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Originally Posted by Bethberry
In part, we are given more the effect of evil on the characters rather than having evil depicted directly but I like your idea that the comforting beginning with The Shire acts as a prophylactic context
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I think we see both. There are so many examples where Tolkien seems to relish describing a monster or the effects of evil on the mind of another character. Yes, he does not often actually describe blood and gore in the sense that he does not write things like: "the Orc was writhing on the ground, his entrails oozed from his torn apart abdomen and the vultures licked their lips with the prospect of a still warm, breathing meal." But he does not shirk from showing us horror.
Tolkien's horror is the sophisticated and slightly unsettling high Gothic of the Wicker Man (original, not unpleasant remake
) as opposed to the video nasty of The Evil Dead or The Hills Have Eyes. Things left partly said, hinted at and undescribed can be as horrific as anything graphic.
Although the Witch King's words to Eowyn are pretty graphic to anyone with a vivid imagination, and it takes a vivid imagination to enjoy Tolkien.
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He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye
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I can really picture this in my mind. The dark, dank fortress of the Houses of Lamentation, the dungeons like something out of Edgar Allen Poe, prisoners screaming. And the torture, the pain. Ugh. Just hovering over those lines makes me feel chilled, and yet the first time I read the book I probably skimmed over them; its only on subsequent readings when you're slowly savouring the language that moments like that jump out and say Boo!