"Most kinds of undead are mindless, invariably evil, or both. They're unpopular with almost all major religions - partly because clerics have particular advantages at getting rid of them - and people also don't like the, mm, aesthetics, of beings that are made out of people's corpses and are healed by things that damage the living and vice-versa. I made that little healing spell out of one that's meant to damage weak undead."

"Huh. Invariably evil? Really? All of them? Why?"

"There's a lot of debate about that. If there's exceptions, which I guess there might be, no one talks about them. Some kinds you have to have been already evil in life to turn into, or have, mm, strong negative emotions - ghosts are like that - which interact badly with negative energy or something? Some of them have to eat people and get unbearably hungry and less intelligent if they don't until they cave, stuff like that. The most common kinds are just mindless though, they lurch around causing trouble and don't think or speak."

He shudders.

"Yeah, that's about how people feel about undead at home, so if somebody says, 'no, it's okay, I found this weird undead-becoming ritual and I don't have to sacrifice any babies or replace my intellect with a negative energy spirit or be completely ruled by overwhelming hunger', people go 'eugh' anyway."

"I'd do it if the alternative were dying."

"A lot of people expect a nice afterlife."

"Oh right. Is the afterlife like Valinor? Can you do interesting things there?"

"We don't know that much about it. People who are resurrected tend not to remember it clearly. But many of them came back with vague positive impressions."

"Oh, like the Halls of Mandos." He frowns. "Maybe there's something about being dead that makes it hard to form memories."

"- people don't remember the Halls either?"

"No. Even if they spent Ages there."

"I haven't talked to any of the people who got reembodied, I didn't know them or anything, I was just happy they got to come back - maybe it's - like how I remember stuff from my plane like it didn't happen ten my-plane years ago? To keep their lives fresh so they can go back to them? There ought to be a better way to do it but Manwë couldn't opt me out of the time slide, the Valar aren't omnipotent -"

"No, they're not. And if afterlives in your world aren't rememberable either maybe it's a hard problem." He grins. "Something for us to do once we're as powerful as the Valar."

"Sounds like a plan."

And he goes back to translating.

Bella goes to see about scheduling another lecture.

They are delighted to have her for another lecture.

Good. She will have that written up in the next couple days but would they like longer to tell everyone interested it's happening?

How about in three weeks, there's a open spot then.

She'll put it on her calendar!

Rúmil is planning to travel out to Lórien to visit with the recently reembodied.

- she still has her leaf, they could just teleport there. Oh, and here's a necklace for him.

He beams at her, puts it on. "That would save a lot of time."

"Yes. Yes it would." Magic tree!