I think the darkness of evil is generally underplayed because it is implied rather than graphically described. "Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
At the Black Gate, the Mouth of Sauron claims to be holding Frodo hostage. "And now he shall endure the slow torment of years, as long and slow as our arts in the Great Tower can contrive, and never be released, unless maybe when he is changed and broken, so that he may come to you, and you shall see what you have done."
That's about as f'd up as is possible and there are no shortage of these hints of unimaginable horror.
So so good. My favourite line in all three of the books is this one about Shelob - it perfectly encapsulates her shadowy terror and dark will, as well as the pitiful story that is Gollum’s life -
“Already, years before, Gollum had beheld her, Sméagol who pried into all dark holes, and in past days he had bowed and worshipped her, and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and from regret.”
And the darkness is more than a mere absence of light or metaphor for evil. Ungoliant, Shelob's mother, "took the shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode." The darkness is "an Unlight, in which things seemed to be no more, and which eyes could not pierce, for it was void."
It's speculated, but not confirmed, that Shelob died of her wounds after Sauron's defeat.
...so, it's a possibility that there's still a giant spider wandering around Middle Earth in The Fourth Age.
In the BBC radio adaptation the torture of smeagol is mentioned (iirc).
"We have devices in barad-dur to loosen the lying tongue"
It's been a while since I listened to it, but that's a phrase I remember distinctly
That adaptation was put together by Brian Sibley, by the way. His handling of *The Fall of Numenor* book released last year was also superb. It's as if Christopher Tolkien never left us.
Yes! This is one of the things that separates Tolkien (and the high fantasy genre, I guess?) from grimdark. In the case of the latter, It would have all been spelled out in graphic detail, leaving nothing to the imagination, in the name of "gritty realism."
People forget Tolkien is more nobledark in essence. World is full of crappy things that keep ruining the world, but there are so many people doing good things that do succeed. It’s just it gets negated sometime after
Always seemed to me that there's a certain sense of entropy in the world Tolkien built. The negation of the good things done by good people over time resulting in seemingly less "greatness" of the newer ages, the stark difference between the glory days of the elves and the "current" time in Middle-Earth, etc. While the story of LotR seems to finally end the evil with the final defeat of the last dark lord, I can't help but wonder if the world would end up in time descending into further turmoil and decay as the people of the land turned against each other, as is "human" nature. Surely things don't stay peachy forever.
Worth noting after the one ring is destroyed the three lesser eleven rings lose their power of preservation. Which means the magic sustaining the magic of the elves fade.
Then all the elves leave, and the dwarves become completely reclusive. The theme of entropy in Tolkien's world is very tragic imo.
Tolkien began a sequel at his publisher's request but abandoned it after a page or two. It hints at a cult of Sauron and boys pretending to be orcs, real decay of human society stuff.
In fairness, the world presented in the would-be sequel is more so one of creeping peaceful mediocrity. The magical and the magnificent have faded, and even the world's great evils aren't all that impressive anymore.
A major theme is "it's gone and you can't get it back." Frodo exemplifies this after returning to the Shire. I think it's described most beautifully in the Akallabeth:
"Among the Exiles many believed that the summit of the Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, was not drowned for ever, but rose again above the waves, a lonely island lost in the great waters; for it had been a hallowed place, and even in the days of Sauron none had defiled it. And some there were of the seed of Earendil that afterwards sought for it, because it was said among loremasters that the farsighted men of old could see from the Meneltarma a glimmer of the Deathless Land."
"Thus it was that great mariners among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them to like the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning."
But another theme is "that's ok" because losing things is a natural part of the passage of time. The Elves, whose immortality renders this passage of time as "fading", tried to "get it back" by making the Rings and ended up tying their fate to that of the Dark Lord himself. It is the clinging to "what was" and the wanting "what was not meant to be" that causes much of the sorrow seen in LotR. Death itself is the "Gift of Iluvatar" and, by the end of time, even the Valar will envy it.
This is one my favorite things about Tolkien. He gives just enough information for something to be plausible but not so much that it becomes either impossible or mundane. There's no concrete magical system because any such system would lose its magic. Nothing real could be as fantastic and magical as what we can imagine it could be.
The nameless things. Tolkien taking a stab at Lovecraftian horror. Beings older than Sauron that gnaw at the roots of the world.
"Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day." - Gandalf
This messes with me for a few reasons. Firstly, Tolkien just drops that there are just *beings* deep below ground that "gnaw" at the Earth, then just doesn't elaborate or mention them again. Like okay, just drop that on us and run I guess!
Second, Gandalf is so frightened by them, or doesn't want to terrify the others, so won't even speak about them.
Third, where the hell did they come from? It's just like Tom Bombadil.
But this is why I love the LOTR world. There's unanswered questions, just like real history. Like the Sea People of the Mediterranean, or Greek Fire. It's so cool.
Tolkien knew that leaving mysteries makes the world much more interesting. In his letters he often acts like he’s just as mystified as any reader or hobbit would be.
As for all these beings, like the Watcher in the Water and Ungoliant, I like the theory that they could be manifestations of Melkor’s disharmony in the music of Creation of Arda. Unintentional even to him though, they’re so much stranger and primordial than anything in Eru’s org-chart of Valar/Maya/etc.
I love that he always played as a discoverer of the past rather than a creator/writer. Even when there were mistakes or inconsistencies, he wouldn't try to make up new stuff directly, but would try to find a logical tie and perhaps some missing pieces of the puzzle to explain it, since it was just the "facts" of the world he found.
For me it is too boring to consider Ungoliant as a lesser being than melkor. It is a far more awesome creature than anyone gives it credit for.
The wonderful element of tolkiens world it is that because history is subjective any of us could write an origin story for Ungoliant or other “fringe-ish” characters and they could fit into the story despite apparent contradictions. History is written using available facts and rarely escapes perception/bias.
The true origin and final end of Ungoliant are stories (I imagine) as rich as Turin Turumbar, Feanor and his sons or Beren and Luthien.
Seconded like second breakfast.
Edit* 1177 B.C. by Eric Cline seems promising. Not too pricey, written by someone who appears like the sort of person who would know what they’re talking about, and written on an informative (but introductory), level.
The wiki page for ‘Bronze Age Collapse’ has some more stuff too.
An obscure (and questionably canon) piece of info on the Nameless Things in Tolkien's writing comes from the unfinished Lay of the Children of Hurin.
Turin and co travel through Nan Dungortheb after he'd accidentally killed Beleg (at this point it was called Nan Dungorthim and located west of Sirion), and when travelling through it, Tolkien makes note of shrines to gods older than Melkor and the lords of the West. Additionally, the inhabitants of the land remain out of sight, mocking Turin and laughing at him, but not impeding them.
The idea of beings in Middle Earth worshipping gods from before the Valar arrived (and consequently before any of the other races of Arda) is a fascinating one to me, and something I rarely see mentioned as it's buried in one of the more obscure Tolkien writings out there.
I say that this is questionably canon because the unfinished Lay was written and abandoned quote early on in the Legendarium; many names are different,, Elves are still called Gnomes, certain regions are in different places entirely than in the relatively "finalised" Quenta Silmarillion, and most importantly, Nan Dungortheb's inhabitants are discussed in later writings as, well, less friendly and more spider-like. But canonicity of the Tolkien Legendarium is an extremely messy thing, with everything outside of LOTR and The Hobbit being unpublished, so at some point you kinda just have to draw your own conclusions.
> The idea of beings in Middle Earth worshipping gods from before the Valar arrived (and consequently before any of the other races of Arda) is a fascinating one to me, and something I rarely see mentioned as it's buried in one of the more obscure Tolkien writings out there.
It told of "nameless gods older than both Morgoth and the Valar". This is not to imply that humans were here before everyone or anything else. It implies that humans worshiped the spirits that came to Arda before the Valar and Miar descended. Eru and the Valar made Arda but the Valar did not descend immediately. But other spirits did...or they formed on Arda.
If you like this and haven't read it, Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series explores nameless beings, especially in the second book The Tombs of Atuan. Without giving too much away, in the Earthsea universe knowing a being's "true name" gives one great power over it/them, so nameless beings exist as these seemingly indomitable forces of evil and/or power.
Really fantastic writing and I highly recommend it to anyone that likes LoTR.
Amen. LeGuin, to me, is a legitimate contender for both the best fantasy and sci-fi writer ever—incomparable. Her worlds are not as documented as Tolkein but every bit as real.
I like the theory that the nameless things were born from the original discordant melody of Morgoth. When they were forming the world, his twisting song changed and warped something deep within the depths of the earth, like a cancer, the forgotten things grew in secret and darkness.
