Chapter VI offers a final overview of the main themes addressed in the book and integrates them into a cohesive, overarching framework. In the first part, I discuss the meta-literary implications of Gandalf’s fall as described in Chapter V and illustrate Tolkien’s concern for what can be properly described as a ‘death of the author’ – to use the concept of Roland Barthes. This is clarified through an extensive discussion of Tolkien’s meta-literary short story Leaf by Niggle, in which one can trace all main features of the ‘sub-creative death’. The second part explores other important elements of Tolkien’s ‘theory’, focusing on the meta-literary significance of Gandalf’s return, and introducing a related concept that I call ‘the resurrection of the author’. This concept is explored through a discussion of five ‘gifts’ bestowed to Niggle’s tree in the eponymous story by the Divine Voices (completion, realisation, ramification, harmony, and prophecy), which conjure up a vision of divine enhancement of human literature, with fascinating eschatological implications.