[Child of the 7th Age]

Great topic Lalwende and many interesting points. Anguiriel - I think you're onto something. That which is nameless and unarticulated terrifies us the most.

Bear with me for a minute as I am coming into this question through another back door.

Many people complain about the lack of characterization in Tolkien's book, saying that we don't get inside the characters' heads the way a reader would in much modern fiction. This point can be debated endlessly, of course, but too often we fail to see things Tolkien puts inside his characters just because the author uses techniques and images that many other authors would not. I'm speaking particularly of Tolkien's handling of the horrific and how he links horror to what is going on inside the heart of a particular character.

How many books/movies have we digested where horror is depicted as a string of individual images accosting our sense from the outside, something foreign to us that pops up periodically on our viewing screen? A brief shock value but nothing more.

Tolkien did not do this. What is horrible in Tolkien is not just what is happening on the outside but on the inside as well. The outside image of the horrible thing (whatever it is) is not as dreadful as what happens to that image when transferred to the human, hobbitish, Elvish, or perhaps even Orcish heart. This is certainly true of characters who have "gone bad"---to me, one of the most horrific aspects of the story is to see characters like Gollum and Wormtongue who have obviously been perverted by images of the hideous. These individuals have been so twisted that they themselves have become mirror images of the horrific things they have seen and experienced.

But it isn't only the bad guys. It's even true of relatively "innocent" characters like the hobbits. The torments of Frodo are certainly a case in point, but he is not the only one of the Shirelings to stare evil in the face. Even a carefree Took could be affected. Here is a quote from a scene involving Pippin when the hobbit and Beregond hear the Black Riders and see them swoop down on Faramir during the Siege of Gondor:

Suddenly as they talked they were stricken dumb, frozen as it were to listening stones. Pippin cowered down with his hands pressed to his ears; but Beregond…remained there, stiffened, staring out with starting eyes. Pippin knew the shuddering cry that he had heard: it was the same that he had heard long ago in the Marish of the Shire, but now it was grown in power and hatred, piercing the heart with a poisonous despair.

What would be more powerful---to describe the physical nastiness of the Black Riders or to depict the effect that horror has a simple beholder like Pippin? Often, Tolkien opts for the latter. It's not coincidence that the wraiths' main weapons are not physical ones, but overwhelm their victims with fear and despair. What's especially scary is that the reader encounters instances in the story when good guys like Bilbo and Frodo actually begin to take on some of the characteristics of the horrific characters they've already faced, e.g., Frodo's transparency that can be interpreted in several different ways, or Bilbo's adoption of a term like "my preciousss".

The other point that must be born in mind in any discussion of the horrific is the author's insistence on the presence of evil that lies within the very fabric of Arda. A ringwraith on his own really isn't that horrifying. It's the fact that the ringwraith is part of a much larger shadow, something so powerful that it's virtually impossible for any living being to resist. Tolkien's evil isn't smart or polished or funny or even attractive as happens in so many stories -- it's just plain despicable.

Again one of the most "horrifying" words to me in all of Middle-earth is "Shadow". It's something that's there/not there, neither living nor dead, and it seems to sum up what's wrong at the heart of the universe. Those creepy creatures and images aren't just isolated events. They are part of a total picture of the world which is frankly very scary. Tolkien's evil is like a steam roller bearing down on us. No matter how we resist, no matter how many small victories we win, it is going to get us in the end, and there is nothing we can really do about in this world.