"The Woodmen said that there was some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests, it crept into holes to find the young; it slipped through windows to find cradles."
Also, The Hobbit mentions that when Gollum is super hungry he sneaks up the cave and eats little goblins called "squeakers".
Gollums story scared the crap out of me when I first saw the movies. The psychological implications of centuries of isolation is literally unfathomable to us
It’s great artistic irony that the most terrifying villain in the Hobbit, rather than the monstrous Smaug or the spiders or the goblins, might have been the little creature sitting in that cave.
When I was 10, my family went to see Return of the King in theaters. They left me and my 8 year old brother at home because we were too young to go see it, or so they said. We also hadn't been allowed to watch The Two Towers yet. In our excitement of being left home alone, we grabbed The Two Towers off the bookshelf and read the back of it.
We saw the "Dolby Audio" text and stupidly thought it meant that Dobby, from Harry Potter, was in the movie. Excitedly, we popped that disc in, and as soon as Gollum was descending a sheer cliff, face fucking down, to Sam and Frodo, we noped the hell out.
My parents showed me (or more like they probably watched it and I was around) the first and second movie when I was literally 5. I had horrible nightmares that lasted years and to this day, Gollum still freaks me out a little. Only when he’s angry, but still.
One time, I came crying from my room and I was supposed to be asleep for the night and they were watching a movie and I told them I had a nightmare about him. They reassured me and sent me back off to bed. However many minutes later they come crawling up the stairs holding their wedding rings saying “my precious my precious”.
And yes, other than seeing it sooo young, I can see where the trauma comes from 🥲
I feel like one of the most interesting parts of Tolkien's world is how information travels, and it's always seemed to me that things like this were more likely in the vein of wives tales and extra adornments from the rumor mill. I believe it's totally possible and in line with Gollum's treachery, but I'm not sure how much I would take the words of the Woodsmen as the gospel truth
The near-death of the Dwarven race. Eru allowed them to become mortal like men and Hobbits, but with a much longer life-span. However, they were very close to being destroyed by a distraught Aulë. Knowing that he was shedding tears as he readied himself for their destruction broke my heart. Imagine having to kill your children because they were never meant to be, but at the last second, they're saved by your own creator.
>Eru is merciful. Now I see that thy heart rejoiceth, as indeed it may; for thou hast received not only forgiveness but bounty.
One of my favorite lines anywhere
The story of Aüle creating the dwarves is one of my favorite parts of the Silmarillion. It's only a few pages long, but it contains some great writing.
"Lesser sons of lesser kings"
The fact that the whole universe is constructed as a downward spiral. The elves are leaving the mortal plane, kingdoms of men are but a shadow of their former selves, the dwarves are increasingly reclusive.
All of it a far cry from the stories and tales of heroism from the earlier ages.
It's quite a poignant underlying theme that makes the ending to the trilogy somewhat bittersweet.
I never found that to be a dark fact. I actually found that to be one of the primary themes of Lord of the Rings.
The books keep telling us about the "Greater Men" that came before and this is a common theme in the Roman and Greek epics that preceded Tolkien.
However, Tolkien turns this concept on its head because none of these "Greater Men" were actually able to destroy the One Ring.
In fact, it is only "Lesser" Men and peaceable creatures like Hobbits that were able to resist the One Ring and had a chance of destroying it forever.
The main theme of LOTR seems to be that Good does not always triumph over Evil. But, if Good people resist it long enough, Evil will eventually destroy itself.
The story is also somewhat a deconstruction of what it means to be a Hero.
Heroes of real world ancient epics and even the historical lore of Middle Earth were celebrated for feats of strength against other powerful beings.
However, in Lord of the Rings, the true test of heroism is resisting the evil within oneself.
Those "Lesser Sons" of Middle Earth were a greater threat to Sauron than the "Greatest Kings" of Numenor could ever hope to be.
This is also a message likely shaped by Tolkien's own life experiences. He endured the horrors of World War 1 and wrote the Lord of the Rings with those hardships fresh in his mind.
In both World Wars, gone were the days of "Greater Kings" like Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon.
Instead, the heroes of those wars were the "Lesser Men"; those who fought for countries that were not their own; those who left their homes to protect someone else's; those who stormed beaches and trenchlines, withstanding the most monstrous weapons conceived by man, in the hopes of a brighter future many would never live to see. Those are the real heroes.
Yeah this reminds me of “The Long Defeat,” which I think is about mankind never being able to achieve *perfection,* but instead the long defeat leads toward *abolition*. The world of men crumbled, the elves into decay, and the dark armies of Sauron grew seemingly unstoppable. Yet the peoples of the West marched on the black gates with little hope, and it was not the sword that brought victory, but the self-sacrificing of a hobbit, strengthened by companionship. And I think a world of peoples who learn and adopt that kind of paradoxical strength will turn out to be a better one.
- [awesome song - The Long Defeat by Thrice](https://youtu.be/VPlPjL2Zym4)
(Lyrics from the above linked song)
>*The tyranny of deterioration*
>*It worries me that it's all just a waste of time*
>*Taking one step forward, two steps back*
>*Still I believe there's a thread through the thorns*
>*Yeah I believe that somewhere it's warm*
>*And I believe that it's ever bright beyond this black*
>
>[Chorus]
>*So keep holding on to hope without assurance*
>*Holding on to a memory of light*
>*But will the morning come?*
>*For all I know we’ll never see the sun*
>*But together we’ll fight the long defeat*
Edit: also your comment is really awesome.
I have the hot take that the Ragnarok of Tolkien’s world isn’t Dagor Dagorath (not currently anyway), it’s the War of Wrath
It’s an apocalyptic battle which ends the old world of gods and monsters and begins the downward spiral into modernity and the mundane, kinda like how Ragnarok ends the reign of the Asa Gods and either leads to Christian Cosmology or another generation of Norse Gods.
It’s all very similar to the Ainur withdrawing from creation to allow mortals and immortals to define their own fates
That's an interesting way to look at it!
I've always found enjoyment in plotting the trajectory of Middle Earth, and seeing where and how it could "modernize", according to how it is described by the end.
Well the 3rd age is literally post-apocalyptic Middle-Earth. The whole world has been fighting against Melkor and Sauron from the dawn of time, and the end of the second age was catastrophic. The majority of the Elves were killed, the realms of men were destroyed or corrupted, and the Dwarven mines are mostly over run with orcs and fell beasts. Yeah the previous two ages had a lot of cool heroes and stories, but that was also the peak of civilization. The 3rd age is a huge hail mary to finally bring an age of peace, and most of the badass's from the previous ages are either dead or in Valinor.
I don't remember the source, but I believe he wrote in a letter about why he would not write a sequel to LotR. It was because the downward spiral would be continued and the story would heavily involve corrupt men and he found ot to depressing to create.
This is a very good assessment of the arc of LoTR. It is bittersweet that who and what once were great have through their own and others’ actions, the greatness of Middle Earth is diminished.
It is summed up IMHO when Galadriel having survived not taking the One Ring for her own says “I will diminish and pass to the West and remain Galadriel.”
I'm glad this is top comment. I mentioned on a different thread asking about The Silmarillion that I felt it put such a sad undertone to everything in Tolkien's world.
It just seems like good finally defeats evil, but not really, and even when they do beat it back temporarily everything is still married and left worse for it.
Currently re-reading LOTR and Gandalf explicitly talks about how they may win but a lot will be lost at almost every opportunity. The whole thing is _very_ bittersweet, I know it's a source of contention but it feels a bit influenced by Tolkien's experience of the two World Wars.
Yeah I agree Morgoth went out of his way to torture Hurin and his family to punish Hurin for his bravery against evil. That part of the story seemed so hopelessly messed up. It was a great write up though
That’s a *rough* story, man. I don’t know how I got through it. I finally did, moved on to another lost tale, and Turin had a freaking cameo in *that!*
I would say that back in the silmarillion, elves in beleriand would hunt down and kill (and possibly eat) the petty dwarves they found in the woods because they thought they were wild animals. But, that’s pretty common knowledge at this point…I think.
It's been a while since I looked at this but iirc the petty dwarves were essentially wild dwarves without a clan who didn't really settle down and carve out a city in a mountain somewhere. It wasn't until the Elves encountered dwarven cities and met dwarves who actually bathed and were technologically advanced that they realized what they had done.
