1 Lambert: Now what? What are my options?
1 Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs: THERE'S THE AFTERLIFE.
2 Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs: OR IN YOUR CASE THERE'S THESE GREY HAVENS WHERE THE ELVES GO, BEING A METAPHOR FOR DEATH.
3 Lambert: That sounds cool. Are there any disadvantages?
4 Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs: YOU DON'T ACTUALLY GO THERE UNTIL WELL AFTER YOUR STORY PROPER HAS BEEN TOLD AND EVERYONE JUST WANTS IT TO FINISH ALREADY.

I know after the Ring fell into Mount Doom and Gandalf rescued Sam and Frodo, all I wanted was for the movie to end and to get out of there as fast as possible. Of course that was probably due to the fact that I'd had a big drink and not visited the men's room for three and a half hours...

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2016-05-27 Rerun commentary: Yeah, the Grey Havens are supposedly a metaphor for death. Who knew?? That concept certainly eluded me the first time I read The Lord of the Rings.

I didn't work this out myself. I was surprised to read about it in some literary analyses of the stories. I always thought the ending was kind of a bummer - after Frodo saves all of Middle-earth he takes off with a bunch of elves to a place we know nothing about, to spend eternity away from his friends. It seemed like kind of a bad deal to me.

But being a metaphor for death makes sense. Frodo's time is up, and those he leaves behind have to go on with their lives without him. Which is why the books end [spoiler] on the positive note of Sam returning home to his wife.

Lambert's main problem here is that he doesn't have a friend like Sam to carry on the story.