I have been re-listening to the LotR works - the trilogy, the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Beren and Luthien, Fall of Numenor, etc. - on audiobook for the last month. And rewatching the movies and Rings of Power.
And, I just gotta say -
John Ronny Rule, he understood a thing or two about how people forget about a danger once the big, obvious, threat has passed. He understood that things fester, and spread, and grow.
And return.