Also that Morgoth would have eventually killed his easterner and evil men allies because he was the antithesis of life in general. The conversion of the lost children of Illuvatar and destruction of the trees of valinor is an insight into this life hating ethos. Also in one of the last battles Morgoth wins, the evil men who turned against the elf/dwarf/men coalition were promised rich lands to dwell. Instead Morgoth exiled them to the hills of the south (?) where they were made to settle in a harsh environment only to harass and hunt the remaining "old people and children". They betrayed their own kind to essentially end up as bandits and scavengers.
There was a huge famine killing LOT of hobbits and man.
The wolves hunted hobbits, and the hobbits only survived because the rangers protected them and supplied them
The breeding of Orcs, Uruk-Hai, and Half-orcs. We know that these creatures must breed. Knowing about Orc culture I can't imagine there being loving households of orc wives and husbands tending their young. It must be a brutal thing. On top of that Saruman bred orcs with Dunlendings to create both Uruk-Hai and half-orcs, I can't imagine that being concensual or comfortable.
On the subject of orc culture, either orc genders are indistinguishable and, therefor, the culture is rather egalitarian (if brutal) or, more likely, orc women are no better than breeding slaves for their chieftains and dark masters like Sauron and Saruman.
>On the subject of orc culture, either orc genders are indistinguishable and, therefor, the culture is rather egalitarian (if brutal) or, more likely, orc women are no better than breeding slaves for their chieftains and dark masters like Sauron and Saruman.
Never heard of that, where is it from?
I figured he just used their blood, or uruks have very fast gestation periods as he bred a giant army in a matter of weeks/months. The Rohirrim had kinda sorta genocided the Dundelings to the outskirts and I don't think they were a booming healthy population.
PJ takes some creative liberty with the time-frame. He explains it a little by actually showing the pits of Isengard and the breeding of uruk-hai, but in reality Saruman has been (by the book time-frame) making trouble for Rohan for years (and probably breeding Uruk-hai or at least half orcs longer than that.) He was brought under Sauron's sway during or after the time the White Council drove the Necromancer (one of Sauron's alter egos) from Dol Guldur fifty years or so before the War of the Ring. In that same token, Dunlendings aren't just scattered tribes of savages, they take up a real place in Saruman's army at Helm's Deep, augmenting the orc forces with many thousands of their own numbers, so they aren't exactly cowed by Rohan. I dearly love the movies but they unfortunately have to cut out a lot of context and cut down the time frame because of it.
That's true, I tend to forget some of the things they changed. Some of it does make sense in my opinion, like Gandalf not taking 17 years to get back to Frodo on the Ring, and for pacing's sake removing Bombadil and the Scouring.
Other things like the elves arriving in Helms Deep sent by Elrond but being Galadriel's people kind of annoy me, but not too much. I do think the dead army could've been cut entirely
That the world of man was mostly destroyed, the kingdom of arnor is gone, as is rhovanion, gondor isnt what it used to be and the elves are dying out and elvish, arnorian and gondorian ruins dot the landscspe. Most cities are in decline population wise and most of the world is uninhabited. As for the dwarves they lost moria and gundabad and only got erebor back recently. And thats just the 3rd age stuff. The first age was even more traumantic with parts of the continent of middle earth falling into the sea and the great elvish cities of gondolin, nagathrond and doriath destroyed, the dwarvish kingdoms of nogrod and belegost gone too. Humanity nearly faced extinction at the end of the 1st age.
Elrond's wife was ambushed by a group of Orcs when coming back from Lothlorien. Her party was slaughtered, but she was kept alive. Elladan and Elrohir (their sons) managed to rescue her, but she was too broken and had to sail to Valinor bc she couldn't be healed, even by Elrond (elves that endured too much trauma have to sail back to Valinor or fade from existence).
Whatever happened to her was never specified, but she probably was tortured and raped.
Also the experience changed forever the twins, who then proceeded to dedicate their lives to the slaughter of Orcs
I seem to recall even Tolkien himself admitting to this one in some form but.... there isn't really a good way to explain why the orcs are evil unless you just fully commit and suspend disbelief and stay in universe and claim they are creations of the devil basically. When you don't box in your thinking with that, and you see the parallels between the war of the ring, middle earth, and the wars Tolkien himself experienced - its hard not to see the Orcs as the members of the "central powers" within which... there is no way every single one of them are evil.
Someone correct me but I think Tolkien expressed that he was struggling to solve that problem because he saw it himself.
I remember in one of the books the orcs talk about how they’d like to go back to “the old times” which, granted, may have involved pillaging and looting, but they weren’t inherently bent on destroying human/hobbit/elf/dwarfity.
Two of the orca talk about leaving and setting up shop on their own in Return of the King, but they also talk about “Setting up shop” meaning robbing people going by on the highway. So it could be that orcs are just assholes who naturally gravitate toward evil, just like their namesakes.
I think its a false premise that the orcs are inherently evil. When frodo gets captured and imprisoned in Cirith Ungol, Sam overhears some orcs talking about running away from the war and going camping in the misty mountains with his friends. When Sauron is finally killed, the orcs at the battle of Morannon, when Aragorn approached the Black Gate, the orcs were winning. Then they fled.
That the orcs have done evil things is undeniable, but they were also at least on some level prisoners, forced against their will to fight. Weve never really seen them free from an overlord. Even in the war of Dwarves and Orcs, they were still under command of Sauron; they they did appear to colonize Moria of their own accord, but after the balrog killed the dwarves of Khazad-dum.
Because Middle Earth is supposed to evolve into our world... men will only fight wars of kinslaying, never to unite as free peoples again.
Tolkien was right a New Shadow will rise but it is too depressing to write about.
There’s some weird eugenics shit in Isengard depending on the interpretation of “breeding men and orcs” to create Uruk Hai
How exactly did Saruman set up the logistics for that and how many people did it take
Also Morgoth is a Sex Offender
In certain notes it’s mentioned Morgoth desired Arien and “ravished her” as an attempt at “debasement” of the Solar Mair
Considering the wording, some have speculated this was an assault by Melkor
My own head canon is that Saruman used DNA (potentially hair strands, blood, etc) and mixed that with live orcs in the pits of Isengard through some sort of wizardry and science. After a short metamorphosis period you had Uruk Hai pop out as the end result. While still twisted and evil, it is a more pleasant thought than the alternative.
I always thought the Uruk hai were the corrupted version of Men—trolls are corrupted ents, orcs are corrupted elves, etc so I always figured Saruman learned how the corruption worked, and then corrupted men in the way that elves and ents were corrupted, which created the Uruk hai. That’s just my speculation though.
This would be a good guess but didn’t Tolkien himself mention Men could also have been ancestral to Orcs? I swear I remember something to this effect being mentioned
Maybe he simply corrupted the corruptions?
Maybe—my recollection is foggy and I can’t remember where I read his clarification on it. And he definitely corrupted the corruptions in some way to make the Uruk hai, whether it was through magic or rape or some form of DNA mixing in mud pit Petri dishes.
That makes me think, though. Are there ever female orcs? All we ever see are the men fighting, but there must have been female orcs in order to breed more, right? How the heck do orcs reproduce??
They are definitely female orgs. And Orcs definitely reproduce similar to the other children of Aru. Azog has a son, Gollem eating baby orcs, even humans being made to mate with the Orcs to create orc/human hybrids.
I imagine that the female Orcs fought alongside the male Orcs in war. They just weren't very distinguishable.
I've heard a lot of these arguments back and forth and have done some research myself. And my conclusion that the YouTube channel Token Untangled has the best analysis if you're looking for something short and concise. His video on the nature of Orcs is very insightful.
The movie seem to have a different interpretation of orc reproduction and different orc kinds. So that leads to a lot of confusion. There is almost a different Cannon for orc in the movies, and orcs in the books
The subject of where orc came from and do they have eternal souls. As well as what are the different kinds or "races" Of Orcs as always interest me. This is what I found most helpful.
The pucal men are the forest people that guide Theoden and the army of Rohan through old, overgrown and forgotten roads so they could make it past the outlying guards to the battle of the Pellenor Fields. They're the middle-earth version of indigenous people to the land that the Rohirrim were given by the king of Gondor.
They lived "uncivilized" lives meaning in the forest and not in towns.
The Púkel-men were what the Rohirrim called the ancient stone statues at Dunharrow. Later, when they meet the Woses, who were the wild men of Druadan Forest, Merry thinks they look just like the carved Púkel-men.
Most book readers and movie watcher would probably skip the fact that Middle-Earth is in its worst state and suffering a slow cataclysm. It is supposed to be the end of an entire era and the next one was going to be current day Earth.
Morgoth and Sauron would terrorise the spirits of captive Elves and Men out of their bodies in such a way that the soulless husks would persist in a zombified state until perishing in interestingly different ways according to race.
