If you could change the ending of any book, which one would it be?
Near the end of the Return of the King, Frodo is captured by the orcs and Sam fails to grab the Ring in time. The Ring returns to Sauron who uses its power to subdue Middle Earth with his industrial fascist control machine. Book 3 ends.
Book four is an exploration of the power of hope and compassion to resist fascism. It ends like the Taming of the Shire chapter, writ large; all of Sauron’s subjected people simply say no more and the Ring’s corruption is broken by a contagious rebellion of hope that spreads to every corner of Middle Earth, leaving Sauron alone to fester in his corrupt tower that everyone just ignores.
The book ends with Sam (quoting Camus):
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
The Cosmic Liminality 