king also gives Sam a gift called the Star of the Dúnedain and "issues an edict that Men are not to enter the Shire, and he makes it a Free Land under the protection of the Northern Sceptre." So, the Shire becomes freely ruled by the three Hobbit leaders, who also function as advisors for Aragorn as he rebuilds the northern half of his new domains.

When Sam isn't leading Hobbits, he also spends his post-Lord of the Rings time recording the events of the past. He does this in a very important volume called the Red Book of Westmarch. This is a series of books bound in red leather that were originally written by Bilbo. It's the same manuscript that the elderly Hobbit is shown working on in the intro to "The Fellowship of the Ring" movie. They include his diary from "The Hobbit" story as well as many translations of old Elvish poems and stories.

Bilbo (Ian Holm) gifts this unfinished project to Frodo, who organizes it and adds his own version of the War of the Ring events, calling it "The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King." When Frodo leaves, he gives the book to Sam with some pages still intentionally left blank at the end for Sam to fill out. While we don't hear exactly what Sam's contributions are to the book, we do hear what he does with it in the end.

After years of careful preservation, he gives the book to his daughter Elanor. Through her, the Red Book comes into the possession of the Hobbit family called the Fairbairns (her in-laws — more on that in a minute), and it is implied that it survives through the ages and is a major influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's ability to faithfully tell the story of "The Lord of the Rings."

While Sam stays busy abroad, he also has a very full home life. And by full, we mean he literally packs Bag End with his offspring. Sam and Rosie end up having a whopping 13 kiddos. Along with Elanor, several of these kids have very recognizable names, including Merry, Pippin, Bilbo, Goldilocks (who eventually marries Pippin's son, Faramir I), Rose, and, of course, Frodo.

Out of all of Sam's children, we hear the most about Elanor. She is called "the Fair" for her beauty and eventually becomes a maid of honor to Queen Arwen. When she reaches her early 20s, Elanor travels to Gondor along with Sam and Rosie, and the trio spends a year there. Roughly a decade later, Elanor marries a Hobbit fella named Fastred, and a few years later, she gives birth to the oldest of Sam's named grandchildren, Elfstan. (Yes, J.R.R. Tolkien names more than one. The man is meticulous, to say the least.)

As far as Rosie is concerned, she remains faithfully by Sam's side through all of the hustle and bustle of life. The appendices of "The Return of the King" say she dies on Mid-year's Day of the year 1482 (according to the Hobbit dating system called the Shire Reckoning) — along with this devastating blow, this ends up being a really important year in Sam's life for another reason ...

"The Return of the King" book tells us that On September 22, 1482, "Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor." This is when he gives his eldest daughter the Red Book of Westmarch before riding off into the sunset — literally. According to legend, Sam rides to the Grey Havens, following the footsteps of the other Hobbit ring-bearers that came before him. Remember, Sam himself bears the ring for a brief stint after Frodo is captured by Shelob and the Orcs on the edge of Mordor. This gives him a unique affinity with Bilbo and his Master, and ultimately, he follows the same call to the West.

The last bit of text about Sam's life reads, "Among [Elanor's family] 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." It's the last we hear of Sam after living a very full life in Middle-earth. He is 102 years old when he sails West. His death date is unknown.