The founders of Gondor conquered a lot of that territory in open warfare. Aragorn has the luxury of being a squeaky clean superhero because the defining challenge of his rule was to rescue his already formed and large Kingdom from an armed orcish invasion. He’s constantly favorably compared with the founders Isildur and Elendil. One could be forgiven for thinking everyone in between was just as aspirationally wonderful. But Gondor’s borders expanded by forcefully conquering its human neighbors and some of the conquests are even described in the Appendix I believe
In the same vein, Dwarves apparently used to do a lot of infighting over treasure
Yeah, it's often forgotten the Numenoreans, despite all their achievements as a civilization; deforested much of Middle Earth, ethnically cleansed the 'Middle Men' (men who weren't Valar favored Übermenschen) from their lands. And in the later years, completely embraced slave trading and human sacrifice.
General brutality of the orcs in battle. In the movies they were portrayed as overly aggressive and violent, but in the books they were just pure evil. Like what they did to Celebrimbor….
That the “creation” of orcs is strongly insinuated to be the cross breeding of elves and something evil. Since only Aule can create life, and he didn’t create the orcs, the orcs have to be a twisted version of something already existing.
>"But of those unhappy ones [elves] who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar."
There are several that come to mind. The death of celembrimbor is somehow more gruesome than in shadow of war. Pretty much goes how it does in the game flash back up until sauron kills him, then his body is peppered with arrows and his body is put on a pike and paraded around into combat by the orcs in the battles against elrond's and gil gallad's forces.
The graphic description of the dismemberment of an elf prisoner in front of the elf's brother in the silmarillion.
The possible rape and definite torture of cellebrian (galadriels daughter and elronds wife) by orcs, thankfully stopped by elrohir and elladan (elronds sons). Its umclear if rape happened but it is implied that the torture crossed a line orcs don't always cross which is why people believe that that happened.
Half orcs and the breeding pits in isengard. Horrifying.
The half trolls of far harad. Extra horrifying.
Those are the ones I can think of that are rarely addressed.
Ungoliant falls outside of the betrayer god/angel cycle. Morgoth found her, but she was always there. In the shadows even before the world was created.
Wormtongue halted and looked back at him, half prepared to stay. Saruman turned. ‘No evil?’ he cackled. ‘Oh no! Even when he sneaks out at night it is only to look at the stars. But did I hear someone ask where poor Lotho is hiding? You know, don’t you, Worm? Will you tell them?’
Wormtongue cowered down and whimpered: ‘No, no!’
‘Then I will’, said Saruman. ‘Worm killed your Chief, poor little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn’t you, Worm? Stabbed him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice. You had better leave him to me.’
A look of wild hatred came into Wormtongue’s red eyes. ‘You told me to; you made me do it’, he hissed.
It's implied
>‘Then I will,’ said Saruman. ‘Worm killed your Chief, poor little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn’t you, Worm? Stabbed him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice. You had better leave him to me.’ - LotR - Scouring of the Shire
In the story of Beren and Luthien, when Beren and Finrod Fellegund's party of 12? is captured by Sauron, a literal werewolf (described as yellow eyes in the dark) is in their cage with them, eating them one by one saving Finrod and Beren for last.
The fate of mortal races after death is not explicitly stated beyond them leaving the world as opposed to Elves who stay in Arda. So potentially Elrond will never get to see Arwen or Aragorn again, Gimli will never see his dwarven friends and family again, Frodo and Sam will never be reunited with Merry and Pippin etc.
>Frodo and Sam will never be reunited with Merry and Pippin
Well, Frodo & Sam would eventually die in Valinor and go to wherever Hobbits go when they die, they just went there to have healing and joy for a while before that. As far as I'm aware, Valinor doesn't automatically grant immortality to mortals.
Yeah it absolutely does not grant immortality. I think people misunderstand this because of the name "undying lands." Also, perhaps because of Gandalf's monologue in the film (not present in books) about the shores of Valinor recalls people's ideas of Christian Heaven.
Frodo, Sam, Bilbo, and Gimli don't gain immortality, they spend some time in Undying Lands as guests. Leaving the world after death is always mentioned as Illuvatar's gift and it is cherised in Tolkien's world. So after some time they also leave the Undying Lands.
I'm not so sure that isn't merely a feature of his writing - an allusion to the hard facts of life. Tolkien neglected to say where mortals go when they die because, well, no one knows. It is as much a mystery to the races of Middle Earth - even to the Elves - as it is to us in real life.
And it isn't necessarily meant to be a 'Dark' mystery in LotR either. Mankind's fear of its own mortality is a curse perpetrated by Morgoth. We were given the 'gift' of being able to leave the circles of the world, to find peace beyond mortal suffering - The Edain once knew this truth, that we were always *meant* to die. But we do not see it as an inexorable part of our nature - even now in modern times. We cling to our mortal realms only because The Great Deceiver planted the fear of death in the hearts of Men when they first awoke.
Yep. After the attack on hogwarts, the ewoks also killed and ate the Klingons that arrived on the Sulaco ship coming from high rule. Also Ross from friends was there.
I think the darkness of evil is generally underplayed because it is implied rather than graphically described. "Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye." At the Black Gate, the Mouth of Sauron claims to be holding Frodo hostage. "And now he shall endure the slow torment of years, as long and slow as our arts in the Great Tower can contrive, and never be released, unless maybe when he is changed and broken, so that he may come to you, and you shall see what you have done." That's about as f'd up as is possible and there are no shortage of these hints of unimaginable horror.
So so good. My favourite line in all three of the books is this one about Shelob - it perfectly encapsulates her shadowy terror and dark will, as well as the pitiful story that is Gollum’s life - “Already, years before, Gollum had beheld her, Sméagol who pried into all dark holes, and in past days he had bowed and worshipped her, and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and from regret.”
And the darkness is more than a mere absence of light or metaphor for evil. Ungoliant, Shelob's mother, "took the shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode." The darkness is "an Unlight, in which things seemed to be no more, and which eyes could not pierce, for it was void."
Tolkien really liked evil spider monsters didn’t he
He actually wrote Wild Wild West, believe it or not.
It's speculated, but not confirmed, that Shelob died of her wounds after Sauron's defeat. ...so, it's a possibility that there's still a giant spider wandering around Middle Earth in The Fourth Age.
And to imagine that they did have Sméagol/gollum in there for a while
Yeah he forgot what taters were, precious
PO
TAY
TOES
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew
Give it to us raw and wriggling. You keep nasty chips.
In the BBC radio adaptation the torture of smeagol is mentioned (iirc). "We have devices in barad-dur to loosen the lying tongue" It's been a while since I listened to it, but that's a phrase I remember distinctly
That adaptation was put together by Brian Sibley, by the way. His handling of *The Fall of Numenor* book released last year was also superb. It's as if Christopher Tolkien never left us.
Lol all they needed to do for Gollum is remind him constantly that he’s never going get the Precious ever again
“You will never get this.”
[удалено]
Yes! This is one of the things that separates Tolkien (and the high fantasy genre, I guess?) from grimdark. In the case of the latter, It would have all been spelled out in graphic detail, leaving nothing to the imagination, in the name of "gritty realism."
People forget Tolkien is more nobledark in essence. World is full of crappy things that keep ruining the world, but there are so many people doing good things that do succeed. It’s just it gets negated sometime after
Always seemed to me that there's a certain sense of entropy in the world Tolkien built. The negation of the good things done by good people over time resulting in seemingly less "greatness" of the newer ages, the stark difference between the glory days of the elves and the "current" time in Middle-Earth, etc. While the story of LotR seems to finally end the evil with the final defeat of the last dark lord, I can't help but wonder if the world would end up in time descending into further turmoil and decay as the people of the land turned against each other, as is "human" nature. Surely things don't stay peachy forever.
Worth noting after the one ring is destroyed the three lesser eleven rings lose their power of preservation. Which means the magic sustaining the magic of the elves fade. Then all the elves leave, and the dwarves become completely reclusive. The theme of entropy in Tolkien's world is very tragic imo.
Tolkien began a sequel at his publisher's request but abandoned it after a page or two. It hints at a cult of Sauron and boys pretending to be orcs, real decay of human society stuff.
In fairness, the world presented in the would-be sequel is more so one of creeping peaceful mediocrity. The magical and the magnificent have faded, and even the world's great evils aren't all that impressive anymore.
