This question is about the end of the third book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I have just finished reading. If you don't want to know the outcome look away now.

When Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf and the elves board the white ship and sail away out of view, is this a euphemism for their deaths?

That's one way to look at it, but I figured they were just going to join the elves. The elves were mostly leaving Middle Earth for some sort of retirement island as I recall.

Yay finally i've found someone who likes Lord of the rings. everyone here is just talking about Harry Potter, Harry Potter and more harry Potter. I havent read the whole of the third book but ive almost finished it. JRR Tolkein is brilliant.

There are many people who like LOTR here, it's just that Harry Potter is more current at the moment. I personally like both

Nah, Valinor is more a kind of refuge. If you've read the appendix as well, which goes further than the novel, then you'll find that in the very end even Legolas and Gimli go to Valinor, as the last of the Fellowship. It's not so much an euphemism of their deaths, more like a kind of, well, paradise or something. But I personally think that Frodo lives there long enough to see Sam again, who goes over the sea some fifty years later, and dies there in peace.

Thanks for that folks. I feel suitably enlightened and also gladdened.

I have not yet been Potterised, but I am about to read the first book in that series, just to see what all the fuss is about.