Tolkien’s Unfinished Lord Of The Rings Sequel Would Tragically Have Broken One Great Franchise Tradition

J.R.R. Tolkien started and abandoned a Lord of the Rings sequel during his lifetime, and it would have broken one of the franchise’s greatest traditions. The legendary author called the novel The New Shadow and completed about 13 pages before seemingly deciding that this wasn’t the right next step for his Middle-earth stories. Set about 200 years after the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The New Shadow would have followed two Men, Borlas and Saelon, as they determined how to handle a new evil threat, the Dark Tree.