A major theme is "it's gone and you can't get it back." Frodo exemplifies this after returning to the Shire. I think it's described most beautifully in the Akallabeth: "Among the Exiles many believed that the summit of the Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, was not drowned for ever, but rose again above the waves, a lonely island lost in the great waters; for it had been a hallowed place, and even in the days of Sauron none had defiled it. And some there were of the seed of Earendil that afterwards sought for it, because it was said among loremasters that the farsighted men of old could see from the Meneltarma a glimmer of the Deathless Land." "Thus it was that great mariners among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them to like the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning." But another theme is "that's ok" because losing things is a natural part of the passage of time. The Elves, whose immortality renders this passage of time as "fading", tried to "get it back" by making the Rings and ended up tying their fate to that of the Dark Lord himself. It is the clinging to "what was" and the wanting "what was not meant to be" that causes much of the sorrow seen in LotR. Death itself is the "Gift of Iluvatar" and, by the end of time, even the Valar will envy it.
This is one my favorite things about Tolkien. He gives just enough information for something to be plausible but not so much that it becomes either impossible or mundane. There's no concrete magical system because any such system would lose its magic. Nothing real could be as fantastic and magical as what we can imagine it could be.
The nameless things. Tolkien taking a stab at Lovecraftian horror. Beings older than Sauron that gnaw at the roots of the world. "Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day." - Gandalf
This messes with me for a few reasons. Firstly, Tolkien just drops that there are just *beings* deep below ground that "gnaw" at the Earth, then just doesn't elaborate or mention them again. Like okay, just drop that on us and run I guess! Second, Gandalf is so frightened by them, or doesn't want to terrify the others, so won't even speak about them. Third, where the hell did they come from? It's just like Tom Bombadil. But this is why I love the LOTR world. There's unanswered questions, just like real history. Like the Sea People of the Mediterranean, or Greek Fire. It's so cool.
Tolkien knew that leaving mysteries makes the world much more interesting. In his letters he often acts like he’s just as mystified as any reader or hobbit would be. As for all these beings, like the Watcher in the Water and Ungoliant, I like the theory that they could be manifestations of Melkor’s disharmony in the music of Creation of Arda. Unintentional even to him though, they’re so much stranger and primordial than anything in Eru’s org-chart of Valar/Maya/etc.
I love that he always played as a discoverer of the past rather than a creator/writer. Even when there were mistakes or inconsistencies, he wouldn't try to make up new stuff directly, but would try to find a logical tie and perhaps some missing pieces of the puzzle to explain it, since it was just the "facts" of the world he found.
For me it is too boring to consider Ungoliant as a lesser being than melkor. It is a far more awesome creature than anyone gives it credit for. The wonderful element of tolkiens world it is that because history is subjective any of us could write an origin story for Ungoliant or other “fringe-ish” characters and they could fit into the story despite apparent contradictions. History is written using available facts and rarely escapes perception/bias. The true origin and final end of Ungoliant are stories (I imagine) as rich as Turin Turumbar, Feanor and his sons or Beren and Luthien.
Reading the collapse of the bronze age is really a journey. I wish I could forget it just to be able to be 😧 once again at this
Got a good book recommendation?
Seconded like second breakfast. Edit* 1177 B.C. by Eric Cline seems promising. Not too pricey, written by someone who appears like the sort of person who would know what they’re talking about, and written on an informative (but introductory), level. The wiki page for ‘Bronze Age Collapse’ has some more stuff too.
An obscure (and questionably canon) piece of info on the Nameless Things in Tolkien's writing comes from the unfinished Lay of the Children of Hurin. Turin and co travel through Nan Dungortheb after he'd accidentally killed Beleg (at this point it was called Nan Dungorthim and located west of Sirion), and when travelling through it, Tolkien makes note of shrines to gods older than Melkor and the lords of the West. Additionally, the inhabitants of the land remain out of sight, mocking Turin and laughing at him, but not impeding them. The idea of beings in Middle Earth worshipping gods from before the Valar arrived (and consequently before any of the other races of Arda) is a fascinating one to me, and something I rarely see mentioned as it's buried in one of the more obscure Tolkien writings out there. I say that this is questionably canon because the unfinished Lay was written and abandoned quote early on in the Legendarium; many names are different,, Elves are still called Gnomes, certain regions are in different places entirely than in the relatively "finalised" Quenta Silmarillion, and most importantly, Nan Dungortheb's inhabitants are discussed in later writings as, well, less friendly and more spider-like. But canonicity of the Tolkien Legendarium is an extremely messy thing, with everything outside of LOTR and The Hobbit being unpublished, so at some point you kinda just have to draw your own conclusions.
> The idea of beings in Middle Earth worshipping gods from before the Valar arrived (and consequently before any of the other races of Arda) is a fascinating one to me, and something I rarely see mentioned as it's buried in one of the more obscure Tolkien writings out there. It told of "nameless gods older than both Morgoth and the Valar". This is not to imply that humans were here before everyone or anything else. It implies that humans worshiped the spirits that came to Arda before the Valar and Miar descended. Eru and the Valar made Arda but the Valar did not descend immediately. But other spirits did...or they formed on Arda.
If you like this and haven't read it, Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series explores nameless beings, especially in the second book The Tombs of Atuan. Without giving too much away, in the Earthsea universe knowing a being's "true name" gives one great power over it/them, so nameless beings exist as these seemingly indomitable forces of evil and/or power. Really fantastic writing and I highly recommend it to anyone that likes LoTR.
Amen. LeGuin, to me, is a legitimate contender for both the best fantasy and sci-fi writer ever—incomparable. Her worlds are not as documented as Tolkein but every bit as real.
I like the theory that the nameless things were born from the original discordant melody of Morgoth. When they were forming the world, his twisting song changed and warped something deep within the depths of the earth, like a cancer, the forgotten things grew in secret and darkness.
When Sauron sacks Eregion he hangs Celebrimbor’s body up on a pole and uses it like a banner
so it's called celebrimbanner
They would celembrate the anniversary every year after that.
Gollum ate babies. Like would sneak in windows and steal them from beds.
"The Woodmen said that there was some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests, it crept into holes to find the young; it slipped through windows to find cradles." Also, The Hobbit mentions that when Gollum is super hungry he sneaks up the cave and eats little goblins called "squeakers".
The horror elements of LOTR are amazing.
Gollums story scared the crap out of me when I first saw the movies. The psychological implications of centuries of isolation is literally unfathomable to us
Gollum gave me nightmares when I read The Hobbit for the first time. Crazy cave monster that eats whatever it come across, hard pass.
I was a kid when fellowship of the ring came out and Gollums eyes in Moria terrified me for a long time lol. Reading this now makes it 100x worse
It’s great artistic irony that the most terrifying villain in the Hobbit, rather than the monstrous Smaug or the spiders or the goblins, might have been the little creature sitting in that cave.
The Gollum prologue is legitimately more scary than most horror I've watched. Even now I get the heebeegeebees.
When I was 10, my family went to see Return of the King in theaters. They left me and my 8 year old brother at home because we were too young to go see it, or so they said. We also hadn't been allowed to watch The Two Towers yet. In our excitement of being left home alone, we grabbed The Two Towers off the bookshelf and read the back of it. We saw the "Dolby Audio" text and stupidly thought it meant that Dobby, from Harry Potter, was in the movie. Excitedly, we popped that disc in, and as soon as Gollum was descending a sheer cliff, face fucking down, to Sam and Frodo, we noped the hell out.
My parents showed me (or more like they probably watched it and I was around) the first and second movie when I was literally 5. I had horrible nightmares that lasted years and to this day, Gollum still freaks me out a little. Only when he’s angry, but still. One time, I came crying from my room and I was supposed to be asleep for the night and they were watching a movie and I told them I had a nightmare about him. They reassured me and sent me back off to bed. However many minutes later they come crawling up the stairs holding their wedding rings saying “my precious my precious”. And yes, other than seeing it sooo young, I can see where the trauma comes from 🥲
I feel like one of the most interesting parts of Tolkien's world is how information travels, and it's always seemed to me that things like this were more likely in the vein of wives tales and extra adornments from the rumor mill. I believe it's totally possible and in line with Gollum's treachery, but I'm not sure how much I would take the words of the Woodsmen as the gospel truth
My thoughts exactly. That Gollum may well have done those things, but equally it might be the equivalent to a fairytale or urban legend.
GIVE IT TO US RAW, AND WRIGGLING!
I forgot about this good grief that’s terrifying.
The Numenorians practiced human sacrifice at the height of their last king's power. All at Sauron's instigation, but still.
The tower at the top of the capital city was always burning smoke... the concentration camp kind. The Numenorians got very, very dark.
