Thanks for the links, it's always a little intimidating writing where so many smart people have gone before.

That final transition always makes my cry and I was trying to figure out quite why. It seemed to connect to a bit in The Return of the King (the book not the movie) where Sam looks up and sees a star and has some thought about the Shadow being but a passing thing and there still being light and high beauty forever beyond it's reach. All very tolkeinesque but it worked for me ( well obviously with the embarrassingly accurate recall and all). You could imagine him (Tolkein) in the first world war trenches looking up and maybe having a similar hope.