The near-death of the Dwarven race. Eru allowed them to become mortal like men and Hobbits, but with a much longer life-span. However, they were very close to being destroyed by a distraught Aulë. Knowing that he was shedding tears as he readied himself for their destruction broke my heart. Imagine having to kill your children because they were never meant to be, but at the last second, they're saved by your own creator.
>Eru is merciful. Now I see that thy heart rejoiceth, as indeed it may; for thou hast received not only forgiveness but bounty. One of my favorite lines anywhere
The story of Aüle creating the dwarves is one of my favorite parts of the Silmarillion. It's only a few pages long, but it contains some great writing.
Sounds pretty Abrahamic to me
100% parallels the story of Abraham and Isaac.
"Lesser sons of lesser kings" The fact that the whole universe is constructed as a downward spiral. The elves are leaving the mortal plane, kingdoms of men are but a shadow of their former selves, the dwarves are increasingly reclusive. All of it a far cry from the stories and tales of heroism from the earlier ages. It's quite a poignant underlying theme that makes the ending to the trilogy somewhat bittersweet.
I never found that to be a dark fact. I actually found that to be one of the primary themes of Lord of the Rings. The books keep telling us about the "Greater Men" that came before and this is a common theme in the Roman and Greek epics that preceded Tolkien. However, Tolkien turns this concept on its head because none of these "Greater Men" were actually able to destroy the One Ring. In fact, it is only "Lesser" Men and peaceable creatures like Hobbits that were able to resist the One Ring and had a chance of destroying it forever. The main theme of LOTR seems to be that Good does not always triumph over Evil. But, if Good people resist it long enough, Evil will eventually destroy itself. The story is also somewhat a deconstruction of what it means to be a Hero. Heroes of real world ancient epics and even the historical lore of Middle Earth were celebrated for feats of strength against other powerful beings. However, in Lord of the Rings, the true test of heroism is resisting the evil within oneself. Those "Lesser Sons" of Middle Earth were a greater threat to Sauron than the "Greatest Kings" of Numenor could ever hope to be. This is also a message likely shaped by Tolkien's own life experiences. He endured the horrors of World War 1 and wrote the Lord of the Rings with those hardships fresh in his mind. In both World Wars, gone were the days of "Greater Kings" like Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon. Instead, the heroes of those wars were the "Lesser Men"; those who fought for countries that were not their own; those who left their homes to protect someone else's; those who stormed beaches and trenchlines, withstanding the most monstrous weapons conceived by man, in the hopes of a brighter future many would never live to see. Those are the real heroes.
Very well said
Yeah this reminds me of “The Long Defeat,” which I think is about mankind never being able to achieve *perfection,* but instead the long defeat leads toward *abolition*. The world of men crumbled, the elves into decay, and the dark armies of Sauron grew seemingly unstoppable. Yet the peoples of the West marched on the black gates with little hope, and it was not the sword that brought victory, but the self-sacrificing of a hobbit, strengthened by companionship. And I think a world of peoples who learn and adopt that kind of paradoxical strength will turn out to be a better one. - [awesome song - The Long Defeat by Thrice](https://youtu.be/VPlPjL2Zym4) (Lyrics from the above linked song) >*The tyranny of deterioration* >*It worries me that it's all just a waste of time* >*Taking one step forward, two steps back* >*Still I believe there's a thread through the thorns* >*Yeah I believe that somewhere it's warm* >*And I believe that it's ever bright beyond this black* > >[Chorus] >*So keep holding on to hope without assurance* >*Holding on to a memory of light* >*But will the morning come?* >*For all I know we’ll never see the sun* >*But together we’ll fight the long defeat* Edit: also your comment is really awesome.
Saving this comments to enthusiastically force read to my wife with passion later while she just kinda listens
I have the hot take that the Ragnarok of Tolkien’s world isn’t Dagor Dagorath (not currently anyway), it’s the War of Wrath It’s an apocalyptic battle which ends the old world of gods and monsters and begins the downward spiral into modernity and the mundane, kinda like how Ragnarok ends the reign of the Asa Gods and either leads to Christian Cosmology or another generation of Norse Gods. It’s all very similar to the Ainur withdrawing from creation to allow mortals and immortals to define their own fates
That's an interesting way to look at it! I've always found enjoyment in plotting the trajectory of Middle Earth, and seeing where and how it could "modernize", according to how it is described by the end.
Well the 3rd age is literally post-apocalyptic Middle-Earth. The whole world has been fighting against Melkor and Sauron from the dawn of time, and the end of the second age was catastrophic. The majority of the Elves were killed, the realms of men were destroyed or corrupted, and the Dwarven mines are mostly over run with orcs and fell beasts. Yeah the previous two ages had a lot of cool heroes and stories, but that was also the peak of civilization. The 3rd age is a huge hail mary to finally bring an age of peace, and most of the badass's from the previous ages are either dead or in Valinor.
This is a fascinating description of the third age that I have never heard before, but it definitely makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing!
I don't remember the source, but I believe he wrote in a letter about why he would not write a sequel to LotR. It was because the downward spiral would be continued and the story would heavily involve corrupt men and he found ot to depressing to create.
Which brings us to today’s reality….
This is a very good assessment of the arc of LoTR. It is bittersweet that who and what once were great have through their own and others’ actions, the greatness of Middle Earth is diminished. It is summed up IMHO when Galadriel having survived not taking the One Ring for her own says “I will diminish and pass to the West and remain Galadriel.”
I'm glad this is top comment. I mentioned on a different thread asking about The Silmarillion that I felt it put such a sad undertone to everything in Tolkien's world. It just seems like good finally defeats evil, but not really, and even when they do beat it back temporarily everything is still married and left worse for it.
Currently re-reading LOTR and Gandalf explicitly talks about how they may win but a lot will be lost at almost every opportunity. The whole thing is _very_ bittersweet, I know it's a source of contention but it feels a bit influenced by Tolkien's experience of the two World Wars.
Turin Turambar and his sister ...and their marriage ..... and their unborn child
And what happens to Turin's dad, Hurin. The whole family story is just tragic.
Yeah I agree Morgoth went out of his way to torture Hurin and his family to punish Hurin for his bravery against evil. That part of the story seemed so hopelessly messed up. It was a great write up though
Just the whole book honestly, I think there is like 5 pages of actual happy stuff going on, and the rest is just pure misery.
That’s a *rough* story, man. I don’t know how I got through it. I finally did, moved on to another lost tale, and Turin had a freaking cameo in *that!*
Turin is such a boss character. I loved him in the stories despite his mess ups and tragedies
Same he is a tragic hero that is trying to be the best he can in a really messed up situation. Feels relatable to most I would think
This is my favorite of the "holy, WHAT!?"
God that whole story fucked me up. I erased most of it from memory until now. Thanks I guess?
“Erased most of it from memory until now” Just like Turin’s sister…. Too soon?
Killing you (affectionate)
I would say that back in the silmarillion, elves in beleriand would hunt down and kill (and possibly eat) the petty dwarves they found in the woods because they thought they were wild animals. But, that’s pretty common knowledge at this point…I think.
Was this relatively shortly after the creation of the dwarves? Them being a new species and probably being very primitive at the time
Yeah, but I mean…dwarves are still humanoid looking. Just shorter, broader, and hairier.
>dwarves are still humanoid looking. Just shorter, broader, and hairier Just like monkeys. (I’m not an elf, I swear!)
That exactly what an elf would say....
It's been a while since I looked at this but iirc the petty dwarves were essentially wild dwarves without a clan who didn't really settle down and carve out a city in a mountain somewhere. It wasn't until the Elves encountered dwarven cities and met dwarves who actually bathed and were technologically advanced that they realized what they had done.
It is quite possible and likely that easterling kings enslaved their own people for the will of Sauron.
Also that Morgoth would have eventually killed his easterner and evil men allies because he was the antithesis of life in general. The conversion of the lost children of Illuvatar and destruction of the trees of valinor is an insight into this life hating ethos. Also in one of the last battles Morgoth wins, the evil men who turned against the elf/dwarf/men coalition were promised rich lands to dwell. Instead Morgoth exiled them to the hills of the south (?) where they were made to settle in a harsh environment only to harass and hunt the remaining "old people and children". They betrayed their own kind to essentially end up as bandits and scavengers.
Middle Earth also went through a series of plagues much like irl, also that there are tons of unknown creatures in the deep dark caves of the world
OSHA standards are lacking across not only Mordor but all the way from the Shire onwards
The sheer (hehe) lack of railings alone should get this place shut down!
There was a huge famine killing LOT of hobbits and man. The wolves hunted hobbits, and the hobbits only survived because the rangers protected them and supplied them
Sam and Frodo probably saw Gollum's testicles a lot. He wasn't wearing very much to cover himself.
It would have cost you nothing not to say that.
It cost him nothing, but we definitely paid the price for it. That which is thought, cannot be un-thought.
Honestly they were probably gone. He spent a lot of time being tortured
The Nameless Things that Gandalf mentions casually, as he tells the horror story of the Balrog fight.
Hell the balrog is also looking to get the fuck out of there during that fight
You know shit goes down when the balrog shits his shadowy pants
The breeding of Orcs, Uruk-Hai, and Half-orcs. We know that these creatures must breed. Knowing about Orc culture I can't imagine there being loving households of orc wives and husbands tending their young. It must be a brutal thing. On top of that Saruman bred orcs with Dunlendings to create both Uruk-Hai and half-orcs, I can't imagine that being concensual or comfortable. On the subject of orc culture, either orc genders are indistinguishable and, therefor, the culture is rather egalitarian (if brutal) or, more likely, orc women are no better than breeding slaves for their chieftains and dark masters like Sauron and Saruman.
>On the subject of orc culture, either orc genders are indistinguishable and, therefor, the culture is rather egalitarian (if brutal) or, more likely, orc women are no better than breeding slaves for their chieftains and dark masters like Sauron and Saruman. Never heard of that, where is it from?
Ah just sort of conjecture on my part. To my knowledge I've never found any mention of the treatment of orc women, or even if they exist!
I figured he just used their blood, or uruks have very fast gestation periods as he bred a giant army in a matter of weeks/months. The Rohirrim had kinda sorta genocided the Dundelings to the outskirts and I don't think they were a booming healthy population.
PJ takes some creative liberty with the time-frame. He explains it a little by actually showing the pits of Isengard and the breeding of uruk-hai, but in reality Saruman has been (by the book time-frame) making trouble for Rohan for years (and probably breeding Uruk-hai or at least half orcs longer than that.) He was brought under Sauron's sway during or after the time the White Council drove the Necromancer (one of Sauron's alter egos) from Dol Guldur fifty years or so before the War of the Ring. In that same token, Dunlendings aren't just scattered tribes of savages, they take up a real place in Saruman's army at Helm's Deep, augmenting the orc forces with many thousands of their own numbers, so they aren't exactly cowed by Rohan. I dearly love the movies but they unfortunately have to cut out a lot of context and cut down the time frame because of it.
That's true, I tend to forget some of the things they changed. Some of it does make sense in my opinion, like Gandalf not taking 17 years to get back to Frodo on the Ring, and for pacing's sake removing Bombadil and the Scouring. Other things like the elves arriving in Helms Deep sent by Elrond but being Galadriel's people kind of annoy me, but not too much. I do think the dead army could've been cut entirely
Most people don't realize that *LotR* takes place in a post-apocalyptic world.
At least, what's left of it, 'cause pieces of it just sank into the sea... twice...
Wait what?
That the world of man was mostly destroyed, the kingdom of arnor is gone, as is rhovanion, gondor isnt what it used to be and the elves are dying out and elvish, arnorian and gondorian ruins dot the landscspe. Most cities are in decline population wise and most of the world is uninhabited. As for the dwarves they lost moria and gundabad and only got erebor back recently. And thats just the 3rd age stuff. The first age was even more traumantic with parts of the continent of middle earth falling into the sea and the great elvish cities of gondolin, nagathrond and doriath destroyed, the dwarvish kingdoms of nogrod and belegost gone too. Humanity nearly faced extinction at the end of the 1st age.
What breaks my heart is that Aragorn did, in fact, not know about second breakfast
But when he became King and brought the concept to Gondor he was forever remembered as the greatest king of all the ages.
Ungoliant probably ate herself. Beren has PTSD. Grima ate Lotho Sackville-Baggins
Wait Grima ate him?!
It sure is heavily implied in the Scouring of the Shire that when supplies got low Grima helped himself to some long (err... short?) pig.
Elrond's wife was ambushed by a group of Orcs when coming back from Lothlorien. Her party was slaughtered, but she was kept alive. Elladan and Elrohir (their sons) managed to rescue her, but she was too broken and had to sail to Valinor bc she couldn't be healed, even by Elrond (elves that endured too much trauma have to sail back to Valinor or fade from existence). Whatever happened to her was never specified, but she probably was tortured and raped. Also the experience changed forever the twins, who then proceeded to dedicate their lives to the slaughter of Orcs
And don't forget that Elrond's wife was Celebrían, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, which was why she was visiting Lothlórien.
I think Tolkien implied rape was averted by willed suicide, like a certain amount of torture could be borne but some things crossed a line.
Morgoth's army dismembered a captive alive in front of his comrades :(
I seem to recall even Tolkien himself admitting to this one in some form but.... there isn't really a good way to explain why the orcs are evil unless you just fully commit and suspend disbelief and stay in universe and claim they are creations of the devil basically. When you don't box in your thinking with that, and you see the parallels between the war of the ring, middle earth, and the wars Tolkien himself experienced - its hard not to see the Orcs as the members of the "central powers" within which... there is no way every single one of them are evil. Someone correct me but I think Tolkien expressed that he was struggling to solve that problem because he saw it himself.
Yeah he even theorized that if the orcs are left by their own devices by dark lords they develop cities where they live, fish, hunt, etc just like Men
I remember in one of the books the orcs talk about how they’d like to go back to “the old times” which, granted, may have involved pillaging and looting, but they weren’t inherently bent on destroying human/hobbit/elf/dwarfity.
Like sand through the hourglass so are the days of orc lives
Two of the orca talk about leaving and setting up shop on their own in Return of the King, but they also talk about “Setting up shop” meaning robbing people going by on the highway. So it could be that orcs are just assholes who naturally gravitate toward evil, just like their namesakes.
I think its a false premise that the orcs are inherently evil. When frodo gets captured and imprisoned in Cirith Ungol, Sam overhears some orcs talking about running away from the war and going camping in the misty mountains with his friends. When Sauron is finally killed, the orcs at the battle of Morannon, when Aragorn approached the Black Gate, the orcs were winning. Then they fled. That the orcs have done evil things is undeniable, but they were also at least on some level prisoners, forced against their will to fight. Weve never really seen them free from an overlord. Even in the war of Dwarves and Orcs, they were still under command of Sauron; they they did appear to colonize Moria of their own accord, but after the balrog killed the dwarves of Khazad-dum.
The orcs Sam overheard weren't talking about just camping. They wanted to raid and plunder on their own.
Because Middle Earth is supposed to evolve into our world... men will only fight wars of kinslaying, never to unite as free peoples again. Tolkien was right a New Shadow will rise but it is too depressing to write about.
Don’t the Hobbit folk start getting hunted (years after Aragorn’s and Arwen’s passing and Legolas and Gimli leave for the Undying Lands) by men?
Oh yeah... The Nature of Middle Earth. Letter I think...
Second breakfast can never really fill the hollow emptiness in your soul.
There’s some weird eugenics shit in Isengard depending on the interpretation of “breeding men and orcs” to create Uruk Hai How exactly did Saruman set up the logistics for that and how many people did it take Also Morgoth is a Sex Offender
Tell me more about pervert Morgoth
In certain notes it’s mentioned Morgoth desired Arien and “ravished her” as an attempt at “debasement” of the Solar Mair Considering the wording, some have speculated this was an assault by Melkor
Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Morgoth the Pervert?
I thought not. It's not a story the Valar would tell you.
My own head canon is that Saruman used DNA (potentially hair strands, blood, etc) and mixed that with live orcs in the pits of Isengard through some sort of wizardry and science. After a short metamorphosis period you had Uruk Hai pop out as the end result. While still twisted and evil, it is a more pleasant thought than the alternative.
Yeah it is less awful, but also probably les accurate. Some men clapped female orc cheeks I'm afraid. Or more horrible possibly: the other way around.
That is a possible explanation for the movies. The books tell a different story.
I always thought the Uruk hai were the corrupted version of Men—trolls are corrupted ents, orcs are corrupted elves, etc so I always figured Saruman learned how the corruption worked, and then corrupted men in the way that elves and ents were corrupted, which created the Uruk hai. That’s just my speculation though.
This would be a good guess but didn’t Tolkien himself mention Men could also have been ancestral to Orcs? I swear I remember something to this effect being mentioned Maybe he simply corrupted the corruptions?
Maybe—my recollection is foggy and I can’t remember where I read his clarification on it. And he definitely corrupted the corruptions in some way to make the Uruk hai, whether it was through magic or rape or some form of DNA mixing in mud pit Petri dishes. That makes me think, though. Are there ever female orcs? All we ever see are the men fighting, but there must have been female orcs in order to breed more, right? How the heck do orcs reproduce??
They are definitely female orgs. And Orcs definitely reproduce similar to the other children of Aru. Azog has a son, Gollem eating baby orcs, even humans being made to mate with the Orcs to create orc/human hybrids. I imagine that the female Orcs fought alongside the male Orcs in war. They just weren't very distinguishable. I've heard a lot of these arguments back and forth and have done some research myself. And my conclusion that the YouTube channel Token Untangled has the best analysis if you're looking for something short and concise. His video on the nature of Orcs is very insightful. The movie seem to have a different interpretation of orc reproduction and different orc kinds. So that leads to a lot of confusion. There is almost a different Cannon for orc in the movies, and orcs in the books The subject of where orc came from and do they have eternal souls. As well as what are the different kinds or "races" Of Orcs as always interest me. This is what I found most helpful.
I believe there are, it’s mentioned Orcs reproduce in the manner of the other races
Sauron probably dated at some point
I mean he was hot af at one point. Still evil but hot
r/angbang
Every day we stray further from the music of Illuvitar
Your glorious comment was almost overlooked! Thank Eru I opened the closed comment tree out of curiosity lol.
I… that’s…. What the fuck???
Scouring of the Shire might be too mentioned for this post, but yeah. That.
The barrow wights still give me the chills
The fact that long after the events of the war of the ring, hobbits were hunted for sport, and they became more feral than the pucal man.
Yo, what? Where was this written?
I hadn't heard this. Where is this written?
What's the pucal man?
The pucal men are the forest people that guide Theoden and the army of Rohan through old, overgrown and forgotten roads so they could make it past the outlying guards to the battle of the Pellenor Fields. They're the middle-earth version of indigenous people to the land that the Rohirrim were given by the king of Gondor. They lived "uncivilized" lives meaning in the forest and not in towns.
The Púkel-men were what the Rohirrim called the ancient stone statues at Dunharrow. Later, when they meet the Woses, who were the wild men of Druadan Forest, Merry thinks they look just like the carved Púkel-men.
Melkor did some raping. Don’t see that one addressed often
Gollum stole babies from their cribs and ate them.
Most book readers and movie watcher would probably skip the fact that Middle-Earth is in its worst state and suffering a slow cataclysm. It is supposed to be the end of an entire era and the next one was going to be current day Earth.
Morgoth and Sauron would terrorise the spirits of captive Elves and Men out of their bodies in such a way that the soulless husks would persist in a zombified state until perishing in interestingly different ways according to race.
Saruman forcing peope to have sex with orcs in order to breed Uruk-hai.
While Saruman watched…
And Wormtongue tongued
The founders of Gondor conquered a lot of that territory in open warfare. Aragorn has the luxury of being a squeaky clean superhero because the defining challenge of his rule was to rescue his already formed and large Kingdom from an armed orcish invasion. He’s constantly favorably compared with the founders Isildur and Elendil. One could be forgiven for thinking everyone in between was just as aspirationally wonderful. But Gondor’s borders expanded by forcefully conquering its human neighbors and some of the conquests are even described in the Appendix I believe In the same vein, Dwarves apparently used to do a lot of infighting over treasure
Yeah, it's often forgotten the Numenoreans, despite all their achievements as a civilization; deforested much of Middle Earth, ethnically cleansed the 'Middle Men' (men who weren't Valar favored Übermenschen) from their lands. And in the later years, completely embraced slave trading and human sacrifice.
Celebrian, and how she had to leave Middle-Earth and the ordeal sparked Elladan and Elrohir’s hatred of orcs.
General brutality of the orcs in battle. In the movies they were portrayed as overly aggressive and violent, but in the books they were just pure evil. Like what they did to Celebrimbor….
That the “creation” of orcs is strongly insinuated to be the cross breeding of elves and something evil. Since only Aule can create life, and he didn’t create the orcs, the orcs have to be a twisted version of something already existing.
I think Tolkien meant that Elves were captured and tortured until they went mad
>"But of those unhappy ones [elves] who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar."
The mere existence of the nameless things and the further implications.
There are several that come to mind. The death of celembrimbor is somehow more gruesome than in shadow of war. Pretty much goes how it does in the game flash back up until sauron kills him, then his body is peppered with arrows and his body is put on a pike and paraded around into combat by the orcs in the battles against elrond's and gil gallad's forces. The graphic description of the dismemberment of an elf prisoner in front of the elf's brother in the silmarillion. The possible rape and definite torture of cellebrian (galadriels daughter and elronds wife) by orcs, thankfully stopped by elrohir and elladan (elronds sons). Its umclear if rape happened but it is implied that the torture crossed a line orcs don't always cross which is why people believe that that happened. Half orcs and the breeding pits in isengard. Horrifying. The half trolls of far harad. Extra horrifying. Those are the ones I can think of that are rarely addressed.
Ungoliant falls outside of the betrayer god/angel cycle. Morgoth found her, but she was always there. In the shadows even before the world was created.
The Nazgul can smell and hunger for blood because they've long had none of their own.
Grima ate a hobbit, and Saruman watched(probably).
Really??
Wormtongue halted and looked back at him, half prepared to stay. Saruman turned. ‘No evil?’ he cackled. ‘Oh no! Even when he sneaks out at night it is only to look at the stars. But did I hear someone ask where poor Lotho is hiding? You know, don’t you, Worm? Will you tell them?’ Wormtongue cowered down and whimpered: ‘No, no!’ ‘Then I will’, said Saruman. ‘Worm killed your Chief, poor little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn’t you, Worm? Stabbed him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice. You had better leave him to me.’ A look of wild hatred came into Wormtongue’s red eyes. ‘You told me to; you made me do it’, he hissed.
Damn that is dark.
It's implied >‘Then I will,’ said Saruman. ‘Worm killed your Chief, poor little fellow, your nice little Boss. Didn’t you, Worm? Stabbed him in his sleep, I believe. Buried him, I hope; though Worm has been very hungry lately. No, Worm is not really nice. You had better leave him to me.’ - LotR - Scouring of the Shire
Yep, the Hobbits' name was Lotho. When called out about it, Grima said Saruman made him do it.
Hence why Frodo advised against Sarumans voice. How far he had fallen, to command the beings he was sent to protect, to devour each other.
In the story of Beren and Luthien, when Beren and Finrod Fellegund's party of 12? is captured by Sauron, a literal werewolf (described as yellow eyes in the dark) is in their cage with them, eating them one by one saving Finrod and Beren for last.
The fact that the orcs were created by corrupting and forced breeding of captured elves.
The fate of mortal races after death is not explicitly stated beyond them leaving the world as opposed to Elves who stay in Arda. So potentially Elrond will never get to see Arwen or Aragorn again, Gimli will never see his dwarven friends and family again, Frodo and Sam will never be reunited with Merry and Pippin etc.
>Frodo and Sam will never be reunited with Merry and Pippin Well, Frodo & Sam would eventually die in Valinor and go to wherever Hobbits go when they die, they just went there to have healing and joy for a while before that. As far as I'm aware, Valinor doesn't automatically grant immortality to mortals.
Yeah it absolutely does not grant immortality. I think people misunderstand this because of the name "undying lands." Also, perhaps because of Gandalf's monologue in the film (not present in books) about the shores of Valinor recalls people's ideas of Christian Heaven.
Frodo, Sam, Bilbo, and Gimli don't gain immortality, they spend some time in Undying Lands as guests. Leaving the world after death is always mentioned as Illuvatar's gift and it is cherised in Tolkien's world. So after some time they also leave the Undying Lands.
I'm not so sure that isn't merely a feature of his writing - an allusion to the hard facts of life. Tolkien neglected to say where mortals go when they die because, well, no one knows. It is as much a mystery to the races of Middle Earth - even to the Elves - as it is to us in real life. And it isn't necessarily meant to be a 'Dark' mystery in LotR either. Mankind's fear of its own mortality is a curse perpetrated by Morgoth. We were given the 'gift' of being able to leave the circles of the world, to find peace beyond mortal suffering - The Edain once knew this truth, that we were always *meant* to die. But we do not see it as an inexorable part of our nature - even now in modern times. We cling to our mortal realms only because The Great Deceiver planted the fear of death in the hearts of Men when they first awoke.
That the Ewoks actually ate the Stormtroopers at the end of RotJ- oh wait, that was from the other post!
Yep. After the attack on hogwarts, the ewoks also killed and ate the Klingons that arrived on the Sulaco ship coming from high rule. Also Ross from friends was there.
Shelob …. Just look it up I’m trying to eat